[0:20] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for you on a detraction and entertainment industry. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week with the other half of the coin. Last week, we told you some of the reasons why the 2025 haunt seasons might be looking a little bit rough. Today, we've got seven reasons, coincidentally the same number reasons why it might be looking just great i'm not gonna lie this was a difficult episode to write, uh usually it's pretty evenly split with us when trying to do these episodes trying to find reason to be positive reason to be negative this year though it's been rough and as i think you'll notice with some of these we're even kind of caveating some of our positives but do stay with us we do have some genuine reasons why the 2025 season could make some serious bank and could be an amazing year for everyone still if that doesn't sound like what you want to listen to check out all the rest of haunt weekly's podcasters 485 others as we've been told by our listeners great for falling asleep too you can find us at hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on facebook youtube.com slash hauntweekly and wherever you get your podcasts from.

[1:40] Let's see. Work we did for the haunt. We actually didn't do any work this past week. No. We've had a lot of other things going on, and we've been talking about Crystal's work and things a lot lately and trying to find time even to do this podcast. It's been an especially challenging month or so. It has.

[1:57] And it's just going to ramp up in the next couple of months. Hopefully we'll catch a little more time coming up soon. We have things that we do want to do soon and things that we need to do soon, like we need to take apart the outside L structure. Yeah. We've concluded we're going to completely rebuild that. That's going to be our major rebuild project this year. And I think that's okay because I think the rest of the rooms and the inside structure of the haunt are good to go. Yeah. Yeah, they just need to be redecorated and come up with a few new scares,

[2:32] as we always try to like to add something new. Yeah but in the same breath you know you don't kick to the curb what's been working, yeah well and this is a brand new layout yeah i mean well it's only a year tested yeah and like one of the scares that burst through a wall we have and so forth those have just been making making some amazing moments yeah so i don't think we need to get rid of those yet people aren't tired of them people aren't expecting them it's not like the when we did early on when we it first started where we overused drop panels to the point. Well, that was the only thing we knew how to build. Like, seriously.

[3:13] You know, and it's kind of funny how, like, for those first few years, every time we wanted to try something new, it was like, okay, it's like a drop panel, but it's the full wall. It's horizontal. Yeah, I know. It's coming from the ceiling. Yeah. Yeah, you told me, make a wall disappear. Fine. Here. This is what we're doing. And you know what we did? We did. We did. We made that fucking work. And you know what? It fucking got scares. It did. So, you know. But, yeah.

[3:44] So, yeah. Luckily, we've moved past that point a little bit. So, I think we have a little more life out of these scares yet still. So, I'm not too worried about chasing more inside the haunt this year. Because we did such a big overhaul last year. Right. But we do need to change some of the stuff front of house. And, yeah, I agree. And we do need to clean it out a little bit. There are some spaces that shit's been put into for a while. We need to go through it. So we're going to do all that, but, yeah, we haven't been able to do much, like I said, because you've been working nonstop. No. Much to your annoyance, too, I'm sure. Yes. So, anyways, moving along. Every week we ask a question a week, and last week we asked you if you are making any adjustments to your plans this year. And this is what you all had to say. Jason Rousseau said, I'm stuck in a rut, mixed between working hard at my job and having lost motivation to keep going. I've run a haunt for a few years free for my community, plus a big yard display and walkthrough, but it seems overwhelming. I hear you. That's an I feel you moment. Yeah.

[4:52] Greg Packard. Yes, we decided not to do a theme because of the instability of the political and economic environment. Probably not unwise because it's going to be unusually difficult to pick a theme that won't cause, you know, controversy or unintended trauma by itself. So, yeah, that's not a terrible idea. They just do what we do, which is always take you back to the deep past, you know? Yeah.

[5:20] Christian Ristow said, constantly, maybe that is more a commentary on my process than world events. Yeah, fair play. Yeah, I understand that too. And Tim Fowler's still on the fence about what we're doing. I understand that too. He's there with Blind Mag, as you like to say. The five people who watched Repo the Genetic Opera in our audience are very upset with you right now, Ristow. It's your joke every time we watch it. I know. I even appropriated it to you. Fair play. All right. But, yeah, indeed. So, all in all, I have to agree with pretty much everyone there. Yeah. Kind of weird. So, this week's question of the week, what is something that you are looking forward to in the 2025 season? Let us know. Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Facebook, YouTube.com, slash Hauntweekly. Please let us know. Send us an email. Post a comment. we would love to hear your thoughts. All right it is also an even number episode and as is tradition it is time to do conference reminders so Crystal please kick us off. Right Midwest Haunters Convention is coming up the weekend of June 6th through June 8th at Rosemont Illinois. It will be at the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center. Friday they're screening.

