Less Capital, More Creativity: IAAPA Q3 Insights

Philip (00:01)
Okay. This week from Los Angeles and Tampa, this is green tagged theme park and 30 I'm Philip. I'm joined as always by my co Scott Swenson of Scott Swenson, create development this week, Scott, you know, we're both been busy. We're both working on a lot of projects. I had the pleasure of visiting a not scary farm for their opening weekend and six flags, right? Fest and woods of terror for those of you paint, keep track at home. are in very different places. So yes, I did like fly across the country, in the weekend and then come back.

So it's been a it's been a weekend.

Scott (00:33)
Yeah, you flew east to west, I flew north, south to north and back. And yeah, because I've been, I was in rehearsal for Zubu at the Indian Indianapolis Zoo and getting all that cast ready and up and going. They opened this week as well for a more family friendly approach. So yeah, we've been crisscrossing the country and literally crisscrossing and passing each other probably in the air. Who knows?

Philip (00:41)
the Indianapolis Zoo and getting all that cast ready and...

Yeah, we've been crisscrossing the country and literally crisscrossing and passing each other probably in the air. Yeah, probably. Well, we've been crisscrossing, but we've been have our like hands deep in looking at, you know, I was working with the woods of terror team, but I was also looking at the other theme park events. And of course, Scott's working with these events. So all that means we have a lot of, I think, data points from what we've seen in person. And just so happens.

that data is something IAPA also released this past week. They released their IAPA quarterly outlook survey, which is a little bit like where they pull their members. In this case, it was a little over 200, I think around 250, where they pull them from all over and they kind of check their pulse and how they're feeling on some key metrics. And I thought we could combine that data with our in -person experiences to kind of paint maybe a broader picture of showing some of the data that is shown in the report.

And I also think some of what IAPA brought up in their report, we have seen in the ACOM index that came out previously, and even in Disney's last quarterly earning call for Q3. we're gonna, it's a lot of different elements that Scott and I will attempt to weave together into a coherent narrative. But always know that we will continue the discussion afterwards.

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Scott (02:28)
We've had a lot of people sign up since we started it and we really appreciate that. let's continue. First, all you Patreon subscribers, thank you very much. We do appreciate that. And we'll continue to give you additional bonus content that you can't get here. convince your friends. Tell everybody how much fun it is.

Philip (02:32)
yeah.

Yes. Yes. So, Now looking at these things, there's a few items in the outlook survey that I kind of highlighted for our discussion. One is something that we hadn't seen in either of the previous, or in the previous Acoma reports. They don't track it. But it mentioned that less capital is available now versus a year ago for.

for not for all of their respondents, but for some of them. And although it didn't specify, I'm betting you that the ones that had less capital were the ones in North America versus the respondents from like Asia or a place because as we've talked about the recovery is unequal. whereas Asia, you know, is having their attendance and their, their, their boom right now, you know, we're kind of equalized here. So I would bet that's where the discrepancy comes from, but I don't know. But less capital being available now, that kind of

reminds me of what of knots scary farm and not I'm not this is not a bad thing. I'm just trying to point out. So this year knots scary farm debuted two new mazes, widows and eight fingers nine, both original mazes. mean, which is normally you know what they do. We talked about the theme before they also have a tribute show that kind of launched but two new mazes is the least amount of new mazes they've launched in a while they usually do three to four. So two is

lower, which to me speaks to that capital where they didn't maybe have the full capital investment because I think when people say capital in these surveys, they mean a lot of money, not just like, you know, I mean, a big amount like you would put towards a coaster or toward big thing or two, three mazes, right? For something that's big like that. However, I think that the knots team with the two mazes in my brain, they really made up for it. And I don't know.

