Santa's Haunted Coal Mine at Nightmares on the Rogue in Medford OR

0:08 Nightmares on the Rogue in Medford, Organ opened for its third annual Christmas haunt this month. That's coming up on today's show. Welcome to the show. I'm Philip on the AJA and Show. We bring you the news and information you need to prepare for Halloween. This show is just one part of the programming, so check our email newsletter for the bold details. We're on a break right now through January ninth, but we'll resume after that. Today we're on location at Nightmares on the Rogue in Medford, Organ and I visited it for their Christmas event called Santa's coal Mine. I sat down with owner Devin Price to hear about his journey creating this haunt and where he sees it going in the future. We also have a video walkthrough where you can see the entire haunt if you like. The link to that is in the show notes.

0:56 Here we go. My name is Devin Price, and I am the owner of Nightmares on the Rogue Haunted Attraction. Tell me about Nightmares on the Road on an attraction. So Nightmers on the Road counted attraction is a haunted house a Mercia walk through experience in southern Oregon. This is our third year, and we are now looking at moving into a much larger location. So we provide entertainment for northern California, the western coast, all the way up to the Eugene area. Okay, and tell me a little bit about the attraction. We're recording this in December because you are running a Christmas experience, which is, you know, the last thing you're going to be doing here. But before you tell us about Christmas, tell us about the haunt itself.

1:38 You know the footprint and how big it is and all that stuff. Perfect. So when we moved into the location we're at now, it is underground under a building, and so we really wanted to figure out how to use our surroundings so that the story makes sense. And so I really like Western and Haunted Mines and was inspired by Big Thunder and the story at Disneyland, and so I thought it fit perfectly to do the Haunted Mind since we were underground, and so originally we were just Nightmares on the rou Conted attraction. We rebranded to Nightmares on the Roque Hanted Mines and now our story is you're going underground into a mine shaft, and obviously with the Haunted house, something has to go horribly wrong, and everything within our Haunted attraction is telling that story and pushing that further. Yeah, so walking through, we did a quick tour before and it's you're right, it's underground, so it's colder, yes, and you would above. But also because of the ceiling height, you really feel like it's that mind like you didn't have to really build ceilings because they're already so low to the ground that you can feel like you're in the mind. Yes. So it's a blessing and a curse. So we had three hundred and fifty wall panels before we moved to this new place, and I had to cut it all down to six' nine. So that was a frustrating part. But it does make it easier to hang lides, to run sound, to just create a creepy atmosphere. A lot of times in the Haunt you're trying to create faux ceilings. We don't really have to do that since the selling is created for us. Yeah. Yeah, and then so it's and also it's a simple theme, right, It's not like you're changing themes every other room. It's like, this is a theme

3:09 you're gonna mind. You go through and things go terribly wrong. Yeah. So last year when we started the Haunted Minds, we got a little too ambitious and crazy and tried to do it where each shaft was it haunted by a different ghost and didn't really make sense to the customer, and so we stripped it down, made it super simple. The whole time you're going through a mind shaft and have our backstory of why and how things went wrong. But it actually is pretty cool because our area was in the middle of the gold Rush. We were just north of San Francisco, and the Rogue Valley was known for its mind and so we do try to tie back into a historical story and just put our own little haunted twist on it. Yeah. Yeah. And then Christmas, this is the first year you're doing Christmas.

3:50 It is our third third year, so it's our second at this location, and we kind of played into where the haunted mind So Santa has to make his coal somewhere for the kids, So that's why we went with Santa's Haunted coal Mine. And this year the story is half the elves have revolted. They kidnapped Santa and now there's a civil war among the elves. They at least a portal of all Christmas is Nightmares, and so now you're going through a story of ho ho horror. I had to throw that in there, but no on our in our original in our October show, it's all original stuff, and we really try to play into more of a fun, whimsical but still scary time for our Christmas show. Yeah. Yeah, And I guess in this area there's really not any other there's not really much competition, and you're you're you're partnered with another but like the only other hunt in the area you're partnered with. So like, I guess my question actually is I was curious as to why you think Christmas works in this area because it's like, it's like because you know, on the one hand, there's not much competition, but on the other hand, you know, a market that has less haunted houses usually has less of an audience for them just because there's you know, it's like, I think it extend beyond the haunted attraction industry here.