[6:43] They're doing a screening of Haunt Season. Yes. It is a tongue twister, I admit. Well, so it doesn't fit all in the little space. Okay, fair enough. And so I was having to go up and read. And then my brain just freaked. A tour of Abandoned Hound and House on Friday. Seminars, Costume Party, and more. Lots of seminars.

[7:07] MidwestHauntersConvention.com for that more info. All right, then. June 20th through the 22nd in munith michigan it's michigan haunt fest at the oaks campground featuring demos and make and takes a saturday raffle and cost to be such makeup classes.

[7:23] Michiganhauntfest.weebly.com july 26th and 27th it is the texas haunters convention in irving texas at the irving convention center they'll be featuring a trade show floor haunt tour with dark hour game night texas hunters convention.com for more info um yeah now that they're at a different location yeah we might be able to go again sometime maybe yeah that might we really did enjoy texas hunters convention the uh location they were in before this move to irving that was never going to work for us due to allergies yeah so indeed oh sorry finally this week at the same time july 26th 27th in fresno california um going to the west coast instead of the gulf-ish coast um it's haunt mayor expo at the fresno fairgrounds featuring five haunted attractions three escape rooms and a rage room very special guests and horror panels hauntmayorexpo.com sounds like a great time especially for the attendees people who like going to haunts so quickly. Which, as we said, aficionados. We aim to be a podcast for you. Alright. So...

[8:41] Let's just get into it. Okay. Because this was tough. Well, and we knew last week when we did the negatives that that one was going to be super easy to write, and this one we were going to struggle. And we were right. Yeah. We were 1,125% right about that. This was indeed very, very rough. Yes, and thank you for taking on the brunt of that. Yeah. We talked a lot about it off and on. Yeah. And even when we were talking about the negatives, we were talking about the reasons to be positive, too. And we kept trying to fill this list out. And it kept getting frustrating. Because every time I think I had an idea, I would research it and then find out I was wrong. And it's like, God damn it, you're trying to, it's like the universe is just out to demoralize me. No. You ever get the feeling like the gremlins in the universe really, they don't want you to die. They just want you to be very sad.

[9:44] That seems like the world today. Yes. We're not so evil that we want to send you, we don't want you to be depressed. Yeah. So anyways, but we do have seven reasons in which I think we think the

[9:57] Haunt Season 2025 may actually be great and may be a gangbuster season. And the reason one, the first reason we came up with, and the first reason Ellie came up with when we asked. Right, because we were like, maybe she would have an idea. Maybe she had an outside perspective. Let's do this. Yeah. Yeah, come on. And Ellie's like, oh, escapism. Yeah. And we're like, goddammit, that's been on the show notes for two weeks. Yeah.

[10:25] Yes, escapism slash catharsis. one of the great things about haunted attractions is they do provide an amazing sense of escapism slash catharsis, and I say catharsis in the classical sense of using strong emotions to help people forget about other strong emotions yes, it's like saying your thumbs hurt so you hit your foot or something exactly, if anyone's seen the beginning to major pain the movie, It actually has a great example of forced catharsis.

[11:02] If you haven't seen that movie, don't. Just watch the beginning. Just trust me on it. The first five minutes before the credit, it's worth it. But anyways. But no, people, when there are tough times, when there are uncertain times, when things are dubious or feel sketchy, regardless of, like I said, anything else, they want escapism they want to do something that makes them forget about it and a haunted attraction is great for that and we saw that in spades in 2020 i don't think we should have seen that in spades in 2020 right but we did people who were fed up scared annoyed angry just tired of COVID showed up to haunts the ones that opened in record numbers and probably then made COVID significantly worse. Well, you know. As you do. Yeah. You know. But a lot of people are still interested in in-person, unique experiences, which is something that haunts, you know, provide. And it is really great in that it is all-consuming when you're inside a hall. It's 360 degrees. You can't look anywhere. You're not being the goddamn hall. It's like virtual reality in this motherfucker.