I think this is part of the scrappiness that I think we do find in regional parks and in our industry, especially live entertainment is too scrappy with the money that we do get. But in my opinion, these mazes are excellent. They are actually, I was shocked at actually how good they are. And again, it's because they're back to these classic elements. So both A Fingers Nine and Widows had a very strong

narrative that was woven throughout it. You know, it was delivered to the guest in a voiceover narrative. So in case of Eight Fingers Nine, it was the boogeyman. And so you kind of heard, you started off by going into the town where they had flyers up that talked about, you know, could the stories be real and beware the shadows and all that. And then you start to hear the fable of the boogeyman as you go throughout the

nightmares of these people and you start to see everything come real, which is great. It was excellent execution. was good storyline. And then Widows, of course, you're going to retirement home where the demonic spiders are taken over. And you saw the progression of that story as you went throughout. And my favorite part is the entrance there is grandmas that are thanking you for visiting like, you're finally here. There were some cute moments that were woven into that comedic horror. So they were both really good.

What struck me is they also incorporated stuff that Scott and I have talked about, which I found some of the other haunts just here to be lacking, honestly, which is the concept that they had a strong beginning, middle, and end, and they created sequences that stood out. So basically they made memories using big moments. So when you walk into Widow's, you're walking to their retirement home, and there's a giant spider on the ceiling.

Scott (06:11)
Mm

Philip (06:27)
that falls down as if it's gonna come and get you. And that's the opening sequence, right? With grandma on the corner. That's a great opening sequence. It's memorable, it encapsulates the entire story, it's excellent. know, those, they had the like strong middle room, strong beginning and strong ending. And I think that's, again, this is all key. So less houses, which could speak to the capital item that we saw in the report, but I think they were able to use what they did do very, very well.

Scott (06:54)
Well, and this is not uncommon because I often I have even gone so far as to say in certain certain scenarios that that high capital is the enemy of creativity. When you have less capital money to spend, you have to get the biggest bang out of your buck. So instead of just saying we're going to throw money at it, you say we're going to throw storytelling at it. And that makes for a much more memorable and really in turn more profitable experience because you have

Philip (07:05)
Yep.

So instead of just saying we're going to fill money in, you say...

makes for a much more memorable and really in turn more profitable experience because you have perhaps less capital on the front side and by using creativity you draw more attention or more repeat visitors because it impacts you more. It forces you to not just rely on well we'll buy this, we'll buy this, we'll buy that and find a way to put it together. When you're only buying that or half of the big

Scott (07:23)
perhaps less capital on the front side. And by using creativity, you draw more attention or more repeat visitors because it impacts you more. It forces you to not just rely on, well, we'll buy this, we'll buy this, we'll buy that, and find a way to put them together. When you're only buying that or half of the big magical toys that you want to buy for your haunt, you have to make certain that you

You play Hitchcock, you you, you, you, tease it, you tease it, you tease it. And then when it's revealed, it's like, it's, great. the other thing that I want to, I want to point out is, you when we're talking about capital, reduce capital in a park affects everybody. It's not just live entertainment. So it affects how they're doing. the numbers are different, but the percentage usually isn't, it's, you know, everybody has to reduce by 15 % or everybody has to reduce by 20%.

Philip (07:55)
Yeah.

It's, you know, everybody has to reduce by 15%, or everybody has to reduce by 20%. That means that those departments or those groups that are big steel things, know, coasters and such, they have 20 % less capital. Which, that 20 % is usually what LIB has for like four shows. So everyone has to step down a little bit. one of, you going back to how to screen in the early years, one of the most profitable and

Scott (08:23)
That means that those departments or those groups that are building big steel things, know, coasters and such, they have 20 % less capital, which that 20 % is usually what Livee has for like four shows, you know? So everyone has to step down a little bit. one of, you know, going back to to Howliscream in the early years, one of the most profitable and most successful years,

Philip (08:48)
most successful years we did was when we actually cut our capital expenditure because we had to work smarter, not more expensively. So we had to create new and different ways that we could.