5:00 I think there's not as much stuff to do for families and people. Southern Oregon really lacks entertainment. We have a pretty big population in our counties two hundred and fifty thousand, and then if you take northern California the coast, we have four hundred, four hundred and fifty thousand people within an hour drive of us. And so the fact that there's not a lot of stuff to do besides maybe go to the movies helps us out. And so we're we're not competing with external forces and then just providing something fun and unique gets people excited. Yeah, excellent, And you run because I was looking at you run multiple nights. I mean, you know a lot of a lot of the you know, we have our list of Christmas haunts and there's over one hundred of them we've been tracking nationwide, and I think your run is one of the longest. And is that why? I mean, now you've seen demand every night you're open. Yeah. It kind of the reason we did that is when the Haunted House that we partner with in terms of frights on front, so it's we brand as a collection of haunted houses. There's two different unique on IT houses right next to each other. They've been doing Christmas haunts and they kind of did it for five nights, and so when we did our first Christmas haunt, we kind of mirrored what they are doing I still want to explore what it looks like doing it for two nights or a weekend and see if that will get us the same numbers. But for the most part, we just see a steady pace of people and that's kind of what people have come to know. And it's not like we have one night that's super packed and the rest of night is not, so it's spread out. But we definitely are looking to see do we do it for just a weekend or what that looks like. Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned

6:32 this at the beginning, but this is the last show in your building because you are moving again after just a few years. Yes, yeah, so tell us about the new property and what you're going to be able to do there that you can't do here. Yeah. So this last October and for the last two years we've ran two haunted attractions there are twenty five minutes away from each other, Carnival of Chaos and Nimers on the Rogue. And though that was super fun, it is hard to bread yourself thin. There's only one of you, and as an owner, you know nobody really cares about it as much as you. And we double the expenses with restrooms of security with staffing, and so we really were figuring out ways of how to condense everything to one big event. And at our current location, we have some barriers and obstacles that make it so we can't do the event we want.

7:18 Our building has a lower ceiling, so we're limited on the amount of scope we can do. We don't really have a midway, which our first year we did and people loved it, and we really wanted to branch out beyond just a hunted attraction. We wanted to make it a family night out, and so it's always been in our five year plan to get into a larger location and we were fortunate enough to broke or a deal with somebody who really thought we provided a benefit to our community. And so the new space is over six times the size we have now. It has thirty thousand square feet of fenced area. It's going to allow us to do multiple attractions a midway. Really get back to the reason we do do this, which is beyond just the haunted house, it's the whole fun fall night out for families, and then extend that beyond October doing Christmas events and potentially that aren't Halloween based, doing other events throughout the year, and that's kind of what we're we're leaning towards, is just opening up our horizon and the scope of people that can come and make it more than just a fifteen thirty minute experience. I wasn't gonna ask about broadening the Christmas event too, because it doesn't sound like you're married to having it be spooky if your goal is to entertain the community.

8:26 Yeah. So I am from an area where there's big haunted houses. I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. When I moved here, haunted houses were a little different. So when I met my wife and told her my dream was to one day on a haunted house, and she comes from a different, more conservative background, she was like, what, that's crazy, and that doesn't that sounds evil and all this stuff, And we're big Disney people were inspired by Indiana Jones q Ride I talked about Big Thunder Mountain, and so we really wanted I told her, like, I want our haunted attractions to be adventure based, and so she got on board. But we always at the back of our mind new we want to extend beyond that because we love entertaining people along with just the haunted house experience, The Haunted House is the avenue where you can get people to go through and fill us an emotion like they're going through a roller coaster, they're going through some sort of player performance. But we want to figure out how to get that emotion elsewhere, and so we've looked at different things from Christmas drive through shows, how can we extend to Christmas? And I think that's the next evolution of our company is to broad and beyond haunted attractions. We want to do concerts because that was our background, and more big events for people to do along with the Haunted House. Okay, got it? Yeah? So and then the bigger space plays into all of that. Yeah. So the bigger space will allow us to do a next stepping stone for what we want to do, allow us to do more seasonal events. We're planning on doing year round escape games. Escape industry in our area is still relatively new, so there's a lot of potential for that. But ultimately our next five year plan is

