2025 Legacy Haunt: The Story of Field of Screams MT

0:08 For twenty six years, Field of Screams Montana has been terrifying and delighting guests, growing from a single corn maze into a full scale haunted attraction. This year, they received the Haunted Attraction Association's Legacy Haunt Award, recognizing over two decades of scares. But what's the story behind this family run haunt that is coming up on today's show. Welcome to the show. I'm Philip and on the Haunt Attraction Network rebring you the news and information you need to prepare for Halloween. This podcast is just one part of what we do. Our best coverage lives in our free weekly newsletter, so check the link in our show notes to stay connected. Today, I'm sitting down with the Kirkland family, the creators of Field of Screams Montana in Victor, Montana.

0:55 From humble beginnings as a seasonal corn maze, this haunt has grown into a regional Halloween stay people featuring terrifying nightime experiences, immersive sets, and family friendly daytime activities. We'll dive into their journey, how they've kept it evolving, and what it means to be recognized as a legacy Haunt. And just a note here. This conversation is mostly unedited, so it's a free flowing discussion that gives you an authentic look at the people behind the scatters. So grab your popcorn or maybe something stronger, and let's get into it. Here we go in three two one. And so we opened up. And when we were opened it was the year of two thousand and it was the huge forest fires and they were sending people from Australia over, I mean just because it was so big and so people when we told them we're going to start a corn maze and they're like, nobody's going to pay any money to walk through a cornfield. And so when we started there was smoke everywhere. We had to wear masks to go outside. And yeah, we opened and nobody really came and it was a little bit of a difficult time. And then I don't know, in October ish beginning of October, we had some people come up and guests and they're like, you should haunt this and we're like.

2:10 What, get some chainsaw guys out there, and we're like, okay, we never really thought about that, but then we did it. We put it together in like four days. Really basic stuff like plastic two by four's I mean super just very inexpensive stuff, low budget of course, and it just took off from there, like we did so well on those those few weeks that were like Okay, we're going to need to do this like every year. Yeah, people were so happy. Yeah, they loved it. I just I think that's interesting because I think the typical story is that the you know, the haunters are the ones that kind of initiate it. I just think it's interesting. It's like it came from feedback you were getting actively, which is good. I mean, that's right. Maybe sometimes haunters like do things that like they're you know, like people don't actually want it. They want it, but you know, the public doesn't necessarily. So I think that's an interesting angle. And I'm wondering how you approached it where you just like, oh, let's just what you know, if someone comes to you and they're like, add a haunted portion to it, and you're not a haunter, did you even know you know, about any of that.

3:21 We had no idea. We don't really even watch many scary movies. Go figure, and yeah, we so I was talking to my sister and her husband really liked Halloween. They loved dressing up. And then he's like, I got a couple ideas and so yes, seriously, in three to four days, there was four of us and we just put things together. In mind you that before this the field was it was like eight acres and it's a it's a maze, and so you can get lost in certain areas, you know, and so we had to set it up in a maze, which is very difficult because if people don't follow the exact path and they skip, which towards the end, there was pathways everywhere. It was a complete disaster. You know.

4:04 People would go in, they'd be out in like five minutes. They're like, oh did you see this? No where was that? Like you know, people were missing everything because there was just like pathways everywhere. And so, you know, a few years later we decided, Okay, we're gonna have to figure this out. It's not working in a maze. Like it's fun and if you follow the rules and follow the path, you're good. But anyway, yeah, it. Was another part of being really scared to like what if we don't make it out. I'm like, oh good, I need props for next year. So thank you. And one thing to add. One thing to add too, is we're doing all of this there's no power on the property. Yes, you know, there's barely a sign out front.

4:45 You know, it says the maids. You know, it's like kind of telling what it is. And so we're operating from like a little tiny, fifteen hundred bought generator that somebody loaned us, you know, just to run a light or two. Yep. So well, yeah, you just think about this. Thing time that things were difficult back in the old days. Yeah, there's no social media. Yeah, we're back. We were like what's going on? You know. So in the beginning, how did people find out about it or how did you? I guess it was word of mouth then, I mean you started doing spooky thing in the corn maze and people loved it so much because of the authenticity. It sounds like it so like you could literally get lost in this place and it was dark because you know.

5:28 There was no light. There's no lights. I mean it's always that's always a thing because corn mazes don't have power. I mean that's so it's you know, it's always an issue. But do you think that's what happened? It was like word of mouth that just kind of extended it. It was huge word of mouth. Yeah, and luckily we were on the highway, the main highway. There's only one highway going like to Missoula Highway ninety three. So luckily people would see the sign and then they start asking their neighbors what's that, what does that mean? And they could see corn growing and believe it or not, there wasn't corn growing in the valley at all, Like people didn't grow corn. I had farmers say, oh, you can't grow corn in this area, like, well, we're going to try.

