Halloween Attraction industry is bigger now than most people think, Hauntword.com pegs the Halloween Attraction industry at ONE BILLION annually or more in revenue.  American's are spending yes over ONE BILLION dollars on Halloween Attractions nationwide. What is a Halloween Attraction what makes up this industry?  Halloween Attractions are ANY TYPE of attraction that is open during the Halloween season (September and October) that charges addmission to enter the event. So what types of attractions are Halloween attractions?  Halloween Attractions are but not limited to haunted houses, haunted hayrides, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, ghost tours, real haunted attractions, and many more. 

Pumpkin patches are now Halloween attractions because they now offer all sorts of attractions in additiion to simply picking a pumpkin such as pony rides, inflatable haunted houses, corn mazes, hayrides, and many more.  Do you want to attend a Halloween Attraction this October?  Listed below find a list of links to help you find what you are looking for and find articles about the Haunted Attraction industry.

Picking your own pumpkins, corn mazes, zip lines, face painting, hayrides to even haunted houses, the Halloween Attraction industry is a massive industry.  Halloween Attractions will help you find the best and spookiest Halloween events for you and your family 2011. To find Halloween attractions using our data base go back to the front page and use our map to find an attraction near you.  If you are looking for other types of attractions such as haunted houses we've provided some links below.

Find Haunted Houses, Haunted Hayrides, and Halloween Attractions www.Hauntworld.com

Find Tons of Hayrides, Screamparks Halloween and Haunted Attractions at www.HauntedHayrides.com

Find Corn Mazes and Pumpkin Patches www.HalloweenAttractions.com

Association for the Halloween Attraction Industry www.hauntedhouseassociation.org

Magazine for the Halloween Attraction Industry www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

Find Haunted Houses www.HauntedHouseOnline.com

Find Corn Mazes http://www.cornmazesamerica.com/

Find Some of America's Best Haunted Houses www.AmericaHaunts.com

Find More Corn Mazes http://www.cornfieldmaze.com/

Listed below are some articles about running and operating a haunted or Halloween attraction from Hauntworld Magazine

One of our Halloween friends has visited the best Halloween attractions and events in America which include the best corn mazes, and the best pumpkin patch events.  Pumpkin Patch events are no longer simply some field with pumpkins.  Today pumpkin patches are mega Halloween events which may include an elaborate corn mazes, activities for children, pumpkin picking, face painting, hayrides, music, food and more.  We are listing the biggest and best pumpkin patch corn mazes in America 2011.  Are you looking to get lost in the corn or looking for fun family friendly Halloween attractions?  Here we provide you a list of the best corn mazes, hayrides, pumpkin patches and or better put Halloween Attractions in America 2011.

1- Valas Pumpkin Pumpkin Patch www.valaspumpkinpatch.com - Omaha, nebraska
2- Bishops Pumpkin Farm www.bishopspumpkinfarm.com in wheatland, Ca
3- Bengston's Pumpkin farm www.pumpkinfarm.com near chicago
4- Robas Family Farms www.robasfamilyfarms.com dalton. pa
5- Remlinger farms- www.remlingerfarms.com near Seattle, wa
6- Pumpkinfest at Shady Brook Farm www.shadybrookfarm.com/pumpkinfest Yardley, Pa
7- Eckerts Farms www.eckerts.com St. Louis area
8- Underwood Family Farms www.underwoodfamilyfarms.com Moorpark, Ca
9- Blake Farms www.blakefarms.com in michigan
10- The Rock Ranch www.therockranch.com near Atlanta
11- Swank Farms www.swankfarm.com hollister, ca
12- Schnepf Farms www.schnepffarms.com in arizona
13- Crumland farms www.crumlandfarm.com in Virginia

other must sees..........

Goeberts farm www.pumpkinfarms.com near Chicago
Cherry Crest Adventure Farm www.cherrycrestadventurefarm.com lancaster, pa
Siegels Cottonwood Farms- www.cottonwoodfarms.com near Chicago
Linvilla Orchard www.linvilla.com Media, Pa

Maize Adventure www.maizeadventure.com  North Carolina

PLEASE EMAIL US YOUR PHOTOS OF YOUR FAVORITE PUMPKIN PATCHES AND CORN MAZES SO WE CAN POST THEM HERE.

Scaring up Daytime Business: How to make money with your haunt during the daytime?