Scott (08:50)
we did was when we actually cut our capital expenditure because we had to think, we had to work smarter, not more expensively. So we had to create new and different ways that we could use the expense dollars that we had versus the capital to make the experience unique and different. And I think that sometimes, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And if you can, you know, if you

Philip (09:02)
the expense dollars that we had versus the capital to make the experience unique and different. And I think that sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. if you do have reduced capital, yes, it requires people to think more. Yes, it requires it to be better storytellers. But it doesn't necessarily, and as Philip has proven with Not Scary Farm,

Scott (09:16)
do have reduced capital. Yes, it requires people to think more. Yes, it requires them to be better storytellers. But it doesn't necessarily, and as Philip has proven with Not Scary Farm, it doesn't necessarily reduce the quality. In fact, it may improve it.

Philip (09:28)
if it doesn't necessarily reduce the quality of the name. Yep. Now, I don't know for sure that they're operating on less capital. It could have been a different reason. I'm just trying to put together one and one and make three where we're like...

Scott (09:43)
Well, it would kind of actually make sense though. I mean, if they're going to try to spend less on the front end, that translates into more profit on the back end. You don't have to amortize things over more years. Every now and then, every part goes through it where they have to do a capital expenditure cut. everybody sweats for a moment and then they decide, here's how we're going to do it. And it usually comes out quite wonderful.

Philip (09:45)
It does, I think so.

years. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Like, here's how we're to do it. I will say too that these mazes are really long. So I'm not sure if, you know, I think that also could be part of it because essentially, you know, if you have stuff in storage, mean, you know, it's not always you're building everything new. you know, the big new things are like the facade and all that kind of work that you can't reuse. So they were very long. mean, I think about seven to 10 minutes.

so that's a long, that's about twice as long as, it really is typically is at a, at a theme park con with, you know, the throughput seemed to be what they need to be to get through those people. So that was, that was interesting that, that, you know, could have played into that.

Scott (10:51)
Well, and even though it seems counterintuitive, we have often found that the longer the maze is, the higher the input, not the lower. You can actually get more people through a longer maze than you can a shorter maze. And they're happier about it because they're still waiting in the same amount of queue, but the experience itself is longer and more impactful. yeah, it sounds like the knots did exactly the right thing.

Philip (11:04)
Yep, yep.

Yeah.

Scott (11:18)
Whether it was completely capital driven or not, it may have just been, let's reduce our expenditure so that we can increase our profits. That's very possible. But it sounds like they did it right. So that's good to hear.

Philip (11:27)
that's very possible.

Yeah, and I think another element of this could be also the staffing, which was a big piece that we've talked about. did a whole bonus episode on staffing, but there's also, it also showed up again in the IAPA report here. The IAPA report said that 33 % of respondents noted like, made like high concern basically over staffing shortages. So the way that they asked this question is they kind of have you rank.

Do you have no concern for staffing? Are you just like, you know, mildly concerned or like critically concerned? And so we saw that 33 % said they were like critically concerned, which is, so it's like, those are the critical concern, right? Yeah, well, could be, could be, but it was, it was just to know that that is not.

Scott (12:10)
So that's just all the parks. It's all the parks in Orlando. That's what it boils down to.

Philip (12:22)
Like basically every, like there's still more concerns. So there's still like 34 % that are just neutrally concerned. And then, you know, there are the 33 that are like very concerned. So it is a number. I mean, it's a prevalent number. And of course, this echoes similar concerns from 2023 that we heard even in the Disney earnings call where they said that we're continuing to rationalize costs while preserving revenue, but staffing remains a challenge in certain areas. it's, and we've talked about it. It's come up.

I think it continues to be the theme of the day, right? If staffing were our theme in 2020 and then we had a little bit of break for it and now it's back to being the theme. And I think this all ties together, like Scott said, the less budget you have, then you start to look at staffing and that also makes it more challenging because in order to retain talent, you need the budget to retain the talent. But if you are struggling to have the budget, for example, this is totally way...

out of everything, one of my really good friends was hired by Disneyland to perform at their upcoming Christmas show. And it is not a lot of money for his troupe. In fact, would say that I sat with him to try and do the math and it's almost not even possible for them to do it to make money.