6:11 So that was kind of a new thing now and I, believe it or not, now there's a lot of corn everywhere. So you're experimenting with Halloween. It's a new thing to add scares to this. So then where did you go from there? You start out with just the corn, Okay. So and this was still two thousand and one was first spooky, No. Two thousand That same year we actually in that same first year beginning being evacuated with the fires and the whole traumatic everything. Yeah, first year and made it haunted. Okay, So then where do we go from there? Which is still this is all still pre like social media is still there's a different world. Cell Phones were like barely a thing. It was a hole. Yeah, you really could just get lost in.

6:55 The Yeah, it was people did get lost. We had corn cops that were trying to find them, you know, find people. They're like, wait, they've been out there for a while, are they Okay? I don't know. We'll go find out. And I think starting it, getting more into it, we started to you know, research in libraries. Yea, oh my god, that's right. Yeah, because there wasn't like YouTube. I mean, there wasn't like how did you find out? Even how to? Yeah, that's that. There was no internet back then. And so we finally found magazines that were haunted magazines. We read those, and people made books block I think I read a book by Leonard Pickele or I don't know somebody and how to haunt and so it was a lot of things like that, like okay, how do we do this, and trying to get contacted with other people and you know, what do you do?

7:47 Yeah, you know, so what walk me through the first few years of the evolution? So you yes, we started we started there. We had this first experiment. You know, it's going to work so now what do you do? Yeah, so we were actually excited because it was such a big people just are yeah, and so yeah, just a lot of studying and researching, and so then the next year we started obviously a lot earlier, not as early as we do now, but we did start a lot earlier and just started, you know, actually building because we are builders. I mean, in Montana to survive you have to have like two or three jobs, and so really just building and just understanding and learning from actually the guests also what they wanted.

8:36 And we discovered Morris costumes, the big thick to which Sears catalog. Yeah, you know, that was an eye open and we're like, cool, we can get masks now. And their whole sale so that was a that was a big one for us too, is seeing and then they even sold stuff from like Scare factory thousands of dollars, which we couldn't afford at the time. Did you have costumes in the first few years? I mean what it did, I mean as a corn maze, right, see, necessarily it was just black. It was just a black black capes. That was but yeah, and then yeah, we had lots of black plastic. It works, It worked. For the time. H yeah, for the time. Yeah. So then I guess what, what do you think is your next milestone?

9:17 We actually, well the big one is in two thousand and five, we actually opened a Family Fund center. We added onto it, we actually built some we bought some land just half a mile yeah, just a half mile north, and we built this huge you know, go cart, game room, bumper cars with three haunted attractions. Because now we were like, okay, people know us, boom and we did that. So that was two thousand and five, which bad timing awards because two thousand and six, two thousand and seven boom economy just went. So we had that until two thousand and nine, and then we didn't ever stop because Quinn was still farming, and so we went back to our original filled the screams empty, went back to that and just kept haunting.

10:07 We have never missed a year, even with COVID, moving fires anything like that. We've had it consistent consecutive for this is our twenty sixty year. Yeah. Yeah, wow. So you went to the FC and then kind of back too. Yeah. And when you when you said you had three haunts when you had the FEC, was did you put the haunts at the FC or did you yes, Okay. Yeah, So we were there, like like I said, we had catalogs that had yeah, like classifieds. We found two haunted houses that were actually from Saint Louis and they were in trailer trailers. Yeah, and we got those here out here eventually, and uh we put those together. You know, they didn't have a roof over them, so we had to cover them with tarp, you know, and rain was an issue, of course, and so we did that and people loved it because there was a lot of animatronics in it and yeah, some of that stuff's still floating around.

