Halloween Special: Trends, Tropes, and Takeaways

0:00 Okay, from our studios in Los Angeles and Tampa. This is Green Tag Team Park and thirty. I'm Philip. I'm joined as always by my co host Scott Swinson of Scott Swinson creat Development on Green Tad. We normally look at all of the news each week and explain white matters to business professionals. But this week is Halloween. That's that typical, typical Halloween sound. You know. Wow, that reminded me of my childhood for a second with the little hangs in the way and so oh, look at that. Scott has props. I didn't. Scott always has props when it comes to Halloween. I so today, obviously we're going to talk about Halloween. We're just talking about trends, We're talking about divisive topics, We're talking about all of the elements of Halloween. Scott and I are both deeply in the halloween world. Scott used to run Bush Gardens, Tampa's Hollis Cream for many years and then now he has written for haunts all over the world, and I have covered.

1:02 Haunts all over the world over the world. In addition to working at several places I worked in media, I also work at a few larger clients, and of course I used to have a screen park a long time ago, and so we both have a lot of opinions and thoughts about the haunt space, from operations to marketing to creative and so as much as we try and move on, I think every time, you know, you still we still go to thing. And of course this year I went to many many haunts. To mix with you, this. Is actually Halloween light season for me. I went to fewer haunts this year than I think I've gone to in the last thirty years. But it's interesting because some of them were haunts that I was working on some of them or Halloween festivals that I was working on.

1:49 Some of them more haunts that I did work on in the past, and some of them were some of the trends that we're seeing and we're going to discuss in the show are things that I've seen, and we did a little shit chat before the before we started recording, and we've discovered that some of these might just be regional. I don't know, we'll see so when we get to that, well, we'll start to talk about it. But you know, I think a lot of the stuff we've covered, but I think it's important to cover it again because this is our Halloween special. So there you go. Yeah, where do you want to start, Philip? You want to start with Horror Unleased? You want to start in Vegas? Okay, Horrorunleashed was the first to open for the Hall of I'm going to say it's following season. Even though Horror Leashed is year round, of course, it's universal is new year round horror experience there in Las Vegas. I just started jumping into it without explaining it, and then I realized that the biggest thing I've heard about Horror Leashed is how many how few people.

2:45 Are aware of it. So I was like, we maybe we should explain that it's a universal is year round experiment in Las Vegas next to Area fifteen. And that media day was on August tenth, so that was when my season started. And they've been, you know, going since then and period. Oh you have not been, Scott. I don't know if you watched any videos. Yes, I've watched some of the videos, and I've talked to some people who've been other than just Philip. And the response that I'm hearing it's interesting because I like to hear what other people have to say, because I think I'm either jaded or looking for the wrong things sometimes when I go to Halloween events, so I like to hear what other people have to say. And I haven't talked to anybody who has been overtly negative. But I also haven't talked to anybody who has been oh my gosh, this is the best thing since sliced bread.

3:41 So and again, I think we kind of said it when we covered it on the show earlier. Is it's not targeted to a hot audience, is what I'm is kind of what I'm reading between the lines. It's targeted to a Vegas audience, which makes sense, which are people who enjoy haunted attractions but are not quite as uh are their expectations are different than those people who work in the hont industry. And I also think that you know something that you had mentioned, Philip, was that, uh, some of the the installations or pieces are are installed so that they can be. Changed yep, which they've already announced they're going to put a Crampis experience there in the midway.

4:23 Yeah, so that makes that makes total sense for a year round permanent installation, you know, you need to be as modular as possible to change that stuff out. Yeah, I agree with all that. I think I think we're already going to veer off, veer off topic, or not off topic, but off into a separate I think something I think people, especially us in the trashional industry. I think if you've done a lot of haunts, you have a lot of haunt experience. I think what a lot of people forget is that it's kind of like the minimum biable product. It's like you have to what really matters is what is good for your guest, what entertains your guest, and what entertains your guest in your.