So, I mean, the amount of what they're paying for the troops. they're paying them to come out and stay for about a whole day and perform about four shows for that day. And you get paid one rate with a minimum of six people. But to have six people come out and stay out there all day and potentially need rooms because they're traveling and you know, if it's back to back shows or whatever. So then you deduct all that and you really, they're not making hardly anything. You know, it's just to be able to perform there. But then,

Then of course, know, they, the way they do it is, or the way they did it in this case, you know, Disney entertainment was like, here's, you know, we would like you to do at least, you know, this many shows, at least three shows in the six week period. and you can do as many per week as you would like and submit to us the dates you would like to do. So the troop submits the dates to Disney and then Disney got back to them and said, well, we only want to sign you for these three over these courses, six weeks. and then, you know, that.

Of course, they cited budget reasons for that. But, you know, if you just look at the sustainability of this, like this is something that my friend and I were talking about where it's not really sustainable for them as artists, as a troupe to do it because you have three shows over six weeks and it's already not paying a lot. You know, like the...

Scott (15:05)
But once again, it ties back to the idea of it's not just about money. It's not just about money. The whole reason that the troupe agreed to do it, I'm assuming, is to say that they performed at Disney and to get the notch on their belt, to get the click on their resume, to get the exposure that they want. And no, performers should never work just for exposure. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is when staffing becomes a challenge, money and the amount you're paying them,

Nine times out of 10 is like the third or fourth most important thing. Perfect example with one of my clients, I will, which shall remain nameless just because it would be inappropriate for me to talk, to tell tales out of school. But one of my clients, they were having staffing challenges and this season they listened to what the complaints and the concerns were from the previous year. And this year they have addressed the vast majority of them.

And the simple fact that they have addressed, not even necessarily solved all the problems, but addressed the concerns and the issues of their staff. The staff this year is significantly more dedicated. Some of them I knew were not gonna come back for another season. And when they heard that these things had been addressed, they came back. you know, when you think about, everybody wants to...

Philip (16:10)
concerns and the issues of their staff. The staff this year is significantly more dedicated than some of

Yes.

Scott (16:28)
Everybody up in ivory tower offices once to when they figure your staffing they're like, well, we just can't afford to pay anymore Okay, they don't pay anymore. But make it the cool place Make sure that their their break times are comfortable make sure that the things that don't cost you any money You can offer them make sure that you know, you are providing an environment that they want to work in And then pay them as much as you can obviously to pay a fair living wage or as close to it as you as you can based on your budget But it's not just money

People do, nine times out of ten, people do not turn down jobs, at least in the entertainment side. They do not turn down jobs or leave jobs solely because of the money. If they are treated like crap, they need to be paid twice as much. If they're treated really well, they need to be paid less. Or they can be paid less and still stay.

Philip (17:02)
Exactly.

think I agree with the majority of that. I would push back a little bit by saying that like everybody has less affordable income, including live performers. So I think we're gonna pretty shortly as everything continues to equalize, we're gonna get to a place where you're gonna have to choose gigs based off of the money if you need to survive. I, my heart, know, my, of course my heart goes out to everybody in that isn't doing that because it's tough. But I do agree about everything else. So the idea of you really making it appealing. And I think

In this case, let me tell you, Disney is not even giving them day tickets. And that was the big deciding factor, which is why they declined a lot of the days because if, mean, really the, the, the troop is literally like, no, it's not money. And that's what I'm saying. That's like, this is exactly what I'm saying is I'm like, look like, and I guess here's my point even for, you know, they're declining dates.

Scott (18:01)
example, that's not money. That's not money. just proved my point, Philip. That's not money at all.

Philip (18:14)
to perform and this is Disney, right? And it's because of exactly what Scott's saying. It's like, if they had park tickets, it would change the equation because then it would become like a staff outing and they could be like, okay, we're gonna do a staff outing. We're gonna all be able to perform and then stay the night and go to Disney the next day or do whatever. It really changes the equation. And to me, I'm just like, Disney, you fools, absolute fools for this type of a thing.

