Haunted House business a volatile subindustry

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

In the business of haunted attractions, it isn't just the visitors who have to expect the unexpected. Three decades after the haunted house industry established itself, the business is seeing some dramatic changes. The charity haunts pioneered by the Jaycees and other groups with homemade effects are out. For-profit, big-budget haunts stocked with digital effects and animatronics are in.

Read more from AP via The Sun-Sentinel.

This is my kind of theme park article- thanks.

Cool article. During the summer, my friends and I used to wait for our parents to go to work and would quickly set up a haunted house in one of the apartments. We had a lot of fun...but it all came to an end one afternoon when my Buddy's Dad decided to come home for lunch. You should have seen the look on his face. ;)

Great article. Love it, I myself have been a part of a local haunted house in the Western New York area for the past 7 years, started as a volunteer, now I help build and design our house's. I'm a halloween junkie so much i believe i have the best of both worlds being a coaster fanatic and a halloween buff. Just last friday at CP's Coastermania, late in the evening i went to visit Ghostly Manor not to far from the park, untill last summer i had no idea the place exsisted let alone it be open during the summer, which you don't see to often.That made the trip even more fun for myself. I wish there were more articles like these every once and a while.

Well, I guess the Clifton Hill area in Niagara Falls, Ont was ahead of its time...

That place used to have 7 haunted houses in a strip of less than a half mile. Now it's down to 5, but three have remained because it's been a profitable business (obviously due to the tourists & location). The other two remaining have also been main-stays.

I don't see lines wrapped around the corner, or even a big crowd gathered... but obviously they're making a profit somewhere otherwise they'd shut down. It's a good business to have, and sometimes the scary attractions are just as fun during the summer months as they are during halloween.

Way back as teens, several friends and I worked a local haunted maze. The pay was almost nothing but we would have done it for nothing since it was so much fun.

Another year we set up a haunted house in the (tall) crawlspace of a friend's house and let trick or treaters go through. Looking back it was pretty dangerous and stupid, but people weren't as sue happy 25 years ago.

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