5:08 Market that you're in. Okay, it doesn't matter. So that and that's that's the hard thing, because you know, as you do more haunts and experience more things and you see all this stuff, then you you have, I guess, a more refined palette, as I would say it, you know, as as somebody who's gone around done a bunch of stuff. But you always have to think about it's not for you, you know, it's for the people that you're trying to get in to go to your market. And so. I think that I. Think a lot of people like a lot of just haunters, but a lot of rabid theme park fans also forget that, like it's it's not so all that being said, I think Horror Unleashed is not for people in California that are used to Halloween horn nites. It is for people in Vegas who are there visiting casinos and are gonna go to Area fifteen, get in the uber somehow, go over there for uh, do multiple things like go to Air fifteen to see me a wolf and do or a concert or whatever. They're gonna do a few things.

6:05 They're gonna throw this in there, and it's meant to be part of that type of experience, Like it's not meant to be something that people adjust their plans to go to. Like no one's gonna go to Vecus just for that. I mean haunters maybe, but that's. The thing may people have. But but again those are the ones who give it the least, the least positive review. That's exactly right, Like that's exactly right. Like if if your entire thing is you're gonna spend all the money in time just to go to horn Leech, it's not gonna be worth it. And I but again I think that's I'm sure they knew that, like because because when I always describe it, I say, it's basically it's just a watered down version of Halloween horn Nits, which is interesting on its face just because you know, you would think or common sense would would make you think that that you could or you know that they would be better because they have a building they built from scratch, like from spec But it's more like they.

7:11 I don't know. I mean, it's just it's just it's a less it's not as good as Halloween whatever. Whatever the reason is it the is it the excitement, you know, is it the crowd or what is it the missing the theme park, whatever the reasons, it's it's not just not as good as well. It's it's also under one roof. I think that has a lot to do with it. I think that you know the fact that Hornites, whether it's California or Florida, is more spread out. It's there's more anticipation built between things, there's more of a crowd energy. I think that is is different because it's seasonal, so everybody's like, oh, we got to go do it now because it's going to go away, and well, now what seventy seventy two days, it'll go away. I mean something ridiculous like that. There's a there's a fuse to it, there's an energy to it that I don't think you're ever going to get into year round hunt. But but I'm curious and hopeful that it will at least be sustainable so that these kinds of things in various formats can can pop up in different places.

8:16 Yeah, I mean again for me, I'm just I'm again. I was, like I said, happy that it exists, Like, you know, am I going to go to Vegas for it? No? Am I happy it exists? Yes? What I go for crampus, I'm not even sure, only if there's other things in the area, because again, they're just adding stuff to the midway, right, So we'll do it if you're in Vegas. But that's right, special trip for it. And I think exactly the target audience. That's the target audience exactly, that that's what it's built for. So I think that that kind of strain. So switching topics now, just briefly. So I drove up to Medford organ to interview a gentleman there who listens to the show a lot for a year head listeners in the beginning and has tried to take everything I think that Scott has written in his books and try and take everything to heart and has made a five year plan.

9:11 You know, where he started with there's one Haunt billion, then he's expanded it into a thirty thousand square foot building with three attractions and a midway and there's story, and I mean, it's it's done well. But even when I just did a interview with him, and even in the interview, he's talking about that concept of like, you know, basically he was like, he made this Invasion inspired Haunt where it's about alien abductions, and he made one that is about like Indiana Jones but horror movie, you know, like inspire and so great. And then he was like, and then we had to do clowns because everybody kept asking if we had done clowns or where the clowns were and all that. He's like, and we just we just had to do it because and he mentions this about the local market and what they expect and how it was all his dream to buy a big orgle or prop but the market wouldn't care, like that money would be you know, better spent on other elements that the market would be more interested in than it would be this thing, even though he wanted it, and he because he knows all the haunts, but that's not the market doesn't know that because they're in Medford, organ which is kind of in the middle of nowhere, Like it's not it's four hours from Portland, right, and it's it's thirty minutes from the California border, but it's way way north, so it's you know, it's unlikely you're going to get you're going to pull people from San Francisco or Portland, so you're pulling people that are not that don't have any major attractions in their space of just what what they expect is different. So but it was it's really funny to hear that, because it's like as much even