11:02 Yeah. We got this one and it was just a pitch black maze, I mean totally black, and people would come in and they would go a little ways. They would get so scared they would come back out just crying. And then some people that actually did make it through, they would come out just breathing really heavy, and they thought, oh my gosh, how many employees do you have in there? That was so scary, and I'm like one, Yeah, we had one in this huge like twenty by twenty foot area. And so then we finally took it down because I think I needed to have like some kind of psychologist or somebody at the end because they were so traumatized. It was great. Yeah, the blackout mazes are yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit. I think this is one of the trends that's interesting about it, as we already talked a little bit, is like how the tactics have changed, because you know, blackouts, I think they used to be very popular and used to work, and I'm not sure. I don't know if they still do or not. I don't know. I mean to me, I'm so far removed now so I can't tell, you know, but like the fog outs and all those and then obviously, you know you used to be able to just put an actor in black makeup, but now with you know, cosplay and conventions, you know, people have access to immortal mass just regular people you know that could show up. So have you adapted the tactics or have you not really needed to because of your location and because it's a corn maze and the corn is still like, you know, the central character. I guess in a way we've advanced. Yes, yes, yeah, So tell me

12:34 about that and how and how you kind of over the years and. Actually, okay, so our son Ethan. He's fifteen now and he has. So he only he came in eleven years into it. Yeah. Well actually he was like six. When he's family, he can. He can work and sloked many nights and on the floor. And so it was that after the FEC then that Ethan came in. Okay, yeah, so that you'd already had that whole adventure so well into the Hunthouse space were at that point you were like, this is what we're doing with our lives is yes, this. Is one of the many jobs that we have, is the Yeah. And so Ethan actually with that last question, he just he brought in so much because these young minds are just like really just thinking and they see things differently, and they have all you know, they don't have to go to the library, they have it all on their phone.

13:24 It shapes so much by media too, like how you view the attraction through your screen, through your phone is really changes it the marketing, the awareness. Yeah, yeah, and so he's really brought in a lot like what types of things have you done and brought in. Well, I mean, like you said, with the masks, I've like when we went to trans World in twenty twenty one, my first year, I was like, oh my gosh, look all these silicone masks are amazing. It's like, because we don't do makeup bet our attraction because it's cold and yeah, like everyone around our area knows everybody, so if you're wearing makeup, they're just like, hey, I know you. So we don't make up. But we brought like a mortal masks he effects. It just was amazing. So I brought those types of things and I saved my money. The next year is for trans Road, Like, yeah, I bought all these amazing animatronics from like Hallucinations poison prop scar factory, So I was like buying the bigger stuff for them to make the scary even better.

14:19 So that's what I was doing. Yeah, he was really taking the next step. We're like, well, that's kind of intense and scary. And then when we saw it and the people, I mean seriously, when the jaw drops, I mean that that is what we saw and people were like, this is you guys are doing so awesome. Oh my gosh, and I'm like thank you, Ethan. Yeah. So now I mean where you are now? Can you describe where you are now with the attractions? Obviously, now you're using masks and you're using animatronics, so you fix the power issue at some point for twenty six years. Yeah, so where are you now? Can you paint the picture for us now the current day what your venue looks like?

15:01 Okay, so now it's it went from like four scare actors to like fifty, you know, plus and it's it's plus. You have more on staff of course than that, and that's been a challenge as well. But fifty employees like does not seem like a lot from like all these you know, Saint Louis because they have like two hundred three hundred. But for the area, I think it's a lot. So many employees are yeah for yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. And so with the with that we've taken it to We've been to transforld for quite a few years and we've. We love Transford pretty much. Have everything going on in the trends, and so we're trying to keep up with that and and bring that to Montana and to just show people like even though this is a small operation, it's still we could compete.

15:51 You know. We've been to all the Haunt tours and stuff, bus towards all the time too, and we love them. We think they're great. But you get little tidbits, you get little morsels from these different haunts and then you kind of just go take a little piece of that and a little piece of this, and I'll morph it together and make this for our area. But yeah, going from plastic and just black capes, now getting the really nice masks, the detail and yeah, the costumes are just layers and layers deep with different props, and I mean, and then you know, the different shoes. It's not just oh, wear your white tennis shoes. You know, you're yeah, you're really getting every little detail and going at it. And then you know, doing the eyes and and then just the buildings. The buildings are like getting bigger. Even though we have a corn field, we add all these different spots to make it so you don't have just the corn fields. So we have a lot of that going on.

16:59 Lots of rooms. Yeah, so like there's a ton of so it's a so do you still have daytime activities? Yeah, yeah, and then at nighttime is it it's a linear experience, but you have buildings, so it's broken up by the nature of it, so effectively you're still going through the corn, but you have physical buildings that break up the scenes. Yeah, we actually offer a lot of different types of tractions for pretty much everyone. So we have this scene called Zombie Free Mondays and you know it's only on Mondays, so there's no like actors, but you have the audio, the fog, the lights and all those types of things, and it's at night, so it's with the scaredy guys. So we offer like pretty much everything for everybody that you know, just amazing. Yeah, yeah, because it's unique. Lot of a lot of parents, like people our age, like like, have you been to the Maze you know, I've been to the Corn Maize yet Oh no, no, my kids are grown up. We don't know. It's it's for us, it's for people our age.

