[0:19] Haunt Weekly, episode 491. Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the Autodrack Entertainment community. 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, still trying to figure out what the hell day you're releasing. So, yeah, just assume for the next little bit, it'll be one day, once a week. Who knows what day? It's a mystery, Shaggy. But on that note, please do check out more Haunt Weekly. We're at HauntWeekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Facebook, YouTube.com, slash Haunt Weekly, and wherever you get your podcasts from. So this week, we come to you to ask a question. This, the week of July 4th in these United States. It is, still, technically, the week of, I believe. Yeah, yeah, we've got like two more days. Still the week of. All right. Here, shut up, work with me. We're asking the most American of questions. Why are haunts so bloody American? And I say that with a British euphemism, and I have no idea why.

[1:30] Just to completely shoot my point right in the foot. But yes, indeed, we're doing that in a lot more.

[1:38] Right, so let's see. Work we did for the haunt. We bought our first skelly. And other haunt-related acquisitions. At Home has their stuff out. And you made two trips. Yeah. You went once with our friend and did not take me. And that's okay. You're allowed to do things without me. You were invited. I was invited. I didn't want to go. I admit it. I was playing a mediocre video game.

[2:10] Which is the best way I can describe it in this particular juncture. But I saw something, and it was a black skull planter that I'm like, I need that, but I don't know if I want to spend that money on it. So then I slipped on it and woke up and said, yep, I need that. Well, and here's the funny thing. I used to joke I'd go with you on these trips so I can be the person to go, do you really need it?

[2:35] And, you know, like check the spending and the buying and whatever. And the truth of the matter is we went back i went back with you the next day and you spent like way more with me yeah yeah you spent like three times more when i was there than, when i when i was not yeah and then both to be fair to be fair um it also uh we bought something that our your friend you took with one of our one of our haunt actors too we're yes three people's also wanted after the fact so yes she saw it she decided she wanted it and then she decided she couldn't afford it and then she needed it you know kind of exactly what happened with the planter yeah but the planter is gonna be a skull with carnivorous plants in it i'm making a bog yeah it's gonna be cool it will be cool genuinely but yes we did that we did some acquisitions and we've been doing act other actor contact so this counts as actor contact and actor management for us and we're doing other actor contacts well so we've got a lot of things going on but right now we're in this heat dome and so actual work is not looking likely for a minute well we will see we will see we have things we want and need to do but.

[3:59] It is difficult right now. But on that note, every week we ask a question a week. Last week we asked you, if you ever left a haunt, why did you do it? And y'all had some stories.

[4:12] Tim Fowler said, I left Six Flags due to the lack of flexibility in the schedule. They had me showing up at 5.30 for 8 opening. Costume was a robe and a mask, no makeup, which kind of sucks. I ended up sitting around for two hours, asked if I could come in a little bit later. because, you know, just the basic. Yeah. And they said no, so I quit. Yeah, this is stupid for two reasons. For Six Flags, not Tim. Yeah. For Six Flags, I should clarify. This is stupid for them for two reasons. One, they are paying you two hours to sit on your ass and do nothing. Yep. The other reason, and this is just a universal truth of haunted attractions everywhere, I don't care how many actors you have, I don't care how big your makeup costume prep space is, there is never enough room in that space. You could have a fucking airplane hangar and four actors, and somehow they would get in each other's way trying to do costume and makeup. I do not know how that works, but it is a universal truth of every haunt I've been involved with in any way. So, yeah, they're also having to get in other motherfuckers' ways that have, I don't know, actual costumes to put on.

[5:27] So it's dumb both directions and that just that's frustrating to me that breaks my heart because yeah they could save money and get you out of the fucking way is what I heard and you offered and they said no.

[5:43] I got nothing. All right, Kevin Hopkins and me and a buddy left a local established haunt after a few years as two of the three creative and build directors when I realized they had zero interest in developing and growing the haunt. They had planned ticket sales, and that's all that mattered, even though there was much more potential to transform into a great show. That, along with the staffing situation being a bit shady and unreliable, we decided to do our own thing and are going into year seven.

