Preparations for haunted attraction season typically begin in late summer. Actors are recruited. Gory scenes are put in place. Fake blood is purchased in bulk. It’s all in the name of scares as haunted houses across Central Kentucky ramp up for their time in the blacklight.
But haunted houses do more than elicit screams and give teenagers an excuse to hold onto each other. Although the attractions are only open for a handful of nights each year, the businesses generate revenue for their owners, who typically work on their seasonal diversions year-round. The attractions also provide tax revenue for the cities they’re in and create a tourism draw. Many create jobs or help fund local non-profits.
“I was presented with the option to buy the business and I thought it was a good investment,” Walker said. “This is a full-blown, legitimate business. All of our actors and staff are paid. We’ll have 65 people on site on any given night.”
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A macabre cast of 65 paid actors and staff are on site every night to greet visitors at Fright Nights Kentucky.
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His attraction will see more than 10,000 visitors Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from late September through October. While Walker was hesitant to discuss specific figures on how much revenue the attraction generates, he did say he wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t profitable.
Beginning in January, Walker and his team sit down and plan out the attraction for that year’s season. In spring, the team travels to St. Louis for an exposition specific to the haunted house industry, where they will buy the products and props they need to bring their vision for the year to fruition.
After a few months off, the real work begins in September when Walker and his staff bring 18 shipping containers filled with props and materials to Jacobson Park to build the attraction.
“We’d love to be in an indoor location, but one of the benefits of being outdoors is that we’re able to change it up and make it 100 percent new because we’re outside and building it from the ground up” each year, Walker said.
As an established attraction, attendance grows each year, he said, mostly through repeat visits and word of mouth.
Weather or not
While fall brings with it the anticipation of seasonal businesses and attractions—haunted houses, apple orchards, pumpkin and Christmas tree farms—the nature of the season also brings unpredictability, as inclement weather can make or break a fall seasonal business.
At Eckert’s Country Store and Farms in Versailles, weather can impact not only the attendance at the event and attractions such as its corn maze, play area and Haunted Hayrides, but also the products the orchard sells during its busiest season.
“Fall is when we bring in 75 to 80 percent of our gross revenue. It’s a critical time for our business.” —Chris Eckert
“Fall is when we bring in 75 to 80 percent of our gross revenue. It’s a critical time for our business,” said Chris Eckert, president of the company and grandson of the founders. “At our core, we’re farmers. But during this time of year, we also have people come out and enjoy the farm. Our goal is to focus on young families, which we feel is an unmet market. It’s a fun experience for kids under 12 and for parents to experience, as well.”
From a cost standpoint, it just isn’t profitable to keep the public-facing side of the business open the rest of the year, Eckert said. While the farm does offer “you pick” fruits over the summer, it isn’t staffed at the same level as it is in September and October. Fixing the farm buildings to be open year-round and staffing the farm to host the public would also be cost prohibitive, Eckert said. In addition to its Versailles farm, Eckert’s also operates four other locations. Eckert said the farm typically has three employees between March and September. During harvest season, that number swells to about 80.
“Mostly these are part-time employees and this is their first job,” he said. “The jobs range from farm work to selling concessions to actors on the hayride to working in the parking lot to selling tickets.”
Tricks and treats
Haunted attractions and seasonal businesses also benefit the towns and cities they’re in, and can also support local programs.
Lawrenceburg Mayor Troy Young runs the Anderson Hotel Haunted House there. He started the haunted house seven years ago when he was sheriff as a way to raise money for the Anderson County Sheriff’s “Shop With A Cop” program.
“When we started this, we were doing Shop With A Cop for five kids,” Young said. “We ended up doing it for about 100 kids.”
The haunted attraction was the main revenue generator for the program. Young estimated the haunted house has raised nearly $35,000 since 2013.
Originally the haunted house was in the convention center, but Young was offered the opportunity to move the attraction to a hotel with a decidedly scary past.
“We’re in an old hotel that was abandoned in 1978,” he said. “We used about half of it last year. There are 13 unconfirmed deaths at the hotel and we play on that history.”
Rated the No. 1 haunted attraction in Kentucky by one of the industry’s top websites, Young estimates the haunted attraction had more than 4,000 people go through it last year. On some nights, he said, the wait to get into the haunted house was three to four hours long.
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Scary surprises are all in good fun at the Anderson Hotel Haunted House in Lawrenceburg, which entertained more than 4,000 visitors last year.
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Scary surprises are all in good fun at the Anderson Hotel Haunted House in Lawrenceburg, which entertained more than 4,000 visitors last year.
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Scary surprises are all in good fun at the Anderson Hotel Haunted House in Lawrenceburg, which entertained more than 4,000 visitors last year.
“The downtown restaurants loved it because they were packed,” Young said. “It also gave people from out of town an excuse to visit. They ate. They bought gas. They shopped. We’re right in the middle of the Bourbon Trail, so we’ll see people come here for the haunted house, discover what else is here and then come back again and again.”
At $10 per ticket, or $20 for VIP skip-the-lines access, the attraction generates revenue, Young said, but there are also significant expenses.
“Of course, the state of Kentucky gets 6 percent of every ticket, and our liability insurance, as you can imagine for a haunted house, is pretty expensive,” Young said. “But what’s left, after costs, goes to a few charities that we have in the area.”
Scaring up a crowd
Other attractions, like Lawrenceburg’s Ghost Walk, work with the attractions to turn the town into a tourist destination.
Jeff Waldridge, a jailer by day, runs the ghost walk. Every Saturday from August through November, as well as on Fridays in October, Waldridge leads groups of 40 to 50 people through town showing them sites of purported hauntings and mysterious occurrences.
Each of those guests pays Waldridge $10 a head. That money, he said, pays for the permits, insurance and marketing that goes into the event. For him, the money he makes from the walks is “Christmas money.” But for the city, it’s tourism dollars.
“We get a lot of people from out of town,” he said. “[People have driven from as far away as] Indiana and Tennessee. But we had one couple from Australia here. They were on a sort of spook tour and decided to come to Lawrenceburg to do our ghost walk.”
For others, though, haunted houses are passion businesses that may make a little money but are done more out of a sense of love for the season.
Paul Gray, owner of Hustonville Haunted House in Junction City, just outside of Danville, runs his haunted house from late September through October. His other business, a pyrotechnics company, is a year-round operation based in the same facility. Each year, Gray said, he starts planning the next season as soon as the current one is done.
“We’re constantly changing things up,” he said. “If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, people will stop coming.”
After trips, upgrades, insurance, taxes and advertising, there’s not much left in terms of profit, he said. While he was hesitant to talk about the money the attraction makes, he said it does make money, most of which is reinvested back into the business.
“I don’t do this because I’m making money,” he said. “At the end of the day, if I can break even, I’ve done well. And if I can make someone happy, then I’ve done better. I can donate a lot back to the community and bring people into the area. This isn’t something for money. This is something I do because I love doing it.”