9:56 to own a big piece of property that would allow us to do more of a Christmas Ville, to do more of a screen park beyond just what's in a city. So that's our end goal is to buy a lot of land and then be able to live in our work. Yeah, tell me about I mean, I understand that's a five year plan and you have you know, you leased out the space, so it may not it's probably not gonna be the same space. So it's gonna be more. It's going to be transitioning again and again. But as you're looking at moving into a larger building, tell me about how you're gonna kind of keep I mean, I guess essentially, whenever people move into a larger building, there's always that risk of spreading themselves too thin and trying to do too much at once. You know, it corrodes the theme and it causes the density of your stuff to go down. You know, it's such a bigger space. So are you thinking about that at all or what is plan for that? Yeah, we've kind of had a two year test run for that by owning two haunted attractions.

10:50 Yeah, we wouldn't be moving into this next space if we were still planning on keeping the other Haunted house, and so we knew we had an audience that went to both attractions. We knew we had all the sets in the walls and the material to fill up that space. And so for us, it's kind of more of a cyb relief because we have been already running two attractions and feeling like we're spread thin, and so we want just everything at one location where the revenue can be kept there. So you're basically going to change it into the model of like multiple attractions, whether it be the same attractions that are in a space with a midway so people have time in between and can relax and do other things. Yes, I don't think our area is ready for a thirty forty five dollars one haunt that they walk through for twenty minutes. We want to make sure that they have that value and we want to provide that value. And so for us, it's allowing a family who might not be able to afford forty dollars, but can afford a fifteen dollars hunt or do a combo for two for thirty dollars and let people come through and pick. And so that's the model we're going with. And it also allows us to stay within a theme, but also not be tied to just that theme by having multiple attractions. Yeah, plus more space to keep people, because I know the facility that we're in now there's not really parting and there's not an outside, so it's hard, like you can't upsell people in when you can't hold onto them if there's not enough space for them to stay. Yeah, and just remembered with our new attraction. Our landlord actually right next door is building a brewery, tap room and an outdoor space with fifteen food trucks that shares a fence line. So we also almost have an

12:22 outdoor space of entertainment that's going to be provided for us that they're gonna let us run during October once that does open up, So that almost takes a lot of the workout for us and still allows another fun event for people to come to. And then I also enjoy the attraction while they're getting a mill or a beer. It adds to it, but it but it cuts you out of the revenue for doing that unfortunately. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Well, I'm just saying, no, I know it does. No, it does. But it's also hard being in this space. For all that revenue stuff, you need to have employees, you need to be able to do it right. And one problem I have had in this business is being stretched thin as in most honors do they want to try to do everything and I well, in this area too, staffing, I mean like there's no again back to the competition, there's no competition, but there's also not enough hunts around, which means there's not a pool of s characters that choose from. And then staffing also, in areas like this, you would have to staff people for food and make a menu and whatnot. I'm just saying, you know the best way Generally you're looking at revenue add ons and it's like after you've tapped out on your velvet rope and your lines and whatnot and some of your merch then you know it's like food and especially drinks the highest margin. No. Yeah, so we also still, no matter what they do with their area, we're still going to have our Nightmare grill and have themed food onto our attractions. And we're also going to be doing some mock taels and looking at what does a beer garden or VIP area and get a temporary liquor license and other things like that. But for sure, the first step would be getting those fun mocktail drinks that have to do with our

13:52 attraction and kind of tie everything in which then people pay more because they have that experience. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm curious thinking you're not too many years into it now, are already moving again the second time? It's a lot, right, I'm curious what you would tell somebody who is just starting out, because I know, I think we met when you were for starting out, yeah right, and you were looking at trying to balance your you know, full time stuff with this. So what would you tell this person now, I'd say it's a lot of work. It really is a lot of work. You have to have buy in from your family. But also the other end of it is it is doable and if you if you do truly believe, you can get out there and create something that the community likes.