[6:11] Congrats on getting out. Hey, congrats on getting out going to year seven. And this is like one of those things we've seen where like the people who view haunting solely as a business and view it solely as an art really struggle to work together. Yeah, they do. I don't think I don't think I don't think one. Yeah. I don't think either side of this is bad. No, necessarily. Because there is something to be said for steady ticket sales and having a good enough show and making it a reliable business. There is definitely something to be said for that. But there's also something to be said for, hey, we can improve. We can do this. We can do that. And making it grow and change and evolve. And those two things just aren't compatible sometimes. It's not. And, you know, it's also making people feel valued. Yeah. You know, it adds a lot of value if your bosses listen to you and your ideas. Yeah. So, you know. Yeah, and is willing to invest in the vision, so to speak.

[7:14] Victor Ruella says, it was a charity haunt. They did not save any money for the next year's build. A lot of people that did really want to listen to an outsider's ideas. And above all, a lot of safety issues. Yeah, you could have stopped at safety issues. You didn't need any other reason. Everything else is just cherries. I would not stay at a haunt with serious safety issues. I mean, all haunts, almost all haunts at least, have some safety issues. It's just kind of a part of the build.

[7:49] But there are haunts that take those issues seriously and try to resolve them. And there are haunts that do not. Like, like, when we worked out, they had accidentally put nails into an actor area. Yeah. That ended up. Now, that was an accidental oversight on their part. Yes. It's not that they built sloppy. It's not that they had any issues. It was just totally they misfired some nails and it went into an actor's area. At a very unfortunate location. Yeah. When notified, they fixed that shit immediately on the spot in front of the actor it impacted. Yeah. That's the attitude you want to see. Mm-hmm. All right. Jerry Ferasio says, As a co-worker, co-equal to all the other volunteer designers in the haunt, I left and took makeup supplies, which were mine, when I spent hours on the most popular room in the haunt, only to come back and find that a couple other haunters had gutted my room because they were quote-unquote bored with it i pointed the fact that they saw it multiple times per night but our visitors didn't it was an elaborate spider drop down in which the spiders dropped from the ceiling at random intervals through a complex pulley system after having my hard work um and ingenuity and ingenuity shown disrespect i bailed.

[9:05] Yeah, that is something you have to think about. And they tried to get him back for five more years. But yeah, that's totally true is that, you know, you're going to, you working in a haunt are going to see it multiple times. And that is one of the things that we had to learn. Because we would get frustrated with, oh, yeah, you know, because you have to find that balance. Yeah. Because we would get told, oh, yeah, you know. well okay when we very first started we redid everything every year yeah tore it down to the studs rebuild every year we were insane it fucking nearly killed us and so we said okay you know maybe these people come by two to three times in a year um maybe we can keep the walls and just redecorate and so we did that and then we ended up redecorating everything which was a lot less work mercifully yes that's why we talk about it so much is because we've done the whole rebuild from the ground up and try new things and you know just redecorating even with changing the light yeah and what we ended up doing was we made a rule at first it was like we change it every other year but even that was not necessary no we started changing it because and that's the other problem is we've optimized so heavily now yeah i don't.

[10:34] Know what we can do the yeah there's only one other change that i think that we could do and that would take a lot of work and it's not happening this year no it's not well we knew it wasn't happening this year this is only the second year with this layout yeah we did the full gut and rebuild or the mostly gut and rebuild last year that one ended up only being like a 70 gut and rebuild but yeah i get that anyways all right ferrell lucevich said safety issues osha violations didn't back up security when it was needed sexual harassment stole my build book and claimed the designs were theirs Were you at Field of Screams? No, no, it isn't. We know Farrell, they're an actor for us. We know, I think I know who this is. I ain't Sam. Because they did not, and so I will not. Yeah, and it was not. And Pete Blackwell says, the season ended. And then I came back for 12 more years. Thanks, Pete. Always nice to have the levity of Pete Blackwell.

