Group Spacing

[Shade]

Having been to a few haunts thus far, I would argue that group spacing is perhaps the most glaring mistake I've seen in haunted houses this year.

What are your thoughts?

Shade

[That one guy]

It has an always will be an issue. Unfortunately there is not alot that can be done this, there will always groups that move too fast or too slow. You can send in groups twenty minutes apart and be open until 4 am or you can wait a reasonable amount of time and send in the next group and hope that the previous group is moving along well enough that they will not catch up with them. The actors are there to help slow people up or move people along but they can only do so much to help this and do their job of scaring people at the same time.

[Blueeyes1785]

How true. It is the worst part about haunted houses in my opinion. It's always sad when you catch up to a group and miss out on seeing what that haunt truly has to offer.

But alas, there is not much that can be done. Unless they are guided tours through the haunt. And I know from past experiences of working in a haunt that did the whole guided tours, that some of the customers would have rather gone through on their own, and experienced it without the guide holding them back.

Guided tours are nice as an actor, however, it leaves room for you to know exactly when the groups are coming through. Also to get your room back together and you back to your hiding spot before the group comes in. Also for those who enjoy to say inappropriate things to the actors and act like complete losers while going through, guided tours do minimize that, A LOT.


Which brings up a next thought....

I HATE THE KIDS WHO COME THROUGH AND MAKE STUPID REMARKS! Especially those who come through swearing up a storm thinking they sound cool by using such awful language!

[Shade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (That one guy @ Oct 8 2007, 09:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2399)</div>
You can send in groups twenty minutes apart and be open until 4 am or you can wait a reasonable amount of time and send in the next group and hope that the previous group is moving along well enough that they will not catch up with them.[/b]

I wish someone would actually try spacing them out like that.

It will never happen, though, because haunt owners don&#39;t do their haunts to thrill people. They do them to make money. So they run groups through as close together as they possibly can, because more people equals more money.

Here&#39;s my conclusion thus far:

The reason that they get away with it is because more customers don&#39;t demand their money back.

Would you pay to go see a movie if someone were going to sit behind you and tell you everything that was going to happen before it happened? Absolutely not. So why should you pay to go through a haunted house where the slow-moving group in front of you is going to spoil all the scares? You shouldn&#39;t pay for that.

Too many people blow it off and figure, "Well, we got a scare or two anyway, so I guess maybe that was worth the money. It could have been better, but oh well."

But think of it this way:

Let&#39;s say you and a group of five friends go to a haunt. You buy VIP passes for $20 each to skip the line. That&#39;s $120. The haunt lasts fifteen minutes. Essentially, you are paying a rate of $480 per hour to experience that haunt.

If I&#39;m paying $480 per hour for a show, it had better be as close to perfect as possible. That&#39;s way too much money for the entire experience to be ruined by an operator who runs the groups through too close together.

If this happens to you, go back to the ticket booth and ask for a refund. If they refuse, tell your friends to avoid that haunt and pick a new haunt the next year.

It&#39;s the only way this problem will ever be fixed. The customers have to make it happen.

[Luv2BScared]

I strongly disagree. Read the posts in haunted reviews, The Asylum.
Haunt owners do not run a haunt for the tremendous amounts of money they make. If that were the case, there wouldn&#39;t be any haunts. They spend an unbelievable amount of time, energy and money just to get their doors open for the season. Haunt owners do it for their passion of halloween and all things creepy. They do it to entertain people, and the last time I checked, there is not a lot of free entertainment. Everything has it&#39;s price, and we have a choice as to whether or not we are willing to pay the asking price for a particular event.
I spend a large amount of money on haunts with my family every season, and I have never felt like I deserved my money back, even at some of the haunts that were less than I expected. They are a live show, and there is something good to take away from every one of them.
Don&#39;t mean to sound rude, or defensive, but I get tired of reading posts where all everyone can do is complain about how bad a haunt is, how expensive, etc. Anyone that feels they can do a better job is certainly welcome to open their own attraction and show everyone else how it&#39;s really done. It would be nice to see some appreciation for all the efforts that go into a haunt, and less complaining.
Rant over....just my opinion.
Kudos to all the haunt owners for all that you do!!!!! </span>

[Blueeyes1785]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Oct 8 2007, 03:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2409)</div>
I wish someone would actually try spacing them out like that.

