Halloween is a special time and one that my house looks send to each year. Our house even ran a charity haunted house for three years in a row. This can be a great way to make money for the charity of your choice, have fun, and bond with house and friends. It can also be stressful. Here are some tips and tricks to manufacture your haunted house prosperous and not too stressful.
I learned these tips from personal feel and hope they help you out as you plan your haunt:
Be sure to have adequate volunteers. It is key when planning a charity haunted house to obtain fullness of volunteers. Also, plan out how many rooms you will have in your haunted house and try to program at least one volunteer per room. If you can program two volunteers per room, that is best. That way volunteers can chit chat between guests and not be bored. The more fun your volunteers have, the more likely they will keep advent back.
Although this is a charity event and you are using volunteers, I do recommend creating a professional program and try to pin down what days volunteers can help. Most citizen understand you will need to originate a real program in order for the event to work well.
Buy some professional props and then make many other Halloween props to save money. One thing you do not want to do with a charity haunt is make the decorations so cheesy that it is laughable. You want to do all things potential to make your charity haunted house a real haunted house. That means buying some high-end professional haunted house props and Halloween decorations. However, you do not want to break the bank with Halloween decor either. After buying some professional haunt props, such as coffins, skeletons and Halloween animatronics, make the rest of the props.
Gather friends and supporters of your haunted house scheme together and build coffins from cardboard and plywood. Tear up old shirts and rags to hang from the ceilings. You can even originate many cool, cheap Halloween decorations from Styrofoam and paint them with spray paint. Be sure to use dark colors, such as black, gray and dark orange.
Get the reserve of neighbors. One of the first things I did when we organized a charity haunted house years ago was knock on the doors of the neighbors next to where the haunt was planned. I believe it is leading to alert the neighbors about the planned haunt; sweet talk them and get them on board early on. You could even ask the neighbors to help. That way they are part of the group and less likely to have a question with any noise. Also, if a neighbor does have an objection you can find out early on and not on occasion night.
Advertise, advertise, advertise. I cannot stress this enough. It is leading to treat a charity event as if it is a true business. That does not mean breaking your wallet to advertise. Many news outlets will donate advertising space for charities. feel your local newspapers and newspapers in surrounding towns. feel area radio stations, too. Like newspapers, some radio stations will donate air time for charity haunted houses. There is still merit to passing out flyers to promote your haunt, too. Fall festivals are astounding opportunities to pass out flyers for your haunted house. Find out when your society has an autumn festival and put in order pamphlets for your haunt. Be sure to advertise your haunted house as a charity, too. Some patrons will visit your haunt plainly because it is a charity event either or not they even like haunted houses.
One final hint I would give is to have a special room for petite children at the haunted attraction. Make this room a place kids can play games, watch cartoons and take part in non-scary activities. Be sure to advertise this play area on flyers and in advertisements. Families with young children are more likely to attend your haunted house if there is something for petite kids to do other than go straight through the haunted house.
Animated Halloween Props
I hope these tips help. One more thing to remember is to have fun while planning the haunt. If you enjoy what you are doing, it will show in your final design. Have fun, be scary and make money for your favorite charity.