[12:31] Is that just reality or reality? Reality is not virtual. But I do understand. I understand how you got there. But still, it's like those 3D glasses. We call it reality reality. It's a new idea.

[12:50] It's like those stupid Apple goggles. Oh, I was thinking of the sunglasses that, you know, 3D reality. Yeah. Sunglass things. And boost your color or whatever. And not the actual glasses that supposedly help color blind people. No, no. I don't remember if those were real or not. but but i know the ones you're talking about yeah the ones on the infomercial yeah yeah but basically it's all consuming you can't be not there you're not on your cell phone you're not on your computer, you know you're not talking with your friends about things you're not worried about the conversation drifting somewhere else yeah because if you're in line you're talking about going into the haunt and how scary you are of all the actors roaming around and you got so yeah this the haunted a haunted house is a great place to go for escapism probably the best place to go for escapism compared to like a movie theater um because i don't know about you guys but i've been plenty annoyed in movie theaters before oh yeah um concerts been plenty annoyed in those two um but no those types of venues and we're going to get back to those in a minute because we actually have more important stuff there but basically this is probably the ultimate escapism experience you cannot be anywhere other than this haunt you will be in this haunt whether you like it or not buddy.

[14:15] We will make goddamn sure of that, right? Yeah. And in the same vein, before we move on, because people are looking for new experiences, I know last week we said that haunts are a luxury place to work, just like they're a luxury place to visit. Yeah. But people who are able to may sign up more than they would in other years just so that they can forget about life, too, and scare other people. Yeah. Totally true. It does work both ways. So, yeah. I mean, and like I said,

[14:51] we're going to wrap this up with some questions. And, like, one of the questions we have to know is, one of the questions we don't know is how the scales are going to tip here, basically. Yeah. And that, I think, whether it's going to be more of a we need to conserve money or we need the escapism thing. That's a type of example of which way will the scales tip. I don't know. So let's move on to number two.

[15:16] Marketing opportunities. For once, we may not rise faster than inflation. We could actually become a minor deal. Yeah. We could be on par with the other stuff that's going on that we always compete with every year. If you keep your price the same, now is a great time to promote it. You can say that it's still X amount of dollars to come here. It's the same value. That it has been for five years or whatever. Yeah, or we're keeping the prices the same right now, but we're increasing your experience by making it an all-new blah, blah, blah. Exactly.

[15:54] Weaker economies make people seek deals, and that makes them more appetizing. Even if it's the same, it's still considered a deal over your competitor who's not the same. It's kind of interesting when you study, having taken a couple of economics classes in college, and I don't mean that I'm an economist or anything, but one of the things you learn very quickly is that certain prices have an outsized impact on people's perception of inflation. Yep. And two of the big ones, and you might have been hearing about these lately, is gas. And that's because even though gas really isn't a big chunk of almost anyone's budget, if you're not a professional driver, it's not a big chunk of your budget. But you see it on one of those giant signs everywhere you go. It's everywhere. So you can't help but notice what the price of gas is at any given moment.

[16:52] And grocery staples, which includes eggs, which have been lately. So this is an opportunity. So even if prices really haven't gone up that much, there's the perception they have. And perception in marketing is pretty much nine-tenths the law, if not more. So you pitching yourself as, hey, eggs and gas may be through the goddamn roof, even if they're not. But we have the same price since 2020 or whatever. And man people might actually flock to that i could really see even if it's the same from last year i think people will will glom on to that yeah exactly because especially if they're worried about which we'll be talking about the next item tariffs and the price rises there and.

[17:47] Um, it's, yeah, the opportunity here to really drive home, to finally be a good deal, be perceived as a good deal. Right. It's great. And I think it might be a chance to also do a little bit of goodwill. You know, we're not raising prices this year because we know that your prices are higher on everything else for life. Yeah, we know our friends and family are struggling, so we're keeping our prices the same. Exactly. So you can make some goodwill into your community that way by playing that up. Yeah, because. And then when you raise them later, then they'll be more understanding. Yeah.