It will never happen, though, because haunt owners don&#39;t do their haunts to thrill people. They do them to make money. So they run groups through as close together as they possibly can, because more people equals more money.[/b]


You couldn&#39;t be more wrong! Every single haunt I have ever worked for does not do it for the money. Actually... a lot of the time opening you&#39;re own haunt does not bring in the big bucks, but just maybe a little more to break even. My haunt&#39;s owner is a passionate, fun, out going man who loves Halloween with every fiber in his being. He dreams and works all year round to bring something new and exciting, and what he hopes to be the best to the table. Yes he pays his actors, but he pays like somewhere around 60 something actors to come spend the night out working, even if it&#39;s a slow night say like 60 people come through he still pays us. He&#39;s losing out on money that way... But he never once complains that he needs to send more people through because he needs their money!

He does everything he can about group spacing so that ever patron gets a great, scary, and rememberable experience.

And so far about 90% of the patrons that have come through Terror in the Corn have absolutely loved it. Even if they bottlenecked and had a few scares ruined. And not one person has asked for their money back.

I&#39;m sorry you had a bad experience at Anderson Farms, but don&#39;t judge terror in the corn on that experience. (just thought i&#39;d throw that in before you went off on me about anderson farms)

I completely agree with Luv2BScared!

I couldn&#39;t really say it better myself!

[SChaser783]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Oct 8 2007, 03:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2409)</div>
I wish someone would actually try spacing them out like that.

It will never happen, though, because haunt owners don&#39;t do their haunts to thrill people. They do them to make money. So they run groups through as close together as they possibly can, because more people equals more money.

Here&#39;s my conclusion thus far:

The reason that they get away with it is because more customers don&#39;t demand their money back.

Would you pay to go see a movie if someone were going to sit behind you and tell you everything that was going to happen before it happened? Absolutely not. So why should you pay to go through a haunted house where the slow-moving group in front of you is going to spoil all the scares? You shouldn&#39;t pay for that.

Too many people blow it off and figure, "Well, we got a scare or two anyway, so I guess maybe that was worth the money. It could have been better, but oh well."

But think of it this way:

Let&#39;s say you and a group of five friends go to a haunt. You buy VIP passes for $20 each to skip the line. That&#39;s $120. The haunt lasts fifteen minutes. Essentially, you are paying a rate of $480 per hour to experience that haunt.

If I&#39;m paying $480 per hour for a show, it had better be as close to perfect as possible. That&#39;s way too much money for the entire experience to be ruined by an operator who runs the groups through too close together.

If this happens to you, go back to the ticket booth and ask for a refund. If they refuse, tell your friends to avoid that haunt and pick a new haunt the next year.

It&#39;s the only way this problem will ever be fixed. The customers have to make it happen.[/b]




Looks like someone trying to just come in and stir things up and think they are original. Too bad its already been done by big perm 2 years ago... Nothing to see here moving on...

[That one guy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
I wish someone would actually try spacing them out like that.[/b]

Ok, lets do a little math. On a night when you have 2000 people wanting to see your Haunt, the average group size is 4, so that means you have 500 groups, so if you space them out 20 minutes apart that means 3 groups an hour that means to have you have to stay open for 7 days straight to run that first 2000 people through. I don&#39;t think that I would want to wait in line for a week to see a twenty minute haunt, I don&#39;t know about you but my time is worth way more than that.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
It will never happen, though, because haunt owners don&#39;t do their haunts to thrill people. They do them to make money. So they run groups through as close together as they possibly can, because more people equals more money.[/b]

I have seen a mix of both, owners who love to scare people and owners that are just in it for the money.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
If this happens to you, go back to the ticket booth and ask for a refund. If they refuse, tell your friends to avoid that haunt and pick a new haunt the next year.[/b]

As I see it you can you to Haunts early in the year or on an off night (not a weekend) where the owners are a bit more flexible and ask if you can wait a bit longer to go through to make sure the group before you gets well into the haunt before letting your group go through.