17:50 You know, it's for everybody, whether you want to be scared or just walk through. Like we totally recommend the Zombie Free because it's awesome. It's fun to come and see all the props at night. You can actually take your time, yeah yeah, and see all the detail, and. People really like to see all the detail. Big swift sound in every area. I mean we put you should see the audio stuff we have, you know, it's it's all the old what do you call those the receivers, just piles of them in you know, dry areas. Yeah, and it just in subwifers and lights. And then other new things are the sense so you're really going through all the senses. You know, that's a whole new thing that was added. I just love, you know, coming to trans World and the bus tour and being able to talk with haw and and just learning all these little details from everybody is just it is amazing and beautiful.

18:49 And it sounds like So those structures stay up ye around and then you just kind of like move any of the stuff into them to make sure stuff is protected. Right yeah weather, yeah, because yeah, yeah. It's a it's a big it's a big and making sure the guests can still walk on the path and clearing that up. Yes, we change out structures about every five years, Okay, sometimes sooner. This year we're doing a whole nother makeover on it. Yes, we got some new things. We're even adding more power, a whole nother foreigner a service just throughout the whole field. So there's air compressors and stuff everywhere. And it goes through different themes, right, or as in like you know that, like it's it's not all the same theme, Like you're going through like I think there's a mind shaft the clown area. You're going through these different spaces, so you kind of are trying. It's that awkward position I think that you're in because it's like it sounds like maybe this is wrong, but it sounds like you are needing to almost be back to having an fec in a way because the local area is so small. It's like you can't you're not a sound a weird way, but it's like you're not dizzey world, right, So people are not like we're going to fly over from a so you're drawing from where people are reasonably be going to drive from. And so in order to do that, you need to appeal to the mass which is like an fac appealing to the mass market, which is why you need to have adult friendly options, and you need to have multiple themes, you know, as opposed to like we're only going to do like corn stalkers, and so if you only do one thing, it's like, well I don't care about that. So it's like you're trying to incorporate, which is a weird line. I think

20:20 to have to walk because there's many people that say, you know, if you if you're everything, then you're you're you're nothing to someone. You know, if you're everything, then it's too wide of a net basically, But it sounds like it's working because of your legacy and what you have in the local community and because also, I mean it's like the one of the only things in the area. And so daytime, nighttime, multiple themes, and then generations you multiple generations of families coming and bringing their families. Yes, well you wrap that up really well, and that's get good. We're done, all right, and wrap up. Let's go the microphone.

21:00 You know, that's actually really I loved how you put that. Yeah, because we have the daytime and we really want to have families and young kids come, and so we do have you know, Okay, stop here. If you're too scared already, you know, you can exit now. But you've seen a lot of stuff. Or you can take this path and not see any of that and go to our little mini maze. You do the haywagon ride, the pumpkin patch. Yeah, and then we have the the Monday Zombie Free and then but we actually, so people around here, they're like, oh, if you drive far, well, for far from Montana is like, oh, you can drive two hours easy, no problem, that's like bloop a little jaunt, you know. And so but for Montana, you know, you drive five six hours. You're like, okay, So yeah, we have to fool So we get people from you know, Washington, Idaho, like all over in mont Hannah.

22:01 We have actually have people fly in from like New York and New Jersey and Hawaii just because they're all we have heard about you guys, and that just sounds so good. We're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. The only reason I want to harp on it isn't isn't because it's more because I think you hear in the industry. I'm sure you guys have heard this. You hear a lot about you know, there's a lot of people to think that you need to really become you know, the really hone in on one thing, like a coherent theme or a narrative or this or that, or hone in on a specific attraction or a specific thing. And I do generally agree with that, accept in situations like this where like you are, there's so you know, you need in order for it to be viable, you have to pull enormous amount of the market, and there's no way to pull that much of the market if you are just doing a single haunt that is, you know, one theme. It's not going to work because it works in a larger city where you have a lot of built up tourist attractions and you're really you're competing against one hundred other people plus Netflix. So you're like, Okay, let's really we're this niche immersive theater thing and this thing, and you know that makes more sense. But when you're in a market like this, I mean, so I just want That's the only reason I harp on it because I'm like, I think it's important to be like, it's not always the right move. I think it depends on the market that you're in.