[18:27] Yeah, because that's one of the things is like the jokes I've been hearing every fucking season. It's gotten old. If I pay $50 for a haunted house, they better kill my ass, put me in a coffin, bury me, dig me up, do a witch's ritual to bring me back to life and send me on my way. Yeah. Stuff like that. And I get it. People are frustrated with the price of haunted attractions. And honestly, knowing the rate they've gone up, there's good fucking reason. Yeah. But here's the thing. This year, we might be able to flip the fucking script. Yeah. We might be able to turn the tables on that. And so I think that's a really great opportunity here. If we can keep our prices the same, if we can focus on trying to get mass adoption, um man we can do some incredible stuff here yeah what are you about to say something.

[19:19] It's come and gone three times so keep going all right all right there was another point but i don't remember it now fair play to you all right reason number three the tariffs may not be that bad remember how we said last episode we feel really stupid talking about tariffs because that shit could change minute to minute i don't know the time it takes me to upload this episode to the internet whether or not things will change again yeah and yeah guess what i called it well okay not literally but came pretty close to calling it, And the reason for that is, quite simply, they just announced that they are,

[20:05] Trump administration announced they are reducing the tariffs on Chinese imported goods from 145% to 30%. Now, this stuff spins around faster than a weather vane attached to a carousel. So, we obviously don't know where this is going to be a week from now. And this, even this, there's only 90 days. Yeah. So, who the fuck knows, right? But that's better?

[20:33] Help me out here. I mean, it will still mean a noticeable price increase. Yeah, they're still going to go up. Now, it won't be 30% to be clear. That's only the value of the imported good. And once a good arrives in the United States, it still has to be, you know, probably repackaged. It has to be distributed. Right. It has to be put in shelves. There's all these other expenses. So, likely it'll be closer to a 10% to 15% price increase when all said and done. Noticeable, but maybe not end of the world noticeable. Because functionally doubling it, like what $145 would have done. Yeah.

[21:09] That could have been a huge disaster for both Halloween and Christmas decor. So, right now, your big box stores have 90 days to get this shit in. Yeah, and they've been, you know, pushing for that. And they've been pushing back on these tariffs too the outrageous ones so yeah hopefully it's doing some good the hope is is that the big box stores and the reason we're rooting for the big box stores talk about an awkward situation yeah no kidding is because that's where most you know lay people are going to get their halloween and christmas decor from and one of the things we talked about in the last episode is that if they spend all their money on costumes and candy and their Halloween lights and whatever, they might not have expendable income to go to a haunted house. Yeah. Especially if ticket prices rise again. Mm-hmm. So...

[22:10] Yeah, this, I think, is a much more cushioned blow. If all those items can get in in time, and there's actually an excellent article by NPR's Scott Horsley about this, about how retailers are now just in a mad dash to get shit into the United States. Yeah. I highly recommend reading it. I'll link to it in the show notes. But, yeah, basically that's what's going on right now, is all the retailers, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, Spirit, that all those people are just scrambling to get stuff into the country to beat the tariffs possibly being raised again. Because right now, even though 30% is still, I think, three times higher than what it was.

[22:57] Even though it is still higher, it is not 14.5% higher. Right. So it's at least a little bit better news than it was last week. Yeah. And maybe this will leave some cash in customers' pockets for a haunted house. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. I hope. Yeah. I remembered the other point for marketing was that if you do raise your prices and you do blame it on tariffs and stuff, and it's not, and people find out that that's not the case, that you actually didn't spend a lot on upgrades or something, that could hurt you a lot. And if you do it and blame it on tariffs, you have to reduce them whenever the tariffs go away. Exactly.

[23:46] Yeah like so so basically it's not a good year to raise your prices yeah it is a terrible year to raise your prices yeah um especially when facing with possible economic weakness yeah because i even just the perception of economic weakness yeah because i'm already looking at at who's who that we shop with is raising their prices blaming it on tariffs or is it just a money grab? Like, I have a very cynical view of business and think that there are going to be at least some businesses that just raise prices because they can and have something to blame it on. 1,000% true. There's someone who's been itching to do a price rise for a while and this is just their moment to shine. Yeah, so don't be that person. Yeah, this is not the year to do that. That's not the long-term strategy. You know, the time to raise your prices is when there's the perception of strength in the economy and people are confident in it. You can then do a price rise and say, hey, things got more expensive. We had to. We didn't want to.