Or try to get your money back, FYI it won&#39;t happen, and enjoy the last few season of going to Haunts because you will run out of options soon, all haunts have this same issue and is is not likely to go away anytime soon.

[Shade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Luv2BScared @ Oct 8 2007, 07:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2418)</div>
I strongly disagree. Haunt owners do not run a haunt for the tremendous amounts of money they make. If that were the case, there wouldn&#39;t be any haunts. Haunt owners do it for their passion of halloween and all things creepy.[/b]Hi Luv2BeScared - sorry, I seem to have managed to get you to disagree strongly with me twice now. You raise some good points. I was making a blanket statement, and in that, I was incorrect. I would also say that you are making a blanket statement as well, and I don&#39;t think that ALL haunters do it out of a passion for Halloween. I don&#39;t even think most of them are, but that&#39;s just my opinion.

Let me modify what I said earlier. How amount this: SOME haunt owners do it for the money. There are others, however, who do it out of a genuine passion, and those are the ones whose haunts I usually like the best because their passion shows through. (Examples of the moneymakers? I can think of a few on the south side of town who cost more than anyone else and offer consistently poor attractions. Examples of the passionates? The haunts who consistently score high from Haunted Denver.)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (LivingDeadGirl @ Oct 9 2007, 09:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2424)</div>
You couldn&#39;t be more wrong! Every single haunt I have ever worked for does not do it for the money.[/b] One question, LivingDeadGirl (love the Rob Zombie reference, btw) -- How many have you worked for? Ever worked for one that wasn&#39;t in Haunted Denver&#39;s top 5? If not, you have probably worked only for the ones that do it out of a genuine passion. And that makes sense, because from your posts and photos, I would bet that you&#39;re a great haunted house actor -- and good haunt owners attract good employees.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (LivingDeadGirl @ Oct 9 2007, 09:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2424)</div>
I&#39;m sorry you had a bad experience at Anderson Farms, but don&#39;t judge terror in the corn on that experience. (just thought i&#39;d throw that in before you went off on me about anderson farms)[/b] Don&#39;t worry, my adult friends and I will definitely still be up to see Terror in the Corn. I go every year and I always love it. This was actually the first time that we&#39;d been to the Anderson Farms part because this is the first year our kids are finally old enough. It sounds like they&#39;ve had some timing issues with group spacing, and I&#39;m hoping that this whole discussion leads to them making some improvements by the time we make it up there.

[milkunits]

Passion for this stuff will be shown in the product. It is easy to design a room in a haunt, but someone with passion for the design will consider everything including the message being sent to the customer, the feel of the room, the actor in the room, the smell of the room, and each and every detail possible. That is passion!

Let&#39;s be honest, haunted houses truly are performance art and should have an impact on the customer far reaching them after exiting the show.

Having been to many haunts through out the United States, it is always evident to me as the customer who truly loves what they are doing and cared about the message they sent to me. From the time I bought my ticket until I left their business.

Haunted Houses are a business, but we should all remember it is a fun business and a way to entertain people in unique ways. It brings people together to explore our human senses in an almost out of body atmosphere. Customers of haunted houses often have a passion for this stuff as well and if both the customer and owner are connecting, it will leave both very satisfied with the final production.

I would invite everyone this haunted house season to truly enjoy every haunted house you go to! As you walk through remember key scenes or things that impacted you as a customer. Take it home with you and maybe wonder what vision the set designer or owner of the haunt wanted to portray. It may have been a bad experience, but I am sure it impacted you in some way!

[Shade]

Okay, now that I&#39;ve rescinded my original statements somewhat, I did have another thought on this.

If someone is really running a haunt because they are just so passionate about Halloween and really want to share their love for spooky entertainment with the world...

...then why in the hell would you let the whole spooky factor get ruined by sending groups in too close together?