14:41 We now it's awesome. You hear people talk about our attraction or you see the social media posts and stuff, and they'll never know who I am, they'll never know my family, but we were part of their memories and we're part of them doing something and so that's what I find rewarding. And so if I had to do it again, I would I think that this is a valuable experience. And when I was a little kid, my dream was to own a top twenty five hundred attraction in the nation, just because I went to Rocky Point. I saw these things, and I know we're way, way, way far away from that, but I think that in my mind back then, it's something that I thought I would have to do when I retired from my job. And so now I'm seeing that it is something that if you do it right, and you do treat it like a business, it is something that you can live off of. I've kind of been doing other side things with it, but we do well enough where if I wanted to make this my only thing, it could it could be.

15:31 Tell me more about what you said about treating it like a business. Tell me about that part, I think, because I think at least we get a lot of people that write in ask about starting Haunting, and I frequently point them to the business plan and it's like, what do you mean business plan? I mean, I know that you've had to make them because you've had to get financing and whatnot. So tell me. Tell me what you think people get wrong about treating it like a business. So take a step back. So my degrees in business management and paralegal studies, specifically contract law, and so I was fortunate enough after college to start working for a nonprofit and eventually after a year, worked up as a director level and had a staff under us, and we saw we started the Haunted Attraction as a fundraiser for that nonprofit youth center, and so I was already looking at the numbers and looking at cost analysis, and it was something that was important to us because it was going to raise a lot of money, but also we couldn't just drop all of this money. And so I was fortunate enough to see that there was a demand in our area four haunted attractions out of higher quality.

16:34 And so once COVID hit and we had to close down our youth center and we transitioned to an emergency childcare facility, and Oregon had a lot of regulations. Eventually, when we closed down our nonprofit, I had seen the demand and people kept asking us, so you're going to do a hant A, You're going to do a hant And so I, my wife who's the co owner, and myself we took all of our savings and we put it in there. And that's a big risk if you're doing that. We weren't going out there, and really we did a little bit of financing, but a majority of the money was from our own money, and so I knew that if we were going to do that, we had to do it right, and so we created our business plan. We created a five year plan. I made sure that the most important thing was marketing. So I went and got Chad Savage to do our logo and website. I went and studied everything from Transworld and all of the people who've been doing it and wanted to create a legitimate business out of it. But that's just because my whole life has been in business and not haunted houses. So basically, I think if I were extrapolate that, you're saying, find a way to test the market first to make sure and then you were fortunate enough to have the support of your family to self fund. Yes, but a lot of people are not.

17:41 I mean, if you're not in that situation, you wouldn't needed to take a much bigger financing mistake, which is much more difficult depending on the business model you have. Yeah, right, No, we are very fortunate that at the time I had a really good job and so I had the income to help put it into that. And sometimes I think about is this worth it? Because the jobs I had on the private market make a lot more. I can live off Haunted attractions, but we're not making what I made when we're doing other stuff. But I wouldn't change it for the world. And I don't know where we're going to be in ten twenty years, but I think this is a good stepping stone and I couldn't imagine doing another thing besides entertaining people. Okay, I think we're at about we're about at time. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think is important?

18:26 I think it's important just to I know Philip says this a lot, but treat this like a business, and if you are passionate about it, it really can you can make it work. And so but in order to do that, you have to make sure you're doing things a smart way. And fortunately, fortunately I had a wife that didn't let me blow all my money on big props and different things. So we started within our means and it's helped us grow organically, opposed to trying to create a big city Haunt in a medium sized city and then failing after a year or two and running out of capital. So yeah, I think the scaling within your means is the most important thing you know, because the market, you know, it's I think people always kind of maybe people because we're in this world, so I think we forget that a lot of times. The customers don't have a reference point, yeah, you know, and so it might be like, you know, you want a good experience for them, but as long as they're entertained and you can create value as a business within your means, that's all that businesses. Yeah, you know, I mean, look at how many coffee shops You're like, well that was just strip coffee was fine, but I needed a coffee at the time. Yeah, I was here and it was there. So it's like, you know, and it is hard at times. I compare our I try to compare ourselves to like Dark Hour or fear Factory, but we're not that we're in a smaller market. We never will have that, and at least where we're at either they don't know those things either. So it's really figuring out what your audience cares about, how can you make an impact in the area you're at, and then being comfortable at pushing what you're doing in this space that you're doing at. Today's episode was edited by me Philippernandez, with post production by David Swope and original music

19:59 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. 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 ha 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 production.