[24:57] But the thing is, no matter when you raise it, people will complain. I mean, I remember I've worked a haunt ticket booth a few times. And the haunt went from $13 a ticket. This is dating it. Dating my time nicely. To $15 a ticket the amount of verbal abuse I took over $2 per ticket price rise Was in fucking sane. So just be mindful. It's never a good time But there is an especially bad time right that is right now All right reason for Younger audiences are more insulated. Yeah, like our target demographic is 13 to 29 and they're going to.

[25:45] Want to still go out and do things with their friends. And they're typically not yet the breadwinner of their family. Yeah. The 20-year-olds maybe. Yeah, but even then, they might still be sort of in the setting up the family phase. Yeah, and strapped for cash. Yeah. Basically, younger people have more freedom with what they do with their disposable income because that disposable income isn't really at risk of becoming not disposable income. Right. They're not paying, they're not oftentimes paying rent. Or if they are paying rent, they don't really give a shit. If they lose their apartment, they lose their apartment. You know what I mean? Because they don't have a family. They don't have kids. They're not worried about anybody else, basically.

[26:31] And, yeah. So they have a sort of a shock absorber built in here where they're not quite as worried about what happens to their disposable income. No. They're insulated from the effects, and they have just fewer responsibilities and fewer things to worry about. So that may work out in our favor. You combine that with reason one, the escapism. Right. And something that we didn't put in here, for a lot of families going to a haunt or a haunted attraction adjacent thing is a tradition.

[27:07] So you've got that playing into it, too. Oh, we can't do so-and-so. but at least we can still go to the haunted house together, you know?

[27:17] I really do think, though, younger people, though, typically do have that little extra padding built in. Their disposable income truly is disposable because it will not just magically become, no, no, no, that's rent paying money. Right. Like instantly.

[27:33] So hopefully that will remain the case. They will remain insulated from anything. And this is especially important if it's more of a perception issue than an actuality issue. Right. Because if it's just a perception of a weak economy, people who have, you know, parents who have small kids especially, they're going to be very conservative with their spending. Because they know that every dime could be food for their kids. Right. But if it's just a perception and the money is still there, younger people who don't have families, who make up the core of our audience. And who aren't really paying attention as much to the influx and the spending. They are more likely to be able to just spend it and move forward yeah so yeah there's there's that insulation impact because of who we target and who our main core audience is that i think really could help us out especially when combined with reason number one okay reason number five.

[28:36] Fomo still works uh people talk about fomo like it's a bad thing but in our industry it's probably the biggest driver of ticket sales in many ways yeah the fear of missing out if your haunt is new redesigned got new features got new attractions gonna do a special night fomo is still an incredibly powerful force and that's one of the more powerful things about being a seasonal limited time attraction because if you are a year-round haunt that's one of the reasons you have to have that churn of tourists.

[29:13] Because tourists live in a permanent state of FOMO. Yeah. You want that and you want different events for your locals too around the year. So that's also creating the FOMO of the one event. Yeah. But I know every time we've traveled somewhere, it's been like, okay, we've got to do this. We've got this. Our only chance to do this. Only chance to do this. Only chance Exactly. We go out and we go, um, basically we wake up earlier on vacation and go to bed later so that we can wake up earlier to go to bed later to do all the things. And we consume ungodly, inhuman amounts of caffeine and alcohol in alteration to do it. Oh yeah, totally. We are basically just running on liquid at that point.

[30:04] I'll press it down. I'll press it down. Just go, go, go, go, go. Is it time to sleep? I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know. The sun's still out, and it's 10 o'clock at night. That's the problem when you go to Newcastle in England. But, yeah, FOMO is a very powerful force. We still have it on our side. Being a seasonal attraction really helps us. And FOMO will help people prioritize haunts ahead of other forms of entertainment. Yeah. Hopefully. Um hopefully that's the thing it's like okay i'm gonna go see a movie.