Since 1985 at the age of 15 when I started our haunted attraction I have been looking for ways to improve our event.  At that time our haunt had a staff of ten people with a low budget; we could get away with building a haunt in September with a quick month of work.  Fast forward 22 years and the world is a different place and tickets to Spookywoods are now $25.00.  We have a staff of over 130 with ten staff members that work year round with a yearly budget well over a $150,000.   As our haunted attraction ticket price increased over the years, it was no longer wise to cross promote with other attractions to gain customers.  I have found the expendable income limits of most patrons to choose one good haunt per season to attend rather than several.  With the average price of gas being $3.00 per gallon that doesn’t help the situation.  So what is a haunted attraction owner to do to compete for the entertainment dollars of our target market?  My theory has been to create a destination for fall entertainment for all ages, to be on the top of the list of things to do as Halloween approaches.   I no longer agree with the concept that we should share a customer with competing venues, but rather make us the only venue to attend.  After all if we don’t make a profit we don’t get to continue our love of this business.  Based on this idea I have seen more organizing of haunted attractions owners coming together outside ones market to share ideas and sponsorships.

In 2000 we started a business plan to build a family entertainment center in stages to cross promote our haunted attraction.  Our location is very well known and ¼ mile just off I-85 making it easy to find so we had a good location which is a great advantage from the start.  We started phase one by creating a 12 acre corn maze on our farm, the initial thinking was how are we going to market it to our existing haunted house patrons?  What we discovered rather quickly, was that this group was looking for a scare also.  At first we marketed combo tickets to both the non-haunted corn maze and to Spookywoods.  We then found people were disappointed that there was no scare in the corn maze.   However, what we did find was the corn field was an excellent place to scare people.   We modified our plan and turned 2 acres of our corn field into a one way path lined in construction fence weaving corn throughout the netting and made it part of Spookywoods.  We started to promote a new domain name, Maizeadventure.com as a way to separate our marketing from just a scary website.  Our new website had to be family friendly and we decided to use logos in a map format on our front page of our website that includes a layout of our farm with a link to Spookywoods by clicking the Scarecrow.  This supports the idea to market to the families with a family fun site, that cross promotes the haunt to the thousands of visitors looking for family fun.

In the following years we changed our focus from trying to get our haunted house patrons to buy the corn maze ticket and focused on who our customers really were.  We found out that marketing to the family we could turn young adults and parents into new Spookywoods customers after being on our farm for the corn maze.   Just like with the haunted attraction we had to come up with more to offer as our event grew.  The corn maze is a great attraction that takes about 1 ½ to 2 hours to solve.  

But once we focused on the family we found out that not all family members can handle a 2 hour walk in a corn field.  So, we had to come up with other attractions that the younger kids and even the older adults could handle.  We added a Gem Mining attraction and quickly found that now the grandparents could spend time with the grandchildren sifting through the water to find gems and fossils while the parents took on the challenge of the corn maze.  In an instant we had something for the whole family and the word of mouth took off.  Being a haunted attraction owner we know all about paying attention to detail.  So you can bet when you come to our Gem Dig you get the whole package from blue grass music setting the tone to friendly, helpful staff in character playing the part of a miner that assist you with your bags or buckets of gem rough. 

The Gem Dig success enabled us to invest in the renovation of an old tobacco barn turned into a Rock Shop to compliment the Gem Dig. 

We also added a Dinosaur Discovery sand pit that is free of charge for the kids to uncover over 2,500 pounds of buried dinosaur bones.  This is a great place for Mom and Dad to take photos and have a rest while they watch their kids playing in the sand. 

We also remodeled a second tobacco barn and turned it into the Snack Shack where we sell Kettle Corn, Lemonade Maze Coolers, Carmel Apples and many other snacks.   This year we remodeled a third tobacco barn and it has become our Monster Shop where we make silicone and latex masks for Spookywoods.  By having this shop open during the day it offers us a great way to promote our haunt.

Now that we had thousands of families coming to our farm we added a pumpkin patch with another place for the family to relax and take photos of the kids and pick a pumpkin for the front porch, table or yard.  We do not grow our pumpkins but purchase them wholesale and display them in our pumpkin house that makes for a great photo opportunity. 

We now have created a Halloween Destination for the whole family that naturally cross promotes our haunted attraction, since you see our Haunted House and Massive Haunted Castle from the corn maze.  Even our Fire Tower Exploding at nightfall creates a great word of mouth about coming back for a trip to the maze during the day.  This year our maze design is a Pirate Ship, so we will have a Family Treasure Hunt.  This will create another cross promotion to our haunt by having the prizes being tickets to Spookywoods.  What we have found over the past 7 years of running our Maize Adventure Corn maze is we are introducing young kids to our farm that will become our best salesmen and soon will also come back once old enough to visit the Spookywoods at night.  Also we have found that the parents are coming back and making a date night out of a trip to Spookywoods with other parents and leaving the young kids with a sitter.  This is not your typical target market for a haunted attraction, but once you got them hooked with all the family fun they are so interested in coming back to see what the haunt is about. 

Tony Wohlgemuth, Owner
Kersey Valley, Inc.
www.maizeadventure.com:tony@spookywoods.com