23:22 Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, because I know they say you need to have one theme and then next year you can change that theme and it's going to be all zombies, and then it's going to be we just we cannot do that exactly for that and so we have a little bit of just everything. Because again that's the other thing, you guys know, because you go to them, but your customers probably don't go to any other hot houses. Yestly, we're the only on it house in Montana. Like we're the only commercial on it house. When you might see like like shows like in front of houses, We're literally the only haunted house in Montana. It's empty there. Yeah, and that's the thing. Yeah, Like it's like they might be going to disney World or Disneyland or something for their family vacations at some point, right, and they see the haunted mansion, but they're not like gonna they're not necessarily traveling. It's like the problem with being in Chicago is that you know, people are going to Hell'sgate, They're going to all all of the Chicagoland attractions, and then they had that as reference points. Yeah, but your market has like nothing as a reference point except for other FECs. And so in a way, you kind of have to make it seem like that because you're like, oh, it's just like Chuck E Cheese, but there's corn and you know this, you know, use the destination. Yeah, you really have to like, yeah, meet the audience I think where they are in those cases and train them over decades, which is what you guys sounds like you've done.

24:41 Yeah. Yeah. One thing that we picked up on from doing these HONK tours is I think it was a disturbia we went too. Yeah, yeah, that was the name that was escaping me. I was like with the other Chicago Hans, Yeah, that one and other Chicago Hans another one. It's like we showed up there and you know, it's like our first time doing a bus tour, I think, and we got off the bus and they're just music blasting, like, oh yeah, pop music. We're like, yeah, isn't it supposed to be like haunted scary music. You know, it's daytime of course, and and then the music's all mixed up. It's like DJ music I think of a psych jam did it And we're like, this is cool, Like we need to do something like this. This is brand new because we usued to just play kind of haunted music and people just like, uh, you know, when you're waiting a line two hours, it just kind of gets boring.

25:30 And so we did that, you know. We we hired him and he did some mixes for us, and it made it. It made it unique. And then we added the actors. We didn't know anything about entertainers before. We're like, we're not going to waste our actors in the lines, like we need it in the hank, but we added stilts and fancy masks and yeah, our eyes were great. Yeah, it was just like it just till. Yes, yeah, well, your job is to entertain, especially in that case, it's not necessarily to scare people. I think that's yeah, that's that's the big thing is some people come out and say, I wasn't scared. I'm like, that's like if you don't get scared, that spine, Like, our real job is to entertain and that's what people want. And just see that eye candy.

26:12 Yeah, and that has been the big, huge morph from way back when of it's not more of oh my gosh, my heart, I can't even breathe anymore and I peed my pants and it's like you get a little bet of that. But then wow, and the detail and looking around and yeah, just like that was just epic, Like there was so much out there that I need to go through again. Yeah. The one thing I want to touch on because it has come up as a trend over and over, which is staffing. You know, and I know that you mentioned fifty you know, which is a lot for that I can imagine that's a lot for the area it is. How has your approach to staffing change? It sounded like you you almost it seemed like you brought the entertainers that you were like contracted out to. But I don't know if that's true. But like, how do you how do you like manage the staffing? How do you do your retention? Do you have like same people come back?

27:04 And how does all that work for you? Guys? Actually, we had we have so many haunters that have come back for years. I'm talking some of their for fifteen eighteen years already, which is what else? If you like it? What else are you going to? Oh? Yeah, right where else? Also go yeah? And they have been so like valuable and it's great because then you can like feed off of them and go, Okay, what are what are people wanting? What do you want? What do you see? And so that really helps, but yeah, it's hard. We just when we get those people, then we ask them, We're like, hey, you want to bring some of your friends. What kind of friends do you know? And then you ask those friends, hey, how about your friends? Do you know other people that want to come, So it's like friends of friends of friends or family and then you know, just asking around at schools in the drama department because we're we're far enough away from Missoula.

27:58 It's an hour away, so a little bit harder driving at night to drive back home to go to the college and get all those amazing you know people. But we have a few that are totally hardcore, dedicated and they're awesome. And they're careful to come from Azulas. Yeah for haunting, you know, So that one's a tricky one. So it sounds like a lot of like grassroots recruitment, like you're going out and individually approaching places where you think they're going to be, and then you just try and retain them over the years. And i'n't explained to them how how we retain them the voting. Oh yeah, okay, So what we do is the guests. When you guys go through you know, the haunt, and as soon as you come out, we have this huge board it's a dry erase board, and we have all the pictures of all the haunters, just their costumes, just with the mask ye with the masks, so they're all dressed up all looking really cool. And then the guests they they go, we can only allow them to choose one person that they really really like the most, scared them or was just like they were just good, and so then they get it put a tally mark by that haunter. We have another section for like the entertainers, kind of separating them out. And so at the end of the night, all the haunters, all the employees come out.