10:43 as you if you know right that you that the haunt, or that you know that that clowns are cliche or this, or that there is a part of it where in less mature markets, that's what the people expect. They expect cliche things because that's what they're used to. And I think it's I think it's essential to know, you know what the market will bear years and years ago for for Valley Fair, I was hired to write a haunt that it was interesting because they said, here, this was my challenge. They said, we want something that ties directly to the the Minnesotan audience. But these are the people, these are not the people who can who can handle too esoteric a concept, so so don't go too far. So I wrote, I wrote a haunt called Berserkers, which was based on a Viking myth. So you know Minnesota Vikings team. So it was based on a Viking myth and it was in essence a werewolf story, but it was when we originally wrote it, and I never actually saw it produced, so I don't know how how much they tried. They tried to keep as much of it as possible from what I understand, but it was sort of the were wolf versus the wear bear. And so it was basically about these these Viking warriors that would consume this strange potion that would transform them into

12:17 half human and half animal. And and I asked them, I said, is this too esoteric? And they said, no, they get were wolves, they'll understand where wolves, they'll understand where bears. And had it been in a different market with a different a different audience, I might have gone a little bit you know, creepier and well creepier for me, and and dove into the folklore just a little bit more and instead of just drinking something. It was a ritual you'd have to go through. But the idea of let's get to the let's get something we understand, yeah, was imperative and essential for that for that market. So yeah, it's really important to kind of know what your market will bear. And I'm a firm believer that you kind of write to what the market will bear and then each year push it just a little bit, so you train your market, you train your market to get better and better. I mean, like here I went to I went to Hallow Scream at bush Guards last night and the event, well, I'm going to say the event is back.

13:14 This is the second golden Age of hallow Scream and I'm really I worked on that event for the first fifteen years and both from a creative standpoint and a production standpoint and operation standpoint. And although it is a slightly smaller event, I got to walk around with one of my former employees who is now the man in charge, and so many of the people from the olden days have now moved up and our in powers are in positions of power and positions of managerial capacity. And Chris and I were talking as we walked around in it, it's interesting. It was very interesting for me to go back because he was able to do so many of the things that I wanted to do, just because we kept saying over and over throughout the course of the night, it's a different world, you know. The parks are different, especially bush Gardens is different. They've taken a lot more in house, which I would have loved to have done but was not allowed to back in the day. They've they've basically taken so many of the of my of the old Hant actors that I used to work with are now creative trainers. They have creative trainers for they like five, four or five creative trainers for the event, and that way the stage managers are solely operational for each of the haunts. But my my favorite comment of the night because we said it, Chris and I both said it at the same time. He said, we really wanted to do we really wanted to do six houses, but we only have five. And then simultaneously we both said,

14:46 better to do five really well than six with one that's mediocre or all six that become mediocre. And I will say that the five haunts that they have are stellar, and they did not get rid of clowns completely. There is a clown scare zone because again to your point, clowns are a staple. There is a chainsaw scare zone. There is. But the haunts are very clever, very well done, very well done, and in true Bush Gardens form. And this is the thing that excites me the most because it takes me back to the early days. The focus. Although the scenic is excellent and beautiful, the focus is still on the actors. It's still on the performers, making it more terrifying than than anything an animation can do.

15:34 So it's it's and and they're packed. They're they're really you know, they've designed them well so that each actor has at least two, if not three scare positions and that they can basically scare the same guests three times. Really well designed, you know, Chris Lasnik, Brad Tucker, I'm gonna miss people. But it's the whole Busch Gardens team that has just really ramped up their game. They're in the event is in really good shape in my opinion. But one of the things that I found interesting, and I wanted to ask you about this in regards because I'm kind of slipping into our our tropes and trends here.