[11:40] This week's question of the week. how can we grow haunting globally i mean because we're going to talk about haunting is still this type of haunting is still very much a uh thing in the united states how do we make it more international let us know hauntweekly.com hauntweekly and facebook youtube.com slash hauntweekly and wherever you get your podcast from all right.

[12:05] So, the topic this week is going to get some controversy, because I'm asking, we're asking why, I'm asking, I wrote the notes, but we're asking, why are haunts so American? But to answer that, we have to, A, understand, you know, we have to ask ourselves, what is a haunted house? Yeah, just get the basics down. Yeah, and B, we have to be very clear that fear-based amusement attractions are everywhere. That is not particularly unique to any country yeah um like you know you could argue for example that a roller coaster or a fun house is a fear-based attraction and in many ways they are and in fact a lot of fun houses cross that line into being maybe a haunted house maybe not i don't know man i don't write all the rules yeah and i think that the dark rides even the traveling ones do constitute more of a haunted attraction. Yeah. But it's still not... Quite what we're talking about? Yeah. Because we love our dark rides. This is not a knock. No. But a dark ride and a haunted house, to me, are two fundamentally different things. Is a hayride just a dark ride that's outside? I think the difference is the actors. Yeah.

[13:22] Because you can interact more. Yeah. But then again, a dark ride with actors... Gah! Yeah. Okay, we admit it, this shit is complicated, and we don't have the answers. All right, look, I looked up the Wikipedia definition of haunted house. It didn't fucking help, man. It just made things worse. So we're trying to work with a very small niche within what could be considered a haunted house for the purpose of this. Yeah. It's a walkthrough or guided, it's a walkthrough attraction that is either guided or self-guided.

[13:59] If you got any of those JC-style guided haunted houses with scenes floating out there, we're counting you, all five of you, they're still out there.

[14:10] Purpose built, even if it's temporary, meaning this is what it's meant to do, features live actors. And I do think the live actor bit is important for this conversation. Yes, and those live actors are going to attempt to scare the customers. And they are going to be aided with theming and acting and lighting and special effects of all types and it's going to be horror based now what is horror based i don't fucking know that's a whole separate conversation because some people i mean like you go into the clown haunt and you know and and people are if you've got chlorophobia well i i don't know i was i was actually just thinking about like the giant dolls in squid game yeah like those things are creepy oh yeah no those are very unsettling i'll agree with that yeah if you had a haunt that was nothing but like sunshine and rainbows but there's just something off like yeah a different type of horror yeah i bet then again you know what is horror there are so many types of horror yeah we're not getting into that we've already got enough that we've bitten off we've already we've already We've already taken on way too much with this topic. It's one of the reasons we're late, or whatever late is. I don't even know. But, yes.

[15:28] We're not late because it's still the week. Yes. But, anyways, this is a type of attraction that, though it has been getting more attention outside of North America, has been really struggling to find its footing.

[15:43] Now, I do want to say, I know we have an abnormally high number of Canadian listeners. We hear you. We see you. We know that you exist, but we still want to ask the question, why did the haunt industry start in America? And other than a few notable beachheads and the jumps across the northern border, has it really struggled to find much success outside of the United States? And the first answer to that question is because it's a fucking lie. I am lying to you. Haunted attractions did not actually start in the United States. The very first one was known as Orton and Spooner's Ghost House in Liphook, England, which is like the most British sentence ever said. Orton and Spooner Ghost House in Liphook, England. Yes, and it started in 1915. Yes, and you can actually, as I said, it was totally powered by steam. It was a steam-powered haunt, which, A, if you're looking for a band name, don't use that one. It's too close to steam-powered giraffe. but it's still cool, But you can actually still see it at the Holycombe Steam Collection, so that's kind of cool. If we ever get in the area, we'll have to go check it out. Definitely. That is exactly what I thought whenever I read that note.