29:16 They're like, oh my gosh, did I win? And they also have like little tip jar so if they want to give them tips. So let's say they we did forty bucks for that night, then I have eight winners because I give them five bucks each. And so so whoever has the most tally marks, you know, they're one of. The biggest things has. I mean not the biggest of course, but a lot of people go there just to do that. Actually, they love just voting people. Yeah, I went through again and again just to do that. I don't know why, but they just really love it. Yeah, and it's a smaller community, right, So I think that's part of it too, you know. I think it's more like there's more likelihood you might know that person, you know, than it is like when you are just lost in a you know, Los Angeles area where like there's millions of people, you know, yeah, I think random.

30:02 And one thing that we do too is we have the actors keep their position secret, even from their families. They most of them do it. Actually, they do pretty well because we have their families come and they're like which one was he like, They're like, I'm like, I'm not going to tell you. Since it is a small community. It helps too because when the when the kids are going through or adults, they're like, Hi, Jimmy, and like, how did that person know my name? You know, it really works on them a little bit too. Do you have any questions? M h, I mean I can definitely. Because I was just going to enter into the wrap up of the like have planned you know, the whole.

30:50 Are there any trends you see that you you know, I don't think applying to you because of your specific you know, haunts and where you're situated. So basically, are there any trends that don't apply to you because you're a corn maze in Montana that people have talked about maybe this morning in the say of the industry, you know, you know, insurance. Yeah, insurance. It definitely applies. Yes, I think from what I've seen when we've done the Hant tours and some of them are like completely just like massacre and bloody that that doesn't apply in our area like that, and we kind of advertise it as you know, because people walk through it during the day, like that would just turn people off. You know, it might appeal to a few people, but we don't. We don't do that.

31:43 That's that mass appeal again. It's like, yeah, it's that's only going to too. Much for our area. Yeah, we did that the very first year where we got like these plastic bags had blood in it, bodies and people were very turned off by that. Another one. Is oh, well, i'd say the Demon's dominion so the blackouts. Oh yeah, so they actually had it going for you know, their first couple of years, and then people just didn't like it, you know, similar to Gore. They didn't like it, so then they took it away. But four years ago we brought it back and people are just I mean, it's perfect. We want to scare them all. So so you brought that back again and people love it. So yeah, we're slowly bringing it. I'm making it bigger and bigger. Yeah. We also a huge one that people do a lot is like nuns and priests, and no, we don't do anything with like religious anything. People don't appreciate that at all. So that's some of the And then yeah, like the face painting, then the makeup. I wish we could, but.

32:48 Nope, and people know everybody, so that just doesn't work unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, you're just trying to keep sensitive basically know your target market. Yeah, effectively, you know when you understand there are some things that don't work, you know. Yeah, and have you done an off season events? Have you found that success? That's something which because you still you farm during the year, right, so it makes off season events tricky. So actually we have We just built this thing called Gateway Mannor it's a hunted attraction, which I own. So it's like right here, but. That's like one hundred feet long, you know, sixteen feet wide, and it's just its own haunted house. So you can pay an extra fee or something, and we are trying to do off season events for that, but we have not yet pushed to do that yet.

33:40 So it's like Christmas, I feel like head it was. Maybe it's things are frozen at that time. Oh that's forgot. There could be two foot of snow, so it's you know, are hard to get to. You know, we're all portable. That way is as well. But I totally for out about yeah. Yeah, because when two years ago we were shoveling the pathway because. Of traveling, I said, we're picking at like three inch eyes. It's true. It's true. If you don't shovel it that that night, it's just gonna be three inches. Spies And that was awful. Yeah, we were pitchforking it. Yeah, yeah, chunks of ice.

34:22 It's a lot of work out. Anybody that's outside, it's yeah, because they're like, oh you should do this or that and this animatronic and oh my gosh, and have this flowing. I'm like, it'll freeze. Pneumatics will freeze. And it did happen last year. All like the pneumatics that were outside in the corn maze, the actual soulnoids froze. They weren't moving, they're stuck. Yeah, and it was a warm year last year, and. That's why it's really arcupied. These animatronics so we can we can buy them, but it's just hard because they won't run. Away, keep you going. Yeah. Yeah, so that's why we have the actors.

