How to Start a Haunted Attraction

Part 1 - How to start a Haunted Attraction business - Background

A haunted thrill park is any space designed to entice customers by offering a scary or thrilling experience. Americans spend about $7 billion on Halloween, and $300 million on haunted houses. Haunted thrill parks may be located in makeshift, temporary houses, corn mazes, or even old prisons or asylums. Typically, workers will dress up in costumes and pop out at customers to give them a fright. Props such as fake chainsaws or straight jackets are often used alongside fog machines and soundtracks of creepy noises.

Our guide is in 3 parts:

• Part 1 - How to start a Haunted House business - Background
• Part 2 - Our planner tool to see if this idea is the right fit for you
• Part 3 - Action plan to get started

What are the costs involved in opening a haunted attraction?

This is heavily dependent on the type of experience you offer. Costs may vary depending on the state or neighborhood. To rent out an old jail or asylum, you may end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure the space. Huge attractions in major cities can total $100,000 just for lighting and sound alone. However, if you have portable attractions that can be set up at carnivals around the nation, you can likely get away with as little as $10,000 for everything. If you own your own farm, you can do haunted hayrides to cover the cost of the costumes and the actors.

What are the ongoing expenses for a haunted attraction?

Because this business is somewhat seasonal, ongoing expenses are low.

• Rent/property costs

• Employee wages

• Prop replacement  

• Advertising costs

• Commercial insurance  

• Sound/lighting equipment maintenance

Who is the target market?

Your best clients are normally young people (teenagers) with a taste for adrenaline. Older people may have conditions where they can’t engage in heart-racing activities. Those who visit you should be people who understand that no matter how scary things may seem, they are never in any real danger.

How does a haunted attraction make money?

Haunted houses generally charge a flat fee to participate in one or more houses. These costs need to cover and exceed the cost of the space, employee salaries, and props.

How much can you charge customers?

Haunted house tickets are typically anywhere from $15 to $40, but they can go even higher than that. People may spend as much as $100 or more on a custom experience.

How much profit can a haunted attraction make?

The large attractions can make up to $3 million a year, while even the small businesses may make around $50,000. Your profits will be dependent on your resourcefulness when it comes to finding the equipment, costumes, and actors. For example, you may want to find all of your costumes solely at thrift stores for additional savings.

How can you make your business more profitable?

Considering Halloween is such a profitable holiday, you can become a consultant for would-be business owners. Or you can look into other thrilling experiences as well. For example, escape rooms trap participants in a room, and invite the players to solve puzzles and mysteries in a given amount of time to get out of the room. These can be kept open all year round, but are typically only popular in the larger cities.

Day-to-Day and Growth

What happens during a typical day at a haunted attraction?

Owners typically deal with the following activities on a daily basis.

• Finding/booking facilities

• Traveling to different towns

• Hiring workers

• Designing/buying costumes

• Creating scary scenes

• Advertising the business

What are some skills and experiences that will help you build a successful haunted attraction?

This is the right business for someone who is a jack-of-all-trades type. For the most part, it will require owners who are extremely thorough when it comes to making decisions. There are many things that can go wrong when opening a haunted thrill park, so it comes down to how well you’ve planned for the catastrophes. It will also take a certain amount of people skills and a real interest in the science of horror.

Owners should have an idea of what their customers want to see in their particular location. Offering different experiences is the best way to get people interested in what you do. Today, many haunted house owners are concentrating on more interactive experiences rather than just having people walk through a house.

What is the growth potential for a haunted attraction?

A haunted house is a niche market, but there is still room for growth. While haunted houses are more popular during Halloween, they can technically be run all-year round which can generate a lot of growth. If you’re able to come up with creative scenes and employ the right workers, you may find that you can branch out to more towns throughout the U.S. as well.

What are some insider tips for jump starting a haunted attraction?

Because the costs to get started can be so high and the public interest is highest in October, many people end up losing money on their first year. You should think of a haunted thrill park as a time investment, as it may be a few years before you make your money back on the initial costs.

To ensure you meet your goals sooner rather than later, you need to pay attention to what’s happening with your core market. Television series like Fear Factor, Naked and Afraid, or American Horror Story can inspire new ideas and help your business stay trendy with your demographic. The public doesn’t necessarily need extremely expensive effects, but they do need an experience they’ll want to tell their friends about.

How and when to build a team

Your actors will be the key to your success, so you’ll need to get them scheduled at least a few weeks in advance. They’ll need to not only be scary, but also flexible enough to add a little of their own personality into the mix. Staying in character is important, but that doesn’t mean the character has to be one-dimensional. Chances are, you’ll get a lot of younger people applying, but that may just mean you’ll have a lot of untapped potential in your midst.

Part 2 - Is a Haunted Attraction business the right fit for you?

Part 3 - Action plan to launch your Haunted Attraction business in 90 days