[17:07] But other haunt-adjacent attractions, like wax museums, which were famous for their horror rooms, also were everywhere, started in Europe. They were also popular in the U.S., but they were primarily launched in the continent of Europe. But still, when we look around in 2025, haunting, as we know and talk about it, is still predominantly American. Why is that? Well, we've got a bunch of reasons. We've got seven plus, maybe some bonus reasons as we go. And the first, the obvious.

[17:45] Halloween. It all comes down to Halloween. Yeah. Yeah, and this one's difficult to ignore. In the United States, we tie haunted attractions to Halloween. It's all done as part of Halloween season. It is. Now, there are some big name year-round haunted houses that are just getting started this year. So this may change. This episode may be moot in a few years. But we will see. This part of it is special. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But other countries do celebrate fall festival seasons. Yeah, if you take Halloween back to its super roots of being a fall harvest festival, which is where all of this seems to come from.

[18:34] You've got Samhain in Celtic and Gaelic tradition. Mexico's Day of the Dead in certain regions of Mexico. All Saints Day in anywhere that's Catholic. Yeah. Which makes it very interesting in New Orleans sometimes it does well and I think we did a history of Halloween which talked about how it got started here yeah you know it was basically, throw parties and do Halloween related stuff some of it's still tradition today, to calm the hooligans hitting the streets yeah well and the thing is In the United States, there's this very bizarre tradition of counter-programming cow-tethicalities. Because Mardi Gras is a counter-program to Ash Wednesday. Yeah.

[19:28] It's like, oh, we're going to do all our partying and drinking and then go hungover for the actual Wednesday celebrations. Yeah. But there was, I don't know, there was issues with vandalism and stuff done by teens. And yeah. And they wanted to stop that, so they started hosting parties and events. Giving people things to do. Yeah. Which is so practical. You feel like we're too stupid of a country to figure that out today. Okay, so that was back then. Yeah. When they were still figuring things out. Yeah, they figured it out. That's the thing. They were figuring things out. We have stopped figuring. We just gave up on the figuring.

[20:15] But yeah, these are all connected. They have some same origins, but they're not the same.

[20:19] But basically, Halloween is unique in that it's a fall festival holiday that is meant to be frivolous. It's meant to celebrate the spooky um it's meant to be about fun and candy and partying and you know and all those wonderful things it's it's a celebrated day largely outside of the wackos who hate it well yeah because in the u.s it is not um tied to religion not really um and then you know you've got and even though it celebrates horror and death and spooky things it's not actually really about death it's no you know it's about having fun being scared and enjoying the holiday and but the thing is like halloween just isn't a thing outside the united states and parts of canada yeah i mean we went to england and try to talk to people about halloween they had no idea what we're on about nope it looks like we had turds hanging out of our mouths i mean i mean they knew it from like american media so they knew it through proxy but none of them had ever trick-or-treated and this was um probably 15 years ago yeah 15 years ago yeah yeah so it may have changed and it may have changed but not to the extent that we're talking about yeah i mean and in places where it has sort of come up they've oftentimes pushed back against the japan as we talked about previously.

[21:47] Actively tried to ban it, several cities in Japan.

[21:50] Because of that hooliganism we're back in. Yeah. Yeah, rowdy people taking to trains, I think. Yeah, it was the subway. Yeah.

[22:04] Because they got drunk. Yeah, they got drunk and they were partying and riding the train in costume. Yeah, and causing trouble. And, you know, the solution for that that they came up with was to stop selling alcohol the day before. But they announced it. Yeah, which that's never a good move.

[22:28] But yeah, so. But I'm pretty sure there would have been riots if they hadn't announced it and people had gone to get their alcohol and not able to get it. I think that would have been way worse. You're not wrong. But yeah, but Halloween is the second most popular decoration holiday in the United States right behind Christmas. Yep. It's a huge deal here and it just isn't elsewhere. So I think that is probably the primary number one reason. But it doesn't mean we're not going to give other reasons.

