It takes a special kind of person to weather the grueling hours and organized chaos that define haunt season. But none of us can do it alone: you need a team of exceptional people to help run your haunt.
From scareactors to ticket booth staff, a great team can help your business succeed…and keep you sane on those late, late Saturday nights when you have a line stretching around the block.
Just like Rome, a great team can’t be built in a day. It takes time and effort to get the right people in the right roles and train them to be all-stars. And that’s particularly tough when you run a seasonal Halloween business.
Follow these strategies to attract staff and volunteers for your haunted attraction.
Why Staffing Matters
Staffing is not just about filling roles; it’s about creating a cohesive team that can deliver a memorable, safe, and enjoyable experience for every guest.
Ensuring Safety
Staff members play a vital role in maintaining a safe environment for both guests and themselves. They monitor crowd flow, enforce rules, and respond to emergencies. Plus, security personnel are essential for preventing disruptions and ensuring the well-being of everyone on site.
Providing Customer Service
From ticket sales to guiding guests through the attraction, staff members are the face of your haunted attraction. Their professionalism and friendliness contribute to a positive overall experience. Efficient staffing helps minimize wait times for your guests and ensure smooth operations.
Creating the Immersive Experience
Actors are the heart of a haunted house. Their performances, from subtle scares to dramatic encounters, directly impact the guests’ experience. Makeup artists and special effects technicians contribute to the realism and intensity of the atmosphere. Without a well-trained and enthusiastic team, the attraction can fall flat. Even your front-line staff help to set the tone and create an immersive experience from the moment your guests arrive.
Operational Efficiency
A well-organized team ensures that your haunt’s attractions run smoothly and efficiently. This includes everything from set maintenance and prop management to coordinating actors and managing crowds. Proper staffing helps to avoid bottlenecks and maximize throughput.
Recruiting the Right Ghouls and Goblins
Target the Right Audience
Think beyond traditional job boards. Searching for scareactors? Reach out to theater groups, cosplay communities, and local colleges with drama or arts programs. Need someone to help with bookkeeping? Contact the business school at your local community college to offer real-world experience to students studying accounting.
Consider using social media to advertise your job openings. Instead of just posting on your own profile or business page, which only reaches people who already know you, amplify your message with some paid job listings or ad campaigns.
Create Compelling Job Postings
Working at a haunt is way cooler than a boring old desk job. Emphasize that fun and excitement in your job postings! Highlight the opportunity to develop acting, makeup, or special effects skills. Clearly outline the job requirements and expectations. Use engaging language and visuals that capture the spirit of your haunted house.
Looking for scare-actors in particular? Get tips on recruiting truly terrifying actors in our guide.
Reach Out to Past Team Members and Volunteers
Former employees know their jobs, which means they can get an event up and running quickly. It’s also much less expensive to re-hire staff who worked with you last season, than to recruit an entirely new team year after year. Make a concerted effort to reconnect with our previous volunteers and team members before you try recruiting new folks.
Turn Your Team into Brand Ambassadors
Whether they’re a scareactor, prop builder, or ticket taker, incentivize your existing team to help recruit new hires by leveraging their own networks. Make it as simple as possible for your team to share your job openings. Arm them with a digital package of pre-written social media posts, graphics, and email or text message copy which they can copy and paste as needed.
Offer an incentive both to the new hire and the team member who referred them. A cash bonus is always attractive, and you could throw in some free passes to your haunt as an added incentive.
Offer Unique Perks
Consider offering perks like free tickets to the haunted house, discounts on merchandise, or behind-the-scenes access. If possible, provide flexible scheduling to accommodate students or those with other jobs. Create a “family” atmosphere, emphasizing teamwork and camaraderie. Here are a couple examples of unique perks that we’ve seen work well for haunted attractions:
- Free Passes: Offer team members a set number of free passes to your haunt that they can share with family and friends. You could also incentivize them to stick with you by boosting that number once they’ve worked a certain number of hours. HauntPay has a great tool for creating and delivering comp tickets to your team. Schedule a demo to see how it works!
- Financial Incentives: Many businesses are offering a signing bonus up to $1,000 to make their compensation packages look more appealing to new hires. Some are even adding on a complete-the-season bonus to incentivize team members to stick around through October. If you have a shorter season, you might not have the resources for a lump sum payment to each team member. Consider boosting your hourly rate instead.
Streamline the Application Process
Make it easy for people to apply online. Respond to applications promptly. Consider hosting open casting calls or auditions to find the best talent.
Texting is the preferred method of communication among younger workers in particular, even more than email. Start using text as early on in the recruiting process as possible to avoid being ghosted by potential candidates. For example, send interview reminders via text rather than through email. Once a team member is on board, it may be useful to have a group thread where you can communicate with your entire team: send reminders, answer questions, and recognize those who are going above and beyond.
Retention: Keeping Your Stars Shining
Foster a Positive Work Environment
It will be a lot easier to keep staff coming back year after year if they truly enjoy where they work. Create a supportive and inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels valued. Encourage teamwork and collaboration. Provide opportunities for social interaction and team-building.
Provide Training and Development
Offer training in acting, makeup, special effects, and customer service. Provide opportunities for advancement and growth within the haunted house. Encourage creativity and allow team members to contribute their own ideas.
Recognize and Reward Performance
Offer competitive pay and bonuses for top performers. (If you’re not sure what’s competitive in your area, spend a few minutes researching local job postings to get a comparison of what other businesses are offering.) Stuck with a limited budget for bonuses? It can also be really valuable to publicly recognize and reward outstanding performances. And provide opportunities for team members to showcase their talents, whether they’re in a scare-actor position or work in the back of the house.
Adopt Technology That’s Easy to Use
The wrong ticketing platform can cause headaches for your front line team – and your guests. Use a scary simple platform like HauntPay which not only has all the pro features you need but also offers outstanding customer support both for your team members and your guests. We’re here for you.
Make the most of our ticketing platform with features designed for haunted attractions like offline scanning, variable ticket types, bundled tickets, group discounts, skip-the-line passes, and more. And make sure that you set everything up well in advance so your team has time to get comfortable with the software.
Want to see more? Schedule a demo with a haunt expert to see how HauntPay can work for you!
Streamline Crowd Management
You might love the sight of a long line of customers waiting to buy tickets to your haunt, but chances are, your team is secretly dreading the Saturday night rush. Make things easier on your team while making guests happier, AND earning more revenue by using one of HauntPay’s most popular features: timed ticketing or virtual queues.
Haven’t set up ticketing for the 2025 Haunt Season yet? Schedule an onboarding call and we’ll set everything up for you!
Gather Feedback and Address Concerns
Team members who feel heard feel valued, and that’s true whether you’re working at a haunt or in a corporate job. Regularly solicit feedback from your team members. Address concerns promptly and fairly. Create an open and transparent communication system. They may surprise you with some great ideas about how to improve processes or even ways you could save money (or generate more revenue)!
