Saffire Blog

Ticketing Solutions for Your Haunting Adventure

Don’t frighten away guests with long lines or slow entry! With the right ticketing partner by your side, you can deliver a haunting experience for all.

With Halloween right around the corner, we enter the season of spooky hayrides, haunted houses, frightening corn mazes and other spine-chilling haunts! But what’s actually scarier than a headless man running after you with a chainsaw? A ticketing company that doesn’t have everything you need to run a smooth event.

So, let’s explore the features your haunted attraction should look for in a ticketing partner so you can deliver a horrifying (but efficient) experience to all your guests.

A Hauntingly Effortless Ticketing Process

First and foremost, you want to make sure people can actually buy your tickets! Look for a partner with an intuitive interface that’s easy to manage–and bonus points for integration! Plus, Most folks are buying their tickets on their smartphones nowadays, so you’ll want to double-check they offer a mobile optimized platform.

Next thing to consider is can you offer the types of tickets you want? From general admission and VIP tickets to group discounts and promo codes, the more ticketing options you have, the better you can meet the needs of your audience.

Making Entry Management Scary Fast

Don’t let long, slow-moving lines frighten away your guests! Instead, use a ticketing system that delivers their tickets directly into their mobile wallet. With a QR code on their smartphone, it only takes a couple seconds (and less gate attendants) to scan tickets and let folks in. You’ll also want to keep people moving once they’ve entered the attraction, so find a platform with real-time capacity monitoring to avoid overcrowding and ensure safety. Additionally, a robust system should allow you to effectively manage re-entry and prevent unauthorized individuals from entering. Access control is crucial to maintaining order and the spooky experience for guests.

Frighteningly Good Reporting

Improving your haunt and its operations should be driven by data! By having access to real-time reports and data collected from customers, you can tailor your marketing efforts to different audiences and optimize pricing strategy based on sales trends. You can also use the data to make your haunted attraction even better for next year–see what specific haunts are most popular and allocate resources during peak times to keep guests enjoying their spine-tingling adventure without long waits or empty scares.

Scream-Worthy Service

You might be running a haunted attraction, but that doesn’t mean you want to be ghosted by your ticketing partner! Whether it’s the haunting season or not, you’ll want to find a ticketing partner that is available year round by chat, email or phone. The ideal ticketing partner will be one of your best allies! So be on the lookout for one with a smart and dedicated team to answer your questions quickly, offer emergency support and promptly offer any assistance. With the peace of mind of a support team that always has your back, you can focus on making the spookiest, scariest haunt possible!

As Halloween approaches, it’s hard to overstate the importance of finding the perfect ticketing partner for your haunted attraction! Look for a partner that can facilitate a seamless ticketing process, keep the lines flowing, collect the right kind of data, and prioritize responsive customer support. With the right partner, you can create bone-chilling experiences that will haunt them long after they leave!

Five Ways to Master Media Coverage

Ready to get the word out? Discover how to secure media coverage that extends your event’s reach, enhances your brand reputation, and outperforms traditional advertising.

Securing media coverage offers the fantastic advantage of introducing your event to fresh and diverse audiences, creating a ripple effect that extends your event’s influence far beyond your usual crowd. Not only does media coverage capture the public’s attention and improve your brand’s reputation, but it can actually be more valuable than a typical advertisement.

Creating an effective media outreach strategy will take some time and patience, and to help you with the journey we’ve compiled our best advice for gaining media coverage.

Define Your Event & Understand Your Audience

Start by getting the basics out of the way: define its purpose, lay out your goals and zero in on the audience you’re trying to target. How old are they? Where do they live? How do they get their news? These are just a few of the questions you’ll want to answer. Don’t forget to consider the unique selling points (USPs) that set your fair or festival apart. Do you have the tallest ferris wheel in the South West United States? Or a 300-pound sculpture of your governor carved from butter? This is what the people want to hear about!

Create Captivating Collateral

Next up is creating two key pieces of key content: a press release and a media kit. Craft a compelling event announcement press release that is concise and includes the who, what, where and why in a punchy manner. The press release should also include a quote from the event’s organizers and contact information for media inquiries. Journalists should be able to find your organization’s media kit and access it easily. Include high-quality images, logos, branding assets, event background information, press releases, a detailed schedule and other relevant information (like statistics).

Get to Know Media Outlets & Journalists

Now you need to know who to pitch to. Oftentimes, the relationships you’ve built with media outlets and journalists will determine the media coverage your event gets. You’ll want to research both local and regional outlets (press, radio and television) as well as outlets that cover similar events to yours. Forge genuine connections with journalists by personalizing outreach and tailoring messages to their interests or unique perspectives.

Offer an Exclusive

Unfortunately, the inboxes of journalists and outlets are constantly barraged with press releases, pitches and story ideas, so it’s important to stand out from the crowd. To increase your chances of landing media coverage, provide outlets and journalists with exclusive opportunities. Behind-the-scenes access, interviews with performers or a personal invite to a first-hand experience are good places to start. By offering a unique perspective you’re more likely to catch their attention!

Tap Into Your Network

Reaching out to industry publications and familiar faces amplifies your event’s reach beyond the ordinary scope. As your network converges with media opportunities, a harmonious relationship emerges, propelling your event’s story into the spotlight and nurturing a cycle of growth that’s both meaningful and mutually beneficial.

In the realm of event promotion, securing media coverage can help you reach new audiences and launch your brand to the next level. From defining your event’s purpose to crafting collateral and from cultivating relationships with journalists to offering exclusive glimpses, every step is important in mastering media coverage.