[22:58] Number two, the traditional haunted house business system or structure really doesn't make any sense. No. Because right now in the United States, you can get a ticket to a haunted house for about $25 or so, we'll say, and go see a haunt filled with dozens of actors set up at great expense and care with fans lighting effects and stuff and thousands of dollars put into that. And it's just insane. It's not a real business model. No. It doesn't make any sense at all. No, especially. So there are very few haunts that are able to pull it off and make their money like the owners make their money. yeah like full time off of the heart alone, And that's because this business model is honestly batshit insane, and we just need to accept that.

[23:55] If you go to a year-round, a most year-round haunts, you'll find that they go kind of the opposite route. They focus on their setup, but they only have one or two people working there. Yeah. They minimize the number of people actually working at the scenario. You in fact everything about it is efficiency in creating that customer direction like i'm remembering uh when uh Leonard Pickle talked about the haunt he did at Myrtle Beach which is basically just a giant horseshoe where he would literally take the ticket go inside run up and down the center part of the horseshoe scaring people yeah and then come back and do the next ticket and that's basically what the kid in Galveston was doing too yeah the one we went to there um yeah Yeah, and also the Ripley's, believe it or not, haunt we went to in San Antonio. Yeah. And similar. You basically get one or two very hardworking people, admittedly, running around like mad bastards trying to scare people in every room. And, yeah, that's a much more sensible business model in that, yeah, now you're only paying for one or two employees rather than this veritable army of actors. Yeah. Well, and the other thing is, is that a lot of those don't change as much as ones that are only open during the October season. Yeah, they typically target tourists who were only ever going to see it once. Exactly.

[25:24] So talk about getting tired of the actors getting tired of seeing the same scenes every day. Yeah. Like, it nearly, it broke me to have to look at our haunt for three years. Yeah, when we were shut down because of the road and then COVID. Yes. Because three years was too much to see the same shit well and it was funny because we were the only ones seeing it well no it was just funny because i remember when we were finally able to open uh-huh we were so sick of it we just said we're not doing the planned improvements it's a functional haunt yeah let's just get through the season and we're ripping this shit out doing something else that's what we did and that's exactly what we did oh man but yeah basically Essentially, since haunts are tied to Halloween, I mean there's that limited time period, you can compress the crowd. For example, if you know of 100,000 people that are coming to your haunt, and you have them come over 20 nights, that's 5,000 people a night, you can pay a decent amount of people to scare them for just those nights, right? But if you spread them out over, we'll say, 100 nights, now you're down to 1,000 people per night.

[26:38] That's not a very viable business model with a large actor paying a lot of actors. And so since most places don't know what Halloween is and you would need that year-round income, you're going to have to find ways to make haunts work with a lot fewer actors. That's basically what it comes down to.

[26:59] So yeah, the big crowds make it possible. And honestly, that's kind of cool, but it's also going to be a roadblock to expansion. Now, of course, there's always the exception that proves the rule. Spookers in New Zealand. Granted, they're open two nights per week. That's still over 100 nights per year. And they seem to be doing pretty well. Yeah. So someone's got to come along and piss in my lemonade on this. But I'm happy that they did. Yeah.

[27:29] All right. Number three. oh the mouse disney um the haunted attractions were around before disney the popularity of them really took off whenever disney opened the haunted mansion or disneyland in 1969 yeah um and not scary farm actually opened four years later yeah and we see this uptake right around that time including jc haunts now the obvious question is was disney seeing the trend and jumping on it or did disney help create the trend i think it's a little bit of both a little bit of a little bit of call me i think because there had been haunted attractions before as we said in particular charity ones and smaller ones but i think but i mean it's hard to understate it's hard to overstate rather the cultural importance of disney in the united states of america yeah It really and truly is, especially if you go from 2020 to 1920, that 100-year span there. Disney was so influential to American culture during that time.