16:15 One of the things that they did is in order to maintain maintain their budget, but also make certain that they have critical mass as far as content goes. Uh. They did fewer scare zones or smaller scare zones, but they peppered photo ops throughout the park. So and their there standalone photo ops. I think only two of them have photographers, but the rest of them are all you know, take them on your own camera. They pulled out props that were not being used from their from their storage facility and deck them up, lit them well, just to help, you know, to help people create content and to help people post more about the event. And I didn't walk by a single one through the entire night that didn't have somebody taking a photo. Yeah, is that happening in other places? Is that kind of photo op mentality happening in other locations, Philip that you've seen, because you see a lot more of these than I do.

17:15 I think that well. Photo ops I think are always a great idea because again, you're encouraging people to make a memory at your event and kind of allowed them to do it in their own way. It's hard to say if they are expanding or not, just because I feel like every experience does have photo ops. I think maybe they're getting more complex as the haunters are like catching up with the theme park way of doing things. I think that they are getting more complex. But the only. I know a few examples, like in a fear factory in Salt Lake City, they have a dedicated area just for photo ops and they read them one of their photo ops to be an homage to the fire that was there on the building. So that's that's like a They renovate those regularly. And then there is a in the Baltimore, Maryland area. There's Harrah's Nightmare, who received the OSCAR for best first year Haunt last year. This is his second year. In his second year, he said similar thing.

18:23 It's not he's he started in year one with three hants, so it took him years to build it. But he started a year one in three haunts. So he said in year two he's not going to expand them because they're big enough, and he's not going to add another haunt because three is enough. So what he's gonna What. He did instead is make an eighteen room selfy experience for what there's all just photo ops with some actors and so he's hoping to have that open after Halloween and just change out the sets. But during the Halloween season it does have actors that will roam and take pictures with you, and that those kind of elements. It's interesting because two years ago Terror Roulette, which took the the Oscare for was that two years two years I think, I think so two or three years, which took the the Oscare for Outstanding New Haunt. Uh, they've kind of done that throughout and I think it was because of labor and staffing, but they kind of shifted to doing making it more of a we'll call it a selfie museum, a spooky selfie museum. Content creators haven, you know, to come in and take photos. And like I said, I think it had to do with with maintaining labor costs, but I don't know that for sure because I'm not I wasn't involved this past year. So it's it's it's interesting to see that that that that's part of the mentality now because we didn't you know, we used to try to convince people not to take photographs.

19:47 We'd try to know, it goes back to the old I don't know this was true at Universal in California, but at Universal Florida, if you were in a scare zone, the actors were trained to block the camera. They were trained to to come up and put their hand in front of the camera or scare in front of the camera so that you wouldn't get all of the entire experience online. But now that's shifted completely. Yeah, it's it's. Encouraging that finding ways to encourage that, so thinking, I you know, certainly for a marketing purpose, but it's also I think it's guest experience. I think they want to be able to say, look at the cool shot I got at Halloween, Hornites or whatever.

20:28 Yeah, I think it, you know, in a weird way. It's an easy way to make it more interactive, in a way where they have you know, that they can take photos and they can work. But I think again it just goes back to the entertainment value. And I think it just is what is entertainment has changed a little bit, But I do think that ultimately, I think that people still enjoy interacting with the characters, and I think scare zones and those whole thing have have become. Part of that. Like like Q Line, actors have become much more important in that they you know, interact with guests but also help make content for it. And so it's a little bit of double edged sword, you know. I heard recently, I actually heard recently that Universal has stopped allowing their characters to talk because presumably because somebody one of them said something they shouldn't have said on a camera when somebody was recording, you know. But so again it is double kind of that double edged sword type of thing.

21:21 But that does seem to be again, I think that's a big part of the entertainment nowadays, is you interacting with the individual performers and that fun stuff. And I'm trying to think at Hush there's a photo experience, but it's actually, if anything, I would say it's a little behind the times because. I think like at Hush they do a photo that is. You know, taken by a camera operator and then you can pay five dollars to get a digital version or ten dollars to get a print version, and that's really outdated like that, that's not like nobody wants to pay for a photo anymore. And it doesn't matter because most of the one that like, the difference in quality is not very is not is not enough. Basically, I think it is the problem now that you have people with great cameras and cell phone that do good and low light and unless it's going to be an experience, it's just it's not.