But it proves the point where somebody who doesn't have a strong of a brand as Disney, you can't afford, I think, to not give them tickets. You know what I mean? You gotta really be like, how do we make this package great?

Scott (18:54)
And if you can't, and if you can't, you know, if you don't feel as though you can afford to give them tickets, which I don't know quite how you do that metric because your tickets, tickets really have zero costs to you. Cause you're not operating, you're not operating at capacity and turning, unless you're operating at total capacity and turning people away. I do have one client that is doing that. So what they're doing instead is they are providing other benefits like food and.

Philip (19:05)
Yes, and it's like six people in this case. It's like your performance.

Scott (19:23)
Although they can't provide comp tickets, they will provide discount tickets. you know, so, but I wouldn't say one of So one of the, but one of the challenges is with outside contractors, and I've run into this too, with outside contractors, which is what I'm assuming your, your friend's troop is, they have challenges with, if they're, if their internal staff gets reduced benefits, they can't give outside contractors.

Philip (19:26)
Yep. Yes, they get no discount tickets and no food.

Yep.

Scott (19:53)
more because then their staff just kind of looks at them and goes, well, I'm just going to go work for that company and come back and you can hire me as an outside contractor. So they also have to play that balancing game. So they have to, so you also have to make sure that your full -time employees or your part -time employees or even your seasonal employees have, have benefits. So they want to stick with you.

Philip (20:12)
which you're gonna need to do again. The point of what Scott and I in our bonus episode is all about this. mean, we really, need to like, can't put this off because staffing is just gonna continue to be a bigger problem as we get through the holiday season and get through. And to bring it back to the other trip reports too, staffing was a big thing that I saw at Fright Fest, Six Flags Fright Fest. Like, my God, like.

I don't wanna, this event was like, yeah, this event was not good. Let me just say like, okay, I'm of two minds of this as I always am, right? Objectively speaking, for me the event was not good. However, I did find people that were having fun there. Like, you know, and I did talk to them and ask them what they liked and what, you know, like I just do this, right? So I'm 100 % willing to acknowledge that

Scott (20:40)
I've heard stories.

Philip (21:07)
As I've said before, I'm just not the demographic for this. So maybe I just don't understand, you know? And so I think really that's what it is because looking around, so I went to Fright Fest Extreme at Six Flags National Mountain on a Sunday night. And first of all, it was really light crowds. Like we're talking like everything was walk, all the mazes were walk on. Like just no crowds at all. Like nobody was there.

Nobody was also there. No actors were also, I mean, it was really like, like there was not a lot of staff. was not a lot of actors, but also the stuff was walk -in and the quality back to the Capitol discussion. I have, you know, we talked about the line they were threading because they have 11 haunted, 11 mazes or whatever nonsense. And they have all the IPs. These were not good. These were something that you like you would find a better maze at a home haunt.

I mean, the mazes were really just like black flats and then with a few props, you know, and the trick or treat one was probably something that you would see in a Spirit Halloween. You know I mean? Like it kind of felt like a Spirit Halloween walkthrough kind of a thing where they were flats, but then you had like the Sam costume and you had, you know, a few scenes and there were some people in there, but they were all, nothing fabricated. Like everything was stuff that you could, you know,

purchase and bring in and just put into the set, right? Kind of like, like, almost like theatrical sets, right? Like really old school theatrical sets where you have just that you're making them in your high school class. You got like the flats and you put them up and then you go and get like the, borrow some desks from the classroom down the road. You put them in there and you're like, here's our set. That was the vibe, definitely. And the same with the acting, you you could tell that they had zero training or didn't know what they were doing and they were understaffed everywhere. Yeah.