35:03 Yeah, you already answered this a little bit, think about off season events, But do you have other things like long term wish list, you know, the idea Maybe that's a question. You know, he even has so many. Long, long time ideas. Yeah. Well, the gateway manner, I want to make that much bigger and have it because I mean, this year was the first year, so I only had it five minutes long, super short, had to voor text tunnel things. But this year, definitely planning on making it two times bigger, looking for about ten minutes, since we have a lot of room in that area. But I don't know, do you guys, because I know this year we're also gonna be adding a coffin ride where you actually go inside of a coffin and do a little ride for two minutes.

35:53 And he built that. Yeah, these are the things that I've been wanting to do and it has come to life. But I don't have any on. Like mind that I want to do an elevator and an elevator in a way, and. He also made the elevator ride, but we're doing this year. We are doing a Western theme and he we're going to be building all of that. Without scenes, then I will I do you ever seen? But like tractions themselves, I don't have. Yeah, the top of my head. I also wonder though I'm going on that. It's like I think sometimes in areas like that, it's a little bit difficult because feasibly, how many people could you add in terms of demand? Like what is the market size?

36:34 You know? Like sometimes I ask has like what what would you do? How could you double your attendance? Let's just think about it, like how could you do it? And I think sometimes they're like, well, there's literally physically not that many people in my region. Yeah, And so it's like, well, if you were going to double, if you were going to double it, you would need to become a destination he would fly to. And in lieu of that, then you would need to like franchise, you know. I've talked to a few Canadian farms last year who were like, let's we're going to need you just franchise because we can't pull enough people. So in terms of that, I do think about that, like do you think you're heading up against the upper level maybe of your target market? And then and then it becomes there's only two levels we have. We can increase attendance or we could increase per cap spending.

37:17 What we're trying to do now is because the last two to three weekends they're like maxed out. Yeah, Like we have three acres of parking and it's it's maxed yeah, you know. And this is in Montana. You know, you can't really park alongside of the highway. It's a little bit rough. But we're trying to get people on out on Wednesdays and Thursdays like the locals, trying to get the locals out during the during the week. We try to tell them, I know, it's bad business to say, don't come on Friday Saturday if you live here, if you live like ten minutes away, could come during Wednesday Thursday. It's less busy. It's just as fun, you know, because Saturday and Fridays are they're packed, there is.

38:00 And we're just breading out your demand. You're you're trying to encourage bretting out the demand. But that's not still what about and you're still gonna hit your cab. We're trying it this year. Actually, yeah, it was a lot of work. To set up, but we got it. We use it. We use online ticketing and so it's timed and that helped a lot with the lines. But still you get a lot of drive ins, you know, from all over. Yeah, well especially think that region. They may not experience dynamic pricing at any other thing exactly. It's all brand new form. Yeah. So it's almost like you're you're the one like Disney, You're like, okay, we got to teach you, you know that. They're how do you like tickets are more expensive?

38:42 The time ticketing, Yeah, was something new and they're like, whoa, what is what do you do? What? I you scan something with my phone? What? Yeah? I can honestly say though when we started time ticketing with with our company we're using, I mean, sales were up like twenty five percent. Yeah, Like it was crazy. Yeah. And it with another crazy thing that we do at our haunt for when people are standing in line and waiting, you know, to go in. We used to do you know, the little switch back and it it's all like you know, fenced off or roped off or did all of that. And there was a lot of complaints about they're cutting in line. I don't appreciate this, and you know, I'm like, okay, well let me hear this because we want to try to fix it. And so what we do now and it is amazing. I don't know. I think just Montanans are just like very respectful. So we don't have any It's like this huge open area and we just paint posts three inch poles, yeah, poles. We just paint them orange on the top and bury them halfway in the ground, so they're just kind of buried in the ground halfway and it's just flat on the ground and there's just these little lines and they stay in their line, they don't cut. They totally are fine with. That's more free and open.

39:57 There's like an emergency or anything. People can just run right out there. Yeah, no knowing, no fense blocking them. It's safer And we've had like zero complaints the last few years of people cutting in line, which is really odd because there's no barriers. Yeah either they don't. Know it's easier to shovel snow. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that that might be one of the where it's like the inverse again, back to the line thing. It's like, are there any other things that people even have to wait for lines in in your area. So that's so it might be that thing where you're like, if you just remove it and let them just coordinate themselves that you know, because it's back to thinking about like do they do this for anything else in their lives?