[30:42] Um oh i can catch that movie when it's on netflix once it leaves the theaters or whatever but i can only see the haunt now exactly that fear of missing out has been a key driver for us and it may be especially important this year as it may be what puts haunted attractions the top of the priority list so that those who are interested in going to haunts do it in front of other activities and other escapist activities that they're considering doing including other escapist activities that may be way less expensive especially on a per minute or per hour basis, so yeah the fomo still works there's no evidence i've seen a fomo stopping working or reducing its efficacy i think that if we can latch on that and the pricing issue and the pricing we were just talking about we have a chance to really convince people no matter how what the perception of the economy is at the time really convince people to come out for haunts in a big way this year that's what it's going to take though yeah we have to be willing to do that kind of outreach where we say hey we haven't gone up in prices and boy we have something special for you that you can only see for these six weeks in fall. Exactly.

[32:01] That's a hell of a pitch. It is. You got to admit. I'm going to go. I'm going to go to what I just invented. Yeah. All right. All right. Reason number six, concerts and movies are going strong. Now, this was something that when you researched it, you were like, oh, no, they're going strong. That means that we're going to have more competition. Yes. And that's true. It is. But that means that people are still spending money on luxury things. And at luxury in-person things, too. Yes. Luxury in-person experiences. Ooh. I know. Ooh.

[32:40] So concerts and films are having a record-breaking year. I know that I've seen so many recommendations to go and watch Sinners in the theater. Yeah, we are watching, we're recording this in the middle of May of 2025 because of Sinners and now the New Avengers, because of a couple of big films. This year's box office, according to the site I was on, looks ready to pass last year's very shortly. And it's not even halfway through the year. Yeah. So, yeah, people are going out more, and they're completely surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Yeah and it's absolutely crazy um and and the thing was i remembered last year yeah everyone was talking about how uh fucking movie theaters were dead yeah no one was going to see movie theaters and i looked it up and yeah that was pretty true last year yeah and last year we heard from a lot of haunts that their attendance was down yeah movie theaters I had a rough year last year. I don't know about concerts, but... This year, movie theaters are going strong on the back of a couple of really great theatrical-only releases.

[34:04] Once again, we've talked about how we're a small industry that's easily eclipsed by one blockbuster films, international, grossing entire industry. So, yeah, look at it like that. There's been a couple of those types of movies put out. Right. But, yeah, the attendance has gone up. It is still continuing. It's bounced back from the pandemic. and is even, in some cases, now surpassing, especially with concerts, it is surpassing pre-pandemic levels. I mean, Lady Gaga just had a record-breaking concert in Brazil. Two million people attended. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of fucking people. Yeah. And, yeah, Brazil's not a big haunted attraction country, I know, but the point remains, these concerts are happening, in-person events are happening, and they're happening in big ways again.

[34:51] Now, as you noted, oh, go ahead, sorry. It might be part of people need to feel community right now. It might be partly because of that. Or it could just be they didn't get to do it for a while for various reasons, and now there's some pent-up demand. Exactly. Could be either of those.

[35:12] But yeah, in-person entertainment is on the rebound. And the downside to that, which as you mentioned, is that these are our competitors. Right. I have always said, and you can go back through our episodes, this has been something we've repeated ad nauseum. The real competition to your haunt is not the haunt across town, not the haunt next door, not the haunt in the next city. Your real competition is anything the fuck else the customer could be doing that night with their time and money. That means going to the club or a concert. That means going to the movies. That means going to a play. That means sitting at home and playing Sunset Overdrive on Steam. I've been playing Sunset Overdrive on Steam lately. Yeah.

[35:58] Couldn't tell. Couldn't tell. But yeah, those things are the real competition. You have to convince people to go to haunted attractions first, and then you have to convince them to go to yours. But the real competition, because people can go to multiple haunts, and if they can go to one haunt, they usually do go to multiple. Often do. Especially if there are multiple in their area. Yeah. But man, it's clear that in-person events are doing way better than it feels like they should be right now. And that's good. And here's the thing. A rising tide could lift all boats, including ours, or it could leave us stranded on the shore. Yeah. We're going to have to find out. And once again, the weights and balances here, which is heavier, the competition or the rising tide? Eh, you know, I don't know. But I do think, I think in general, the fact that in-person entertainment is growing again and is doing well again is a very good sign for us overall. I think in general, I think it's a bigger deal than the fact we're going to be facing stiffer competition. Yeah. And that brings us to number seven.

