Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Business of Horror - Halloween as a $6 Billion Industry

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The Business of Horror

For most of us Halloween was celebrated by carving pumpkins, parents and kids going trick-or-treating, and for some – watching a scary movie. Halloween is more than just playing dress up! The spookiest holiday of the year doubles as a $5 billion dollar industry. Did you know that more than 60% of Americans have a hankering for haunting, spending over $50 each year on costumes, candy, and decorations. In fact, IBISWorld, a national research firm said that Halloween sales are expected to reach a record-breaking $6 billion in 2009, up 4.2 percent from the $5.77 billion generated last year.

Today things have changed in the Business of Horror. Visiting a local haunted house is NOW the traditional way to celebrate the Halloween season. Parents still take their kids trick-or-treating, but adults who were mere teenagers when the haunted house industry blossomed 10 or 15 years ago are still visiting haunted houses today, along with a new generation of haunted scream fans.

Haunted houses have now become bigger than anyone could have ever imagined with some haunted attractions bigger than entire football fields and costing millions of dollars to produce.

The haunted house industry is a multi-million dollar industry with major vendors like Scarefactory, Distortions, Ghost Ride and so many more who provide innovative animations, special effects, costumes, and products

Haunted attractions have gotten so big that most major attraction owners no longer need to hold full time jobs to make ends meet. They’ve quit their normal 9-5 gigs and now work year round on their haunted house. In this day and age of high tech movies, video games, and interactive entertainment, the Halloween Attraction industry has had to take its game to new FRIGHTS!

Today we are talking with Mike "Beaker" Parpovich with Terror on the Fox, the nation's number one charity haunted house to discuss the business side of creating an exceptional haunted house!

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