Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly we're going back to school! Yes, we know it's the middle of summer but that makes it the perfect time to pick up some non-credit or continuing education courses. Need some suggestions on what to take? We look at our local schools and see the types of courses you might be able to pick up closer to your home. Best of all, many of the courses can be taken online so, even if you aren't near a school, you may be able to attend. So strap in as we talk about some o...
Jun 25, 2018•54 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about everyone's favorit topic: RULES! Wait, wait, wait, before you leave. Hear us out. Rules are vitally important to your haunt but they are also something that none of us really pay much attention to. Heck, we haven't updated our rules in 12 years. However, now is a good time to start thinking about those rules and, maybe, getting some new banners printed. After all, haunt rules protect the haunt, its customers and it actors equally. It's i...
Jun 18, 2018•1 hr 1 min
Send a text Sorry for the late podcast this week! We've been travelling and this week's episode is brought to you from a Super 8 motel near St. Louis. If we sound a bit different or seem a bit out of sorts, that's why. But, the show must go on and there is a lot of news to cover this week. We have a major announcement from both Halloween Horror Nights and VooDoo Fest, We also have some new examples of haunted attractions being used as either add ons or as promotions and much more news. So, sit b...
Jun 11, 2018•43 min
Send a text When it comes to talking about spooky things, Crystal and I got our start reviewing "Garbage Horror" movies, low budget horror movies that were usually the brainchild of one or two people. We've seen hundreds, possibly thousands of these films. Many are unwatchable, most are forgettable, but some are actually very good and very memorable. So what can those GOOD budget horror movies teach us as haunters? That's exactly what this episode is about! This Week's Episode Includes: IntroCon...
Jun 04, 2018•58 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we're lightening things up a bit. After such a downeer last episode, we decided to talk about something everyone loves: Saving money. But here's the deal. Every article, podcast, forum, etc. covers the same tips and tricks. We all know to go dumpster diving, shop at thrift stores and troll through Craigslist. That's the easy stuff. So we wanted to cover some less-common ways we save money, in particular how we takea tiny budget and use it to build our haunt...
May 28, 2018•58 min
Send a text Last week, Crystal and I had some time off. So we decided to take something of a staycation and explore the French Quarter and do some spooky things. One of which was visit the Bloody Mary Museum and Tour. While the museum shop wass your fairly standard New Orleans French Quarter affair, it was the tour that stuck with us. Rather than being a generic tour of a "haunted" place, it was a detailed tour of the location of a 2006 murder-suicide that has both living survivors and still nee...
May 21, 2018•50 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do the news! And what a busy news week it is! We have some major news about new haunts opening, haunts moving and one haunted attraction that's doing away with its ghostly theme. There's also some news about Disney's Haunted Mansion and a new documentary that focuses on home haunters. All in all, this is one jam-packed episode that you do not want to miss! This Week's Episode Includes: IntroConfe...
May 14, 2018•49 min
Send a text It's that time of year where haunt building is in full swing so what happens if you have a prop, room or character that you need to push your haunt over the top but can't come up with the idea? Well you go to the internet! Our industry has gotten very good about swapping and sharing ideas and, if you're scratching your head looking for something to go in your haunt, there's tons of places you can go online to get inspiration. How many? We can't possibly list or even know them all so ...
May 07, 2018•54 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about villains! Every haunt has a villain, the difference is that many haunts take the time to flesh their villains out into marketable characters that add to the scare while others put no real time and attention into them. However, that's pretty insane. Crafting a good villain is free and relatively easy to do. All you have to do is put some time and effort into creating a three-dimensional villain that your audience will connect with. Sound ...
Apr 30, 2018•56 min
Send a text Haunt consolidation has been a big topic in the haunt community lately. With 13th Floor making major moves to acquire haunts all over the country, many are wondering what these purchases and further consolidation mean for the industry. However, consolidation in the industry goes well beyond the purchase of a few dozen large huants. There's other typeps consolidations to consider, especially considering their impact on customers. So, are we becoming too consolidated and is this trend ...