22:16 I think. Yeah, I think that's definitely behind the times. And then they don't have any photo ops and the the Q line actors don't encourage photos or videos. So it's really the one thing they do do is you know, they have the stage there in the queue line, and people always record the stage because people are you know, fire dancers and whatnot. Sure. Sure, it's interesting that you say that though, because printed photos at at Zoo Tampa at Creatures of the Night, which again is a more family friendly experience, but they do as you go into their the one well we'll call it the three Pumpkin Haunt. The one haunt that is is a little bit spookier and we'll get some screams and startles, uh, they do a green screen photo as you go in, and the green screen is the green screen backgrounds are all things that the guests need to interact or react to. So those little bit you know, screaming this way and screaming that way and as you leave.

23:08 But those sell because they don't offer a digital only option. They offer a print option and then for if you buy a print for an upsell, you can get all of the rest of the photos they took digitally, which is a super smart idea really, but they do. But those do sell well, and maybe that's because of it's it's a different audience. It's a family audience. And I know that again it's back to something you can't make on your own. We've talked about this before, but like it's just like the Magic I forgot what their whole at Disney, but it's the same concept at Disney, where you take the pictures in the area and then they add in characters or things to it because. You're holding tinker Bell in your hands.

23:49 Yeah yeah, again, Yeah, and people like those. There's plenty people that like those. But we didn't talk about sliders, and I think we wanted to talk about slide. I was gonna say, let's I was, let's let's move into our trends and tropes section. We'll finish off the show with that. So sliders at Busch Gardens, sliders are back and the pendulum since I left. Every single year that I was at Bush, I had to fight to keep sliders because there's a perception, and I use that term very specifically, there is a perception that they have safety issues. But a well trained slider is no more dangerous than a well trained person with a chainsaw or a well trained person with any prop. Stilt walkers, Yeah, but they did something very interesting with them. Instead of keeping them all together, they kind of peppered them throughout the park. So it's not a slider zone, but sliders are part of multiple zones or multiple areas throughout the park, so they're much more of a surprise when they pop up.

24:50 And of course sliders do things in different ways. There are some that, you know, back back when we did sliders, when I was there, we did upright sliders as opposed to all four sliders, you know, sliding on all fours. But they they're some of those. There's some of the upright, the old school upright sliders on their knees, every spark gimmick you could possibly imagine. And they're back, and they're you know, there's obviously safety is still an issue, and there's still the desire or the need to convince the powers that be that it's a safe way to scare people. But I think they're I think they're trending. Again. Have you seen that or is. That just yeah, I don't think that that's a that that's not a single year thing. I would say they've been trending for the past and maybe since the pandemic.

25:38 I mean, they they've been they've been on the upswing for for a while. And I don't I don't know again, I yeah, like I don't have a problem with it personally. I actually I like sliders personally, Like I like, I think that it's it can be fun. I especially like, you know, when they do have the friction and the ability to spark and that kind of a thing. I think it's again, it's it's it reminds me of just like the circus where they used to have all the circus, like the Vampire Circus and all those things, where it's just really like a cirk show or a regular thing, but they just they put makeup on. I think it's that similar idea where it's really just a form of physical stunt, but then you're putting it into the Halloween category because what other holiday is it really going to fit under? And that's so so many times that happens with Halloween where you're like, it's in both.

26:33 Of the books. It's in both of my books. Halloween is a testing ground for all kinds of things. Yeah, and so I think that that's where you get the sliders that fall in there and then making it. I do think it's a perfect thing because it does scare people, it startles them. But you know what, again, this goes back to think I I make slider videos a lot, and because they have become such a staple of the big events like Hershey Park has the Decayed Brigade that they contract with to come out and do a nightly performance, and that thing is absolutely packed, Like people will line up and this is Hershey Park, And just keep in mind, folks, people will line up hours before at Hershey Park, which is it's it's lunacy and I've been there covering it and the aside from the time they're doing the show. All they're doing the rest of the time is taking pictures with people because people want pictures, you know, and they barely get any sliding in.

