# ShadyHallows Attendance



## ShadyHallows (Jun 14, 2006)

Next year a haunt walk/haunted house is possibly coming to shady hallows and the only thing I worry about is not getting enough ppl to come down the trail. Should I open it before halloween and how should I make it known so we do get more attendance? Also should there be a spot where the little ones can just go up to the door instead of through the haunted trail/house? Thanks for the help!


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## Dr Morbius (Sep 21, 2004)

I had to move this post to Haunts and displays, since this thread is about your haunt. I'm sure you'll get more responses if it is in the proper forum.


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## trishaanne (Aug 20, 2005)

I don't know if this answers your question but last year we added a haunted maze to the yard. I kept one area of the yard "child friendly", meaning nothing would jump out and get them, for those that were too afraid to come into the yard. If they were still afraid, we had one of our actors go out to the front sidewalk and hand them their candy. We were afraid of the same thing, not having enough people come by. We managed to get written up by the local paper, advertised by hanging fliers in the local businesses and some of the neighborhood kids that help me out handed out fliers to everyone in our neighborhood. We also posted our information on Hauntedhouse.com and were surprised by the number of people that showed up because they had seen it there. This year we are putting a large sign at the end of our street if we have to but we went from 25 people 4 years ago to almost 300 last year. We are usually "open for business" on Mischief night and Halloween and this year we are going to shoot for October 28, 30 and 31. I opted not to be open on Sunday night because #1, it's a school night and #2, I don't want to have to worry about burning out my volunteers and those will be the 3 busiest nights. Good luck.


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## DeathTouch (Sep 6, 2005)

Sorry, and I had to change the title since "attendance" doesn't tell alot.


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## Dr Morbius (Sep 21, 2004)

LOL! I guess I should've changed the thread title too first before sticking you with it, DT..sorry bout that!


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## ShadyHallows (Jun 14, 2006)

Thanks trishaanne that helps alot. And dont mind if I ask did you try to make the haunt as scary as possible, how many people actually walked throuhg it, and did you have some way of showing it was a maze or somthing? I'm really sorry mods about the name and what not.


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## trishaanne (Aug 20, 2005)

In answer to your question, we had about 250-275 go through it on Halloween night and about 75 on Mischief Night. There would have been more on Mischief Night but the weather was against us last year and we couldn't get it all set up in time. We post a list of rules about the back yard and warn the older and very young guests that they may not want to go through. Then, since we have the maze laid out as different "rooms", with a back story that goes with it, my husband met everyone at the gate and took them through 3-4 at a time. He was basically the caretaker of the manor and the guests were potential buyers, at least thats the story we were using. We had between 10-15 actors in and behind the maze to either follow people through or reach through the walls to get them. There were a few people that got too scared and wouldnt go all the way through and we had to lead them back out. For the people that came through and got scared, but not enough to leave, we had an even more fun time with them. My actors are like a pack of wolves and they can smell fear....if they sense you are nervous, they will do everything in their power to make sure you scream. We are expanding the maze from 4-10 rooms this year, with a little luck. We put a guest book outside the gate for people to sign when they came out so I could get some feedback about what worked and what needed to be changed this year. The best part is hearing the people in the back yard screaming and then hearing them laughing when they come out because they realized how ridiculous they sounded.


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## ShadyHallows (Jun 14, 2006)

If you have any could you PM me some pics? Also, you will start out on a trail then make your way into a haunted house which will not be real big so do you think it would be fine to open it before halloween just not hand out candy? One more thing do any of you ask for donations or somthing because I just cant really see ppl bringing money around with them on halloween night..... Thanks again!..


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## trishaanne (Aug 20, 2005)

We were thinking about a donation box but felt that was a little out of place, although we did have a few people leave donations in the guest book. We used the money we collected to take all the actors out for dinner once Halloween was over and everything was packed back up. I'd say if you want to do it before Halloween, be sure you advertise as much as you can so you aren't disappointed with the turnout. I didn't get any pics at all of the maze set up last year because both the video camera and the digital were out of commission. This year I'll have so many pics it's not funny, I won't get caught with nothing again this year. I've also learned to document everything you build throughout the year and show it off to your Halloween friends occasionally....we all LOVE to see pictures.


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