[28:38] And one of the things that they really did was normalize the haunted attraction by bringing one as a cornerstone, you know, ride at their flagship theme park. Yeah. Family friendly. Everybody can come. Yeah. And even though it's filled with ghosts and frights, it's obviously with that, you don't have the actors outside of the ones who let you in and on the ride and all that. But everything is done through special effects. So much peppers ghost yeah and if you want a really quick answer to the question of the week this is it yeah because disney's been expanding over the past decade or so they've been opening up things yeah like disneyland paris japan etc they've been exactly really moving so yeah and you know what else i've been seeing more haunts open up around the world that's true so maybe Disney is expanding the haunt industry for us. I don't know if Disney still has the cultural cachet that it had back in 69. Especially in other countries.

[29:47] But yeah, this type, and honestly, you could say this, not just about Disney, but by Universal and other big money property, you know what I mean? Who are doing these things. Yeah. So, yeah, Disney normalized the haunted attraction through the Haunted Mansion, and I'm still pissed off that those bastards closed Alien Encounter, though. I'm still very cheesed off about that. I mean, I'm never going to forgive Disney for being a little bitch about that and saying it was too scary. Of course it was too scary. That was the fucking point. Sorry. Yeah, that was the claim. We all know why they really closed. No, they wanted something with the Lilo and Stitch property, and that was just the easiest conversion. Oh, I thought it was because of the problematic actor that was part of the scene. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah.

[30:43] Yeah, I thought that was part of it. And I threw such a temper tantrum, my watch just asked me if I fell. No, watch, I'm just pissed off about alien encounters. Yes. Put that in your database, Apple. Yeah, even though we're not. We're both seated quite firmly right now. Yes, and we're not on camera. You're still very animated. And I don't know how else to be. Exactly.

[31:08] All right. Reason number four, the idea of personal space and relative comfort with crowds. Yeah. This blew my mind when I looked this up. I really thought this would go the other direction. I really did not. This was not what I expected. This is bizarre. But anyways, in the United States and Canada, we are mathematically more culturally comfortable with being close to strangers than most countries. I know. I thought it was the opposite, too.

[31:38] Though the differences are minor they have particularly can have some pretty big impacts in the united states we are typically comfortable with a stranger being about 90 centimeters away that's we'll say three feet it's roughly three-ish feet um in hungary that number jumps to 125 so you're getting damn near four feet yeah now that may not seem like a huge amount and it isn't but it speaks to the comfort in general of being in crowds and in tight situations with people you don't know which guess what that sounds like a haunted house to me yeah it does you're going to be assholes and elbows with people you've never met before both and by that i mean both the other customers and the actors because one of the things that we act we always say we advise actors to do is invade the personal space which by the way I'm going to carry around a 90 centimeter ruler every time I go through a haunt now. Get in within this, assholes. Come on, do it.

[32:40] You are not. No, I will not. But we could train ourselves to know what that is. Yeah, just like we train ourselves to know three feet. Yeah. But, yeah, I found this really interesting that other countries, even though the reputation of the United States is that we don't like having people close, it's really quite the opposite when the studies are done. And it blew my mind to find this one out. But, yeah, it does speak to why Americans might be a little more willing to get inside a haunted attraction, not to mention the part where they're standing in line before it.

[33:18] So, yeah, I thought that I thought that one was really, really interesting. It is. And it's not it's not an angle on it that I considered. No. Until I saw it in here. And I'd always heard people say the opposite, that foreigners have no concept, quote, quote, foreigners, foreigner demand, has no concept of personal space. And like, oh, I went to France and people were all up in my business. No, mathematically, the French want more space than we do. Yeah.