Apr 23, 2018•50 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do the news! It's a surprisingly busy month for haunted attraction news, lots of legal cases going on and some general fallout from Transworld to discuss. On top of that you can watch our (previously recorded) appearance on Haunt Chat Live and we have the usual spate of conference reminders and other information. So, strap yourselves in, this one is a doozy! This Week's Episode Includes: Int...
Apr 16, 2018•56 min
Send a text How did this episode not happen before now? Just... how? My (Jonathan) day job is working in copyright and plagiarism matters. I run the site Plagiarism Today , I run a consulting firm at CopyByte . This is my non-haunt life. So how is it that we are 123 episodes in and we have not done this topic? Regardless, we're writing that wrong this week and going over the basics of copyright and haunting. Specifically, we're going to use the copyright-related slides from my talk Copyright &am...
Apr 09, 2018•54 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly it's a two for one sale as you're getting two guests for the price of one! This week we have Mike Ross, the owner/operator of Sinister Sidney and The Gravedigger Reverend Michael, the host of Sinister Sidney and the host of Haunt Chat Live . It's two very different people who are very much of the same mind. So, in this episode we not only get to talk a great deal with Ross about the challenges of operating a rural trail haunt but we get to talk to the Revere...
Apr 02, 2018•53 min
Send a text Easter is almost upon us and, as we've been doing what we've been doing for other holidays, we're taking a look at traditions around the world and seeing which may work well in a haunted attraction. That's only understandable as more and more haunts are working to open year-round, either to cash in on various holidiays throught the year or simply to escape the limited six-week season most haunts work under. So, is Easter a good day for haunting? Probably not the best. But that doesn'...
Mar 26, 2018•50 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do THE NEWS! However, we have to be honest, this is one heavy and sad news episode. There's just a lot of bad news to go around. If haunt closings to community closings were not sad enough, the community has also lost one of its greatest members to cancer. But, bear with us. If you get through the sad news we promise you some uplifiting news at the end. Also, in this episode, we have a major anno...
Mar 19, 2018•47 min
Send a text Benjamin Selecky, along with his partner Alexis Abare, are already staples of the haunt community. As co-owners and co-CEOs of Haunted Farms of America , they've carved out a much-needed niche helping farms launch, operate and grow their haunted attractions. They've become highly sought after experts in agritainment and have assesmbled a broad number of outside experts (including myself) to help farm-based haunted attractions grow. But not content to rest on their laurels, the duo ha...
Mar 12, 2018•45 min
Send a text Here at Haunt Weekly we're always looking for ways to improve our podcast. So we finally figured out the best thing we can do is bring on some better podcasteers. And that's exactly whatt we're doing this week as we're joined by Brian Forman and Darryl Plunkie of HaunTopic Radio , Haunters's Toolbox and, most recently, ScareIt Badges. They spend the hour with us as we discuss their history in the business, all of the projects that they run and, most important, the huge abundance of f...
Mar 05, 2018•53 min
Send a text Haunt flyers. Every attraction has them. Most of the suck. However, it doesn't have to be this way. Haunted attractions can and should strive to do better here and, by doing better, we mean doing less. So, in this episode we put both of oour degrees to good use as we sit down to discuss the ins and outs of flyer design so you can get working on your next season's flyer and maybe jump on some of the juicy deals that will probably be coming up soon. So, on that note, let's sit down and...
Feb 26, 2018•56 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another episode divisible by four so that means it's' time to do the news! It's a bit of a slow news cycle for us. We're in that strange time of year where there's not much post season going on but we're not yet ramping up for the new season. It's a time for conferences and planning, not for making news. But, that didn't stop several haunts from trying. So, without further ado, here's a look at what's going on in the haunted attraction indusutry this m...
Feb 19, 2018•49 min
Send a text Haunting isn't just for Halloween anymore. More and more haunts are opening their doors for other holidays in a bid to make some more cash in the off-season. But, if you want to open up out of season, what holidays should you target? There are a LOT of great holidays between New Year's and Christmas but not all of them are suited for haunting. So which one(s) do you do? In this episode we take a look at some of the more common holidays haunts open on, look at the strengths and weakne...