I mean, even like the parking didn't work. like I had the like automatic, they have an automatic parking system, which is really cool and should help with parking in theory, right? Where you put in your license plate ahead of time and then you just drive up and it opens for you. So they, they only have one staffed parking booth because of this. But of course the automatic parking gates were not working. And so that one staff member had to like run and handle like all like nine.

You know, so now it's like just made it worse than you can't even get in, right? Which is good. I'm like, it's a good thing there's nobody here. Cause can you imagine if there were a lot of people here and none of them could get in? And you know, same with security, everything is automated, right? So you get like whenever people have bad checks, it just takes forever. The ticketing staff at the front gate have no idea what's going on. There's no signage. You know, I asked people, where do I pick up the wristband? Like nobody knew. I mean, it was, when I'm saying bad operationally,

It was like horrific.

Scott (24:04)
Well, and again, I can't say that this is exactly what happened, but all the symptoms you've described, if I were gonna prescribe what the actual illness was, the actual illness is what got cut, I'm guessing the staff size was not cut nearly as much, they just couldn't fill it. But what got cut was the training. What got cut was the training. And if you have a minimal staff,

Philip (24:23)
Yeah, that's what I'm guessing.

Scott (24:31)
You have to have a maximum of training because you have to have fewer people to accomplish the same number of tasks that you had a larger staff for. So if you've had a reduction in staff, you have to build back a little bit of that budget into the training because training I'm, I'm a huge proponent of training. Now, maybe that's because I write and present training material as part of my, you part of my business. there, there is that bias. Yeah. I mean, I'll be totally transparent on that one, but.

Philip (24:56)
That could be it.

Scott (25:00)
Even before that was the case, when I was working in the parks, if people were not properly trained, there was no point in having them. Just checking off the box that we've got this body in this position is detrimental. And to your point, as you've just described, the experience suffers, so therefore the guest is not happy when they leave, and therefore there is less positive feedback being shared, and there is less return visitation.

Philip (25:14)
is detrimental. to your point, as you just described, the experience suffers. So therefore, the guest is not happy when they leave. And therefore, there's less positive feedback being shared. And there is less return visitation. Now, I also want to point out that since you went to this on a Sunday night, you were also visiting a night where their target demo is not there.

Scott (25:30)
Now, I also want to point out that since you went to this on a Sunday night, you were also visiting a night where their target demo is not there.

Philip (25:39)
I mean, maybe, but they're only open Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So if you're telling me a third of the time that it isn't, then why even open on Sundays?

Scott (25:46)
It's because on paper, I'll tell you exactly why they're open on Sundays. On paper, that's the night that they can actually expand. They can't expand their Saturdays. They can't drive attendance to Saturdays. They don't want to. They've already got plenty, which they probably can't handle based on their staffing.

Philip (25:56)
Yeah. Well, that's interesting you said. Well, speaking of the attendees, I did notice I'd say everybody there was like a tween. I don't even know. I can't tell. You know, nowadays I can't tell how old people are. I sound like really old.

Scott (26:14)
If in my day we could tell how old people were.

Philip (26:17)
Yeah, seriously. I'm like, are you 17 or 25? I don't know. I have no idea. Like, but they're all, they're all younger in that, in that realm. I was happy to see that like police were, patrolling the parking lots. I'm not sure if it was normal, if it was there, something they were looking for. but, I did have like two altercations in the park where like groups of like, it's like maybe like college age, like guys.

tried to like harass me, which I was having none of. And I think in one case scared them off. But so that was the whole thing. But because you know, when there are no staff members around, you can't go to offend for yourself. But so I didn't think the vibe, I definitely would not go back because the vibe was like low key threatening in those cases where you just have like groups of like, like, you know, just teenage or no college aides guys.

causing problems. But I don't know, it's interesting you say that because to me, when you talk about the spreading too thin, essentially, their training and then kind of moving them around, it really reminds me back to how Hershey handled things where, you know, they just were like, look, we're gonna put all the houses here and we're gonna have five of them and they're gonna all be good and we're gonna put everything here. And then

These are just gonna operate as normal park things, you know, so we don't have to have everything open. And I think that's a big thing is they want, Sex Flags wants to say we have 11 houses. You don't need 11 houses.