40:39 Yeah, and maybe just the fair waiting line for a ride, but. Yeah, so like by removing it then you might just it might have it's like a psychological thing where it's like now it's like it's less. They're like, oh, we can organize ourselves and like we it's like empowers them to control. They have more control versus not because I think, like you know, in big city, were conditioned. You know, you're like stand in line for the metro, stand in line for the uber, stand in line for this, and life for like everywhere you go there's a line. So you're like you're conditioned. So this is how it works. But I'm just thinking, I'm like, did they I grew up in a ural town and I'm like, we didn't wait for anything, and we drove everywhere and it was like forty five minutes to Whole Foods and that was the big like trip for the weekend. You know, like that was the thing.

41:24 Yeah. Well, actually another thing like this younger age group, which they're so amazing, all the you know, kind of what we're doing right now, all this social media and getting everything out there, and Ethan you know, has Okay, what is yours? You have it on Facebook? What is yours? No? YouTube? Oh? YouTube scene? I I'm on. Facebook, small YouTube channel that I've been trying to grow. It's called Horror three sixty five. So I just kind of post YouTube videos trying to do it every single day of like our haunted house and behind the scenes of other haunted houses and just kind of what it's like to live in. Yeah, he's showing all of our builds, everything that we're building. Yeah, and our customers like to see that too, and it's so strange.

42:08 We never would have thought about that in year two thousand. You got to keep it a secret, well, like like what Alan and John Flamboy had been doing it really, Yeah, I wanted to be a video it every other it's okay, it's fine, that's fine. Then I would have had to edit the video and that's a little bit you know, it's a little bit easier at audio, but could give me. Yeah, we're all tired. But yeah, I think, okay, if there's anything. Yeah, this is just basically our family really doing it and it's just yeah, and we have four kids and and then we just yeah, we just kind of build from there. And so it's been twenty six years. And so when people say that they have people that help, like we have this manager that's over costumes. We have another man sure that's.

43:00 Over audio and market. Employees where it's us here, it is right here. Last year we were lucking to hire a manager over all of the animatronics and just keep them all going. That was heated great. Because that's different too than others. So we're expanding and things like that to try to help us out. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Yeah, definitely family driven. Yeah, which is you know, I don't know, I mean different markets again, right, but I'm sure that a lot of the attraction has been driven by the family. But that's also important because that's you know, again the staff, and you know it's you can count on that too to carry it forward, you know, I think. And that's a because you know, hunts are not a good business, so I think sometimes hard it's like a restaurant really, and so you look at all the family restaurant, Like, it's just not it's a difficult thing. I think you need it's it's excellent.

44:00 You're at the point where you need to really you know that you can hire in other people. But yeah, I think relying on the on your family to get you to where you are is it's a valid I mean, it's a strategy. Look everywhere. I mean, you see so many hont families that make it because that's the only way to do it. Because if it were if it were you know, just YouTube, and then you had to hire every single position and year round managers and pay for someone to come to the show floor and look at ideas and do the YouTube, it was just it's not sustainable. Yeah, and then what it's like what you want in your mindset and you're like, this is my vision trying to explain that, I'm like, wow, kudos to those that can do that. That's that's awesome. Yeah, what were you going to do if your kids didn't want to help with the hunt?

44:43 Okay, well we do have we do have one like that that he does not like it, so he's over the food area. They're all involved. No matter what you're like yes, they've whether they want to or not. Yeah, we're like, you need to learn how to work, and this is very important. And when you're. Eighteen, you've got to. When you go to college, you can leave. And then our daughter, she just had a baby, and so you know, and they're at college and are the one that didn't really like the Halloween stuff. He's at college. And then we have another son and he's really hand kept in a wheelchair. But that's been really good to know. Okay, is it successible? Can we do it this way? And so it really helps us that way, yes, yeah, we try to make it. Yeah, that way. And then Ethan, our youngest one, came up, and he's just that's all he talks, dreams, thinks if he talks in his sleep is probably what he talks about. He is everything Halloween.

45:39 He loves it. That's all he can think about. So good. I'm so happy to find we hold on to this one. He can carry on the tradition. Yeah, thank you. But we have other job, like I have other jobs, yeah, you know, and so we're so busy. Yeah yeah, okay, that's all the questions I have. That was fun, Yeah, thank you, thank you. Today's episode was edited by me Philipernandez, with post production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas. Support for today's episode comes from Gantum Lightning and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights.

46:22 From Dark hourg to nether World, Super Mario Land to Hagrid's Bike, Gantum goes where other fixtures can't see what you're missing With a free demo, sign up at gantum dot com slash demo. That's scantum dot com slash demo. The h a N team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and Omniadventures. Until next Time, Stay scary. This is a Haunted Attraction Network.