[37:13] Haunts have generally been growing. Haunt industry has been growing. Multiple reports, the best one I found was Haunt Pays actually, their annual one, has found that the industry has been growing over the past few years. Now that growing does seem to have leveled off some, indicating we may be hitting a plateau.

[37:34] But given that it's a plateau at a high point, I don't see that as the end of the world. Yeah.

[37:41] Because that's just it. Growth has to level up at some point. I know according to all the big finance people and all that, you have to be making more money every quarter, every year. It's more money, more money. That's not practical. That's not reality. Unempted growth is not a thing. And leveling off over an entire industry doesn't

[38:02] mean that an individual haunt is going to make less or just the same and not more. Exactly. That's not, you know, it's an average of everything. Yeah, it's not a predictor of any particular individual haunt. Exactly. So this is the ultimate your mileage may vary moment. But yeah, in general, the industry has been growing. Like I said, with some leveling off. But so if, you know, it's technically possible that that trend could continue into 2025. And I hope it does. I hope that this is the right episode. I hope that these points are the right ones. When we look back on the 2025 season, I want to go, man, in 46, did we fucking call it? It's way better than saying, man, in 485, we fucking called it. Yeah. Way better for my mood. Either way, we probably called it. We just don't know which way it's going to go yet. Yeah, well, that's part of the reason why we do it this way, so we can never be wrong.

[39:06] It'll just be a mediocre year, and then we are. Fuck! Like, you just tempted the gremlins. Oh, God. So now, episode 47, why this year are we bland?

[39:17] This will be the year of damp. That is not true that is not I am not doing that episode why this year will be very middling.

[39:35] Oh god that would be a terrible episode yes yes it would be even worse than doing this than doing the previous one alright so we have a little time left and I knew we would so I got three questions for us to think about and for the audience to think about as we sort of wrap this puppy up the first is how bad will the economy be in October, That's a tough question. Yeah, there's no way to predict that. Things are moving so fast right now. Yeah. There's just no way. I made my joke about a weather vane on a carousel, and I meant it. Everything is spinning so fast. And the problem with that is, like we've talked about before, including this episode, is how the economy is actually doing is often not as important as the perception. Right. And uncertainty, rapid change, fluctuations, those things really fucking hurt that perception of stability and doing well, even if it's not actually having much impact. Yeah.

[40:41] I think last episode I said the economy is like Tinkerbell. You have to believe in it and clap your hands and say, I do believe in fairies for it to come back to life. It really is an institution that is fed by our belief in it and our confidence in it. And if we don't have confidence in it it doesn't matter if it's doing crazy bank it's still going to wind up slowing down and causing problems and people are going to start acting like it's in the toilet and that's just that's not what we want or need right now so if we can find some stability between now and october like the ideal situation to me is this 90 day trail of truce whatever the hell it is, becomes permanent, and maybe even the tariffs come down a little more, we get stability there, and then we stop with all of this bullshit going back and forth and trying to, you know, change tariffs and create global trade wars. If we can do that soon, there's plenty of time between now and October for shit to settle down and for people to regain some confidence in the economy and come on out and spend some money at a haunted house. But if it goes on much longer, it doesn't fucking matter if it stops. Like I said, we have less than six months to go to Halloween.

[42:07] We're running out of runway here.

[42:11] And so, yeah, my hope is that things settle down soon and the confidence and the stability return. And from there, we can enjoy a great haunt season. Question two, how resilient is the haunt industry to economic shocks? Okay, so I.

[42:37] I don't know, but I think that we had a taste of it in 2020. Yeah. And we saw a lot of haunts closed. And I think that if you made it through 2020 and you learned a lesson from that and put in some stopgaps and things to keep you afloat in case of disaster, then you're probably going to do okay through this. Yeah. because i there's two types of resiliency here the first is how resilient are haunted attractions to like you said a bad year yeah and a lot of haunts including a lot of big haunts do not have runway if they are forced closed for a year they're done yeah that's it and that was one of the reasons why so many haunts justified opening when it probably was not a good idea for public health to do so yeah so basically um so yeah that's one side of it but the other side is we saw in 2020 was that the haunts that did open they got a lot of traffic and some of that was because of the economic stimulus and that put some extra cash into the economy but also as we said That need for escapism outweighed the concern over finances pretty significantly. Now, can we pull that trick again?