Feb 12, 2018•56 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we have a very special guest as we sit down with Dr. Margee Kerr: The Sociologist Who Studies Fear . Dr. Kerr has been everywhere. Perhaps best known for her segment on Full Frontal with Samantatha Bee, she's also been in Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post and SyFyWire and so much more. She has so many credentials that it makes you wonder what she's doing here with us. But, spend an hour with us she did and we talked about about her, what she doe...
Feb 05, 2018•45 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly we're doing a topic that, for us, has been a LOOOOOONG time coming: Aphantasia in haunting. What is aphantasia? It's the inability to form pictures in your mind. Where most of the population can picture a beautiful beach or a country cottage, people with aphantasia see only words, letters or numbers. Though this was originally discovered in the 1880s, it's been getting a great deal of attention irecent years as more people have woken up to the idea that not ...
Jan 29, 2018•54 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another episode divisible by four so that means it's time to do THE NEWS! However, we're in the slow season for haunted attraction news. This past month covers all of the holidays and, to be frank, not a lot has been going on. Still, there are a lot of updates worth reporting including a new licensed escape game, one haunt closing its doors and lots of conference news. All in all, it may be a quiet time, but this is still an episode you do not want to ...
Jan 22, 2018•49 min
Send a text HAuNTcon 2018 is in the books and we were there for the entire event and then some. So, what happened then? That's what this episode is about, it's our full recap of HAuNTcon 2018 as we look at everything from the classes we attended to the show room floor (both of them). HAuNTcon was a beast of a show there's a lot to say so, be warned that this episode does go a bit long but believe me when I say it's an episode you do not want to miss! This Week's Episode Includes: IntroConference...
Jan 15, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Send a text Boy howdy has this movie caused some controversy in the haunt community. Just hours after it hit Netflix people were talking about it left and right in various haunter groups on Facebook and we found ourselves getting multiple requests to cover it. So, cover it we will. But while we share many of the same concerns other haunters have about the film, we also wanted to try and hone in on some of the things the film got right and some of the good it has done the industry With that in mi...
Jan 08, 2018•49 min
Send a text HAPPY NEW YEAR! We are back once again, Crystal is adequately recovered from her surgery and we are back to talk about a... video game? That's right we spent a good part of our time off catching up on some video games and one of the ones we played is Layers of Fear , a horror-themed walking simulator with some intersting ideas with regards to storytelling and layout/design. Is it worth checking out if you're a haunt? Absolutely, especially since it's just $5 on Steam through the four...
Jan 01, 2018•51 min
Send a text First thing is first everyone, Merry Christmas! While we here at Haunt Weekly certainly haven't been nice enough to justify a visit from Santa (Krampus maybe) we're still giving out gifts this year and that includes an all-new episode of Haunt Weekly. Best of all, since it's another episode divisible by four, that means it's time to do the news. And a lof of news there is. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it's sad and some of it is just plain weird. Any way the news blows...
Dec 25, 2017•49 min
Send a text Every year around this time, we take a break from the haunted attraction stuff and, instead, discuss some of our favorite Christmas horror themes. Turns out, when you get down to it, Christmas (and the other winter holidays) is a pretty messed up holiday in a lot of places. So we're continuing that tradition again this year with another slate of Christmas traditions that seem more like they belong on Halloween. Want to keep witches at bay? Burn evil spirits alive? We've got you cover...
Dec 18, 2017•53 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating the release of The Disaster Artist by asking a question that we haven't actually asked before: "Can a haunt be so bad it's good?" We talk about films this way all of the time with The Room, the film The Disaster Artist is based on, being an oft-cited example. But, if it can happen in films, can it happen in haunts? The answer, as far as we can determine, is no. However, that's because the way we judge haunts is different than fims and that...
Dec 12, 2017•54 min
Send a text This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing things a bit differently. Rather than talking about haunted attractions we're talking about our fair city, New Orleans. Since many of you are coming down here for HAuNTcon, we wanted to do our part to make sure that you have the knowledge and info to be safe, have a good time and maybe know a few off-the-beaten path places that you can check out. So, if you're planning a trip to NOLA, hopefully some of these suggestions will give you a leg up on...
Dec 04, 2017•56 min