Scott (27:51)
that is a trend that swings back and forth and has as long as I've been involved in theme parks. It's when I was again, working in new markets, they always want to be what I call they get trapped in the est syndrome. We're the biggest fastest, you know, and it's marketing. So what happens is when they say we have to have 11 houses and here's your budget, which is not enough to do 11 houses. Well, that's marketing driving the creative. It's not.

Philip (28:06)
Yep, yep.

Yep. Yep.

Scott (28:21)
somebody coming back and saying, well, that's great, except the experience will be good. Well, I don't care. As long as we get them in the door, that's all that matters. And I've been told that before. You we are here to turn the turnstiles. That's what I have been told by some people. But the people who really understand the marketing side are the people who understand that marketing and product have to be developed simultaneously and have to reinforce one another. You can't say, well, we're only going to market well, but not really worry about execution. And you can't really say we're going to do great execution and not really market it well.

Both of those are recipes for failure, which, and yes, I'm going to do a total pitch here. I'm actually doing a session of this at IAPA Expo in November with my friend, Christy Chase -Toser from RumbleBuzz. And we'll be talking about how to put the product and the promotion together and how they can work as a hand -in -hand team. But yeah, when you've got a number of houses that had as much as enough props or enough scenic or enough actors,

Philip (29:07)
motion together and how they can work as a hand in hand team. But yeah, when you've got a number of houses that had as much as enough props or enough scenic or enough actors, you know, have 11 houses with eight or seven houses where they've stuck in them. You just diluted it to the point where none of them were that strong. Yep. I mean, the one thing that I would give them props for is that

Scott (29:19)
You know, you have 11 houses with eight or seven houses worth of stuff in them. You've just diluted it to the point where none of them are that strong.

Philip (29:37)
The AV, well, there were two houses that I thought were pretty good. The Conjuring and SAW were great. The AV in those was great. And again, I want to end this section with just that I'm not the target demo. I did, there were a lot of people that were bored, you know, obviously, but there were some people that were having fun and they were young people that were in a group of friends. And, you know, they were just, they were just like joking about.

the thing the whole night, right? Which is fine, you know what mean? That's totally fine. However you wanna enjoy entertainment is up to you. But they were having fun, they were giggling whenever anything would get them, they would be like, my God. mean, they had a great time. And I think that's exactly what the target is. And I will say that what they enjoyed was like the AV. And I think that's where the theme parks still can do something that home haunts can't, is that they have full DMX, they had like all of the...

lighting and the sound sequences and all that. Like it wasn't the props, right? mean, honestly, you could just put them through like with no IP or anything and they would have the same amount of fun time with just the air cannons and stuff blasting at them, right? Because they're teens and they're just, you know, just have fun at those things. So I think that to me was the best part of it is seeing that when it was done well, when you had the classic haunted house vibe with the

music and the fog and the lights and the air horns and the crackers and all that kind of stuff. And then the kids just had fun because they don't even need actors in those cases. I think that was the best scenario. then, you know, they just liked seeing the nun. They were like, my gosh, the nun like you didn't need to do anything, right? She just stand there and it's fine because they like the nun.

Scott (31:17)
And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's really all about knowing your demographic and catering to them and providing them with what they want. And that's really hard to do these big sort of studies about because each region is so very different, which was another thing that was discussed in the study, but unfortunately we can't discuss it today because we are out of time for this particular episode. However, I know Philip and I and we will be picking this up right where we left off.

Philip (31:30)
Yes.

Scott (31:44)
in the bonus episode, please go to Patreon and subscribe so that you can hear us, as I've lovingly referred to it, green tag unhinged, where we just kind of go off on certain things that we couldn't or didn't say during this show. So hopefully we'll see some of you there. And if not, that's fine too. We'll see the rest of you, or all of you, next week here at Green Tagged, Theme Parking 30.