[33:46] Yeah, I had always kind of gotten that. Yeah, we are just more, I mean, it's like, it's kind of wild because we're. This is why they had to teach us stranger danger, Jonathan. Because we were always within we were willing to get within arms reach like idiots yes well and it's weird because they do the studies about the difference between some a close friend or a relationship partner yeah um a colleague someone you know and a perfect stranger and it's like everyone is like really cool with their close relationships being closed yeah like that the difference is almost non-existent right everyone's like you know right up on yeah um colleague you get a bit more different than with strangers it's like it's like whoa okay we have disagreements on this yeah so like casual friends and intimate friends everybody wants fairly close but the rest of the world is undecided on how far away strangers should be and apparently in the united states we've decided we're pretty cool with them being close i do not i struggle to believe that, but I checked three different studies, and the numbers I gave were more or less an average, but still, I mean, yeah, I checked three different studies to confirm this, because I thought it had to be wrong. I was blown away by this one. I was going to use this as a point against, as like a counterpoint, and then I just got that.

[35:14] Next item. Right. Emotional comfort. Yay. Yeah, this is another weird one to get into. This is another one I did not believe initially. Yeah.

[35:25] So a 2012 study said that the United States and Canada are literally the most emotional countries in the world. Uno and dos. One and two. Mm-hmm. Literally. We're comfortable with our emotions and more comfortable expressing them.

[35:43] Including and especially in public yeah um i can see i can see that i think about it it does make a lot more sense i've seen lots of fights and arguments and on the other side happiness and stuff too but yeah but basically um in like europe and asia people tend to be more reserved they don't like being outwardly emotional and so the idea of being in an environment that is going to try to make them scream in fear makes them want to scream in fear yeah just not in front of people yeah yeah basically other countries as you um travel you know especially like i said europe um especially asia africa and parts of like uh eastern europe very reserved very uncomfortable with displays of emotion, uncomfortable with being emotional. Yeah. And, like, obviously there are some people in the U.S. And Canada who don't fit the mold of being comfortable. Oh, yeah, this is all just an average. Yeah. And an average that hides the breadth of all these societies. Yeah, but it is a cultural norm. Yeah. I think that we see it, like, magnified being in a city that is so cool with drunks being in public because drunks do not know how to keep their emotions inside.

[37:12] Or mostly anything else. Including bodily fluids of all various types and viscosities. Exactly. But yeah.

[37:23] But, yeah, people, but if you're in a place that is not culturally comfortable with being seen screaming in fear or being afraid or having any kind of strong emotional response, a haunted house is not going to have a lot of appeal.

[37:38] So, I just, yeah, interesting. It is. Number six, as we get down to our last few, the drinking age. I had not thought about this one until I was working on this. In the United States, the drinking age is 21, and we are one of the very, very few countries that is true. Yeah. In most countries, it is either 19 or 18, and some skew even younger. But then, obviously, we're only listing places where alcohol is legal. I'm not counting my country. Yeah, well, I do remember a time that it was legal in Louisiana at 18. Yeah. Like, so it's changed in my lifetime. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Where it's gone 21 across the board. Well, yeah, because I remember that. It was because Louisiana held out longer than everyone else. Yeah, I wonder why. Yeah, because we're Louisiana.

[38:31] But Louisiana held on to everyone else, and it was until they threatened to take away, I think, highway funding or something. Yeah, exactly. Louisiana finally closed the loopholes and everything. But, yeah, the rest of the world, like I said, it's 19 or younger, and that may not seem like a huge deal, but if you're a u.s haunt that means you're not legally at least competing against bars and pubs for much of our target audience yeah i mean those 1920 and you know and and 18 19 20 year olds that aren't legal to drink right now um they can't just well theoretically i'm not saying they don't many of them obviously do but they can't legally rock up to a pub and get a drink and hang out with their friends playing pool or whatever. So they might choose to go to a haunted house or something instead. Just to have something legal to do with their friends.

[39:27] And that was very interesting because, like I said, when the haunt industry targets teens to early 20s, this means a core part of the audience can't drink here that would be able to drink in other countries. And also in the United States, there's a lot of wonkiness, and it varies from state to state and even county to county, whether minors are allowed in bars. Yeah. In Louisiana, we have the stupidest rules in history about this. Yeah. Because minors are allowed in bars as long as there isn't video poker machines accessible to them. Yeah. If they can't see the blinking lights, they're fine. Ooh, money, Nintendo. Yeah. I don't know how that's supposed to work. Yeah, but in the U.S., it's also, you know, if you think about it, But you stop trick or treating probably around.