27:23 But it is it is a very divisive topic because of what you talk about, the safety, and because a lot of the Haunt connoisseur people say it has something to do with Halloween and this and that and blah blah blah. And I always go back to, like, the main point of the experience is to entertain people, and if this is what people find entertaining nowadays, if they want to watch these basically skateboarders, you know, you know, slide around on the ground and make sparks in makeup that they put on themselves in many cases, fine, like who you know again, who cares back? This goes back to, you know, the different ways that sliders have been have been handled too. Bush Tampa, for example, has never done a slider show. They've never done a slider show. They've never sliders. Have done stunts and tricks, but they've never done a slider show. They've always been characters who use sliding as a scare tactic. Yeah, I have that, I do too, I do too. And that's why I was very adamant about it, and I was really glad to see that when I went back this year.

28:19 That was their approach when they brought them back, is to make them a party of their becoming thing. Though. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's really it's really impactful. Okay, So let's let's move on to another controversial topic. Chainsaws, Yes or no? Well, I think it's this. It's it's similar, right because I don't know, everyone just loves chainsaws. Again, what are you gonna do? Like, what do you do? It's I think again it goes back to how mature your market is. If you're in a very mature market with a lot of competition, I think you could cut the chainsaw. But if you're not, then you need it because that's what people are going to expect. That's Halloween in their brains, right in America, at least in America, is to have that component. And again it's similar to the slider, where like there are people that just love to be scared by chainsaws. I don't know, but it's in Asia. It's not a thing. You know, in Asia, it's not at all a thing, and people look at you weird. They're like, why would a chainsaw be scary?

29:17 Well, it's interesting because with me, a chainsaw is fine as long as it makes sense within the concept. A clown with a chainsaw makes no sense to me. A cannibal with a chainsaw makes sense to me. So, you know. But one of the things, again going back to what Bush did, and I. Think a clown with a chainsaw, which is a scare zone at Universal every year. Yeah, I know, I know, been there, done that, you know. But but I will say one of the things that Bush did really well is they did they did one one scare zone that is relatively short. It is the scenic is basically a bunch of pine trees, So it's like you're going through a pine forest and you have these crazed, wicked, evil lumberjack characters it and the entire the entire area. It's in a it's in an arbor, so the entire area just echoes with the sound of chainsaws, so you know they're there. It builds a nice sense of anticipation, and then when they finally come out to do the scare, it releases that sense of anticipation, which is exactly what you want to do with scares. There are some. You know, I agree with you. It's impossible to find a replacement. Believe me. I've tried for many, many years. And you know, there's there's leaf blowers, but there's nothing threatening about a leaf blower.

30:34 A lot of things, you know, but yeah, they're not as threatening in America at least, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So is there any other trend or trope? We're almost out of time? Is there any other trend or trope that you wanted to throw out there before we finish off our little Halloween special here, because we're gonna have to. We've got so many things we still want to talk about, so we're gonna have to carry it on into the Patreon show. Yeah. Let let's us go to our Patreon show and we're gonna we'll keep talking. Came there about Halloween and trends because yeah, I made we made a whole like list or I made a list and then we just yeah, Philip made. A list and and we you know, got about it at all. But you may put four points on it, which was very nice. Yeah, four whole points. But anyway, so guys, happy Halloween. I hope the Halloween season is treating you, well, I hope you've had a great time.

31:19 I hope you've had a chance to get out and visit some some haunts and uh so, because I know we have, and so I hope you learn stuff too, because that's the most important reason to go see other people's haunts, is to see what's working and what's not and how you can adapt it for your audience. So that's probably the biggest takeaway from this particular show. So on behalf of Philip Ernandez and myself Scott Swinson. This is Green Tag Theme Park in thirty We will see you next week and happy Halloween.