[44:05] Don't know this is a very different situation people have now have good alternatives for in-person entertainment we talked about movie theaters concerts plays things like that it gets really bad just going to the park with your friends yeah um learn crokinole yeah that's what i advise but no yes learn it and the next time you see us at a conference we'll play and we'll kick the shit out of them no no no it depends on the day it depends on how much we had to drink too let's be honest yes but the point being uh yeah it is yeah i don't really know on an individual level i don't think haunts are generally very buffered against economic shocks no but i do think the industry because of the escapism value has some resiliency just i don't know how much Yeah, I keep comparing it in my head to like hurricane season, whenever a tropical storm comes through and takes down all the wheat trees, and then a hurricane comes through, and the ones that were still standing after the tropical storm are still standing. Yeah. We actually had that happen the year of Katrina, oddly enough, because there was a tropical storm that hit like a month or two before.

[45:18] Blew down a lot of trees. And luckily, in our neighborhood, since we didn't flood, because flooding was where the worst damage New Orleans came from, uh we had a neighborhood only wind damage damage was actually very mild all things considered very few trees came down and very few homes that were being well maintained and taken care of were damaged yeah because they were all blown over by the tropical storm as you know exactly but, but that's kind of what i i see is like if you survive 2020 you're you're probably okay for at least a short run of this craziness that we're in now if it lasts all four years we're all fucked yeah exactly like none of us are gonna be around then just fall on your sword now yeah.

[46:04] It's over. Okay, and the final question is, can the halt industry overcome inflation heartburn? And that's the thing. I call it inflation heartburn for a reason because it really, inflation itself is not that bad yet. Right. It could be if these tariffs hit and people start paying two to three times more for, you know, a couple, for basic things. Um but there's a real perception because i could talk about gas eggs and a lot of the common indicators are up and they're up for very specific reasons gas is up because of international you know efforts to keep get oil prices high eggs are hot we're high they're coming down now but they were high due to bird flu issues right um those are very specific points of problems that don't necessarily impact the broader economy significantly.

[46:59] Um but yeah we have to figure out you know how do we survive as a very much a luxury item, in a situation where people are already dealing with heartburn over inflation and i think one of the ways is what we're talking about is this is not the year to raise your prices yeah i advise against it wholeheartedly um especially given like we said that the haunt industry has consistently raises prices way faster than inflation yeah yeah it's it's pretty incredible to look at the spreadsheet that we have yeah and then see that basically you know it went up at like 2x the pace of inflation for about 20 years now is not the time to play that game guys no keep um you know Keep your prices where you are, if you can at all. Please do try to do that and market the hell out of it and be the antacid to the inflation heartburn. Be the Tums.

[48:04] It would be awesome if, like, a bunch of haunts got together. So a place like Chicago. Yeah. And I'm just thinking about there because we were talking about it earlier today. That has a lot of haunts to do, like, a locals night with half discounts.

[48:19] Go to as many as you want for half the price. And, you know, get a network of haunts working together on it. Like the museums do here. Yeah. And, you know, like, we've seen the haunts here. we're together with the haunted house vip yeah yeah and we learned that um even some of the big festivals here like jazz fest has a locals day where it's half off or 50 bucks it's like a third two-thirds yeah i think it might even be a quarter yeah i think it's two-thirds because i think it's 150 and it was 50 it's somewhere between 100 and 200 dollars yeah um it's a really expensive ticket and $50 is a fucking steal for what they normally don't know. And now that we know that, we may look at it next year. I don't know. I don't know. I'm still not a festival guy. Yeah, well... I've got all that social anxiety to get over, too. It's not just a money thing. Yeah, I know. Okay, well... Anyway. On that note, everyone, I think that's it for this episode. How do you think this season's going to go? Which episode do you think we're going to look back on and say that was the one they called it? Hopefully this one please be this one yeah but on that note please do check us out and follow us at all places we exist we're at hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly until next time i'm jonathan i'm crystal and we'll see you all next week.