[40:19] 10, 11, something like that, which is around the time people start thinking about going to haunted houses and start wanting to be scared because they're transitioning out of being a kid that goes trick-or-treating into the young adult phase of Halloween, if they're still into Halloween, which is going to get scared, and then you go to the adult parties, afterwards after you hit 21. Yeah, normal people, none of you, don't worry, none of this applies to you. Um, yeah, like you said, they start out Halloween is first. It's probably actually not even trick-or-treating when you're super young. You might be hanging out with mom at home and too young to be like you're a toddler or whatever. Yeah, I have no idea. Yeah, I don't remember this either. I don't know. I don't know what they do now, especially. But then you get into the trick-or-treat or God help us trunk-or-treat phase. Well, and that was something that changed too, because I remember having to go trick-or-treating at the fucking mall. I forgot about trick-or-treating at the mall. Yeah. Scare the preppies at the gap. If you know that reference, you're our new friend.

[41:31] But, no, it's, but, yeah, you're right. And then these transition, and, like, there's nothing there, really, other than haunted houses, obviously. There's not much there between when you age out of trick-or-treating and when you're ready to go to bars and frat parties and adult Halloween parties. And in the united states that latter phase starts later at least legally so there's a bigger window there for haunts to kind of capitalize on exactly okay, Number seven, our last potential reason for the day. I'm sure there are many,

[42:04] many others we didn't cover. But this is another one we can back up with research.

[42:10] Yeah. In 2009, a study said that the U.S. has one of the largest friend group sizes on average. I called bullshit on this one, too. Okay. That's because we weren't popular. Oh, we never had a friend group. That's the idea. Exactly. Like, you're going to be able to go and visit more friends, possibly, soon, in another state. Yeah, in another state and city, yeah. Yeah, then you are here. Yeah, but according to the study, the average U.S. per citizen has 11 friends. Yeah. Compare that to Hungary, where the number is five. Mm-hmm. So, if you're all friends and you want to do something, you're too old to trick-or-treat, and you're not old enough to drink, what are you going to do? Yeah, and even if you are old enough to drink, you know, this is a situation where, I mean, haunting, going to a haunted house is a group activity. Yeah, also working in a haunted house can also be a group activity. And so to participate in a group activity, you need, checks, notes, a group. Yep. And in the United States, there's just bigger groups. I was shocked to find this. I really thought that we were going to have a tiny friend group. So I wonder if.

[43:29] If haunts could capitalize this by doing friend promotions like i know we've talked about bring a friend promotions before but friend group promotions yeah everybody gets a little bit off because if you're getting 11 people instead of one or two that seems like a good thing well yeah and one of the things about like with haunts it's always been interesting because you know for like one through like 10 people everyone has to pay individually yeah you know but at 10 oh that's when the group race starts well like you said what if i want to bring me and my four best friends yeah what if i bring a group of four yeah i think that there should be a family rate because groups of four would fit comfortably in that yeah and i think that's what the um like the the zoo here and the aquarium you know because we have to pay for those things we're not st louis um yeah but yeah no i mean i i i've often wondered if there should be an incentive like start your group rate at five people yeah that way if you got a foursome well if you just bring along that one extra person they're functioning nearly free yeah right and that would be kind of cool and that would encourage people to come that maybe wouldn't otherwise.

[44:48] Exactly. Because that's the one thing about those types of promotions is ideally you're reaching individuals who would not have come at full price or might not have been interested at all. Yeah. And if you find those friend groups that are four or more, then you've also got an escape room team. Yep.

[45:08] Well, I think that's everything. I mean, well, everything we're doing here. What other reasons do you think haunting has remained so resolutely American? And what can we do to spread haunting internationally? Let us know at HauntWeekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Facebook and YouTube.com slash Haunt Weekly. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we'll see you all next week.