The only reason I can think of, other than trying to make more money, that you might send groups too close together is that you want as many people as possible to get to experience the haunt, even if it means all those people will experience a sub-par haunt. I would rather that they let fewer people through in a night and avoid this problem. (And speaking of, it doesn&#39;t have to be 20-minute spacing. The average I&#39;ve seen is about 90 seconds, which is way too close. About three minutes should be plenty.)

I just realized that someone made a very interesting observation in the other thread on this topic. They pointed out that Field of Corpses is the haunt where they&#39;ve never run into a group. And I remember now that Field of Corpses is the haunt who runs out of tickets nightly. (Hence Big Perm&#39;s beef with them.)

So in hindsight, someone actually is selling fewer tickets so that they can space out the groups properly.

Waitress, I&#39;ll have a haunted house with Field of Corpses&#39; business manager, Frightmare&#39;s set design, The Asylum&#39;s actors, Terror in the Corn&#39;s location, and Scream Park&#39;s length, please. And make it a double.

[Blueeyes1785]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Oct 9 2007, 01:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2430)</div>
One question, LivingDeadGirl (love the Rob Zombie reference, btw) -- How many have you worked for? Ever worked for one that wasn&#39;t in Haunted Denver&#39;s top 5? If not, you have probably worked only for the ones that do it out of a genuine passion. And that makes sense, because from your posts and photos, I would bet that you&#39;re a great haunted house actor -- and good haunt owners attract good employees.[/b]


I have worked for low budget no name haunted houses before. It&#39;s where I got my experience. For instance one, while I was in college, was only on for 3 days in Sterling, CO. I was a volunteer because they couldn&#39;t afford to pay their actors. It was still built out of passion though. It was a lot of fun, and I didn&#39;t care that I wasn&#39;t getting paid. That haunted house was a guided tour haunted house. It worked nicely, but the lines took a long time, and a lot of customers complained about that.

[Luv2BScared]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Oct 9 2007, 01:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=2430)</div>
Hi Luv2BeScared - sorry, I seem to have managed to get you to disagree strongly with me twice now. You raise some good points. I was making a blanket statement, and in that, I was incorrect. I would also say that you are making a blanket statement as well, and I don&#39;t think that ALL haunters do it out of a passion for Halloween. I don&#39;t even think most of them are, but that&#39;s just my opinion.

Let me modify what I said earlier. How amount this: SOME haunt owners do it for the money. There are others, however, who do it out of a genuine passion, and those are the ones whose haunts I usually like the best because their passion shows through. (Examples of the moneymakers? I can think of a few on the south side of town who cost more than anyone else and offer consistently poor attractions. Examples of the passionates? The haunts who consistently score high from Haunted Denver.)[/b]

No need to apologize Shade. You just happened to pick a topic that rubs my fur backwards, that&#39;s all. My statement about haunt owners doing it for the passion of halloween is not a blanket statement. Even haunts that are not on the same level as others do it because it&#39;s fun. They enjoy the creepiness, and bringing that element out for the public to see. Running a haunt is not a money making machine. As LivingDeadGirl stated, most are fortunate to break even. How could they possibly make a living off of it? I can think of much easier ways to make good money, and not go through the hassle, time and effort it takes to open a haunt.
You are entitled to your opinion, as is everyone here. It is not one that I personally share, but I will not get into a flaming contest over it. You have your opinion, I have mine. That&#39;s simple enough I think. I just think it&#39;s unfair to slam the haunt owners for something they have very little control over, and to expect stellar performances each and every time from a live show that gets interrupted by customers. that&#39;s it, I&#39;m done.

[Hellraiser15]

why cant we be friends? why cant we-ee be friends? http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif i do agree with shades "order" for a haunt. that would make one H#ll of a haunt

[Luv2BScared]

We can and are friends...we just don&#39;t have to agree on every issue that comes up here. Makes us unique!

[Blueeyes1785]

Humans are silly.... lets be cats! http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif

[Shade]

I really do love the variety of perspectives. Makes these boards so much more valuable. I tend to be very opinionated, so any time someone can make me see something from another point of view, whether I agree or not, I appreciate them sharing their thoughts.

Thanks to all who responded to my crazy rant.