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We had some guests in from out of town, and we thought we'd take them. The web site was impressive, and clearly this is no rinky-dink event -- it's got serious promotional energy behind it.
What...
We had some guests in from out of town, and we thought we'd take them. The web site was impressive, and clearly this is no rinky-dink event -- it's got serious promotional energy behind it.
What a mistake.
The major problem is that it was hugely, absurdly, ridiculously overcrowded -- mostly with drunk teenagers (who appear to not really care -- we did). We went on a Friday night, two weekends out from Halloween, and the event was completely unable to handle the crowd it drew. After driving 45 minutes from St. Paul, we joined a massive line of cars. We had our tickets in advance (and so skipped the huge ticket lines). As some guy took our tickets on the way in, he laughed in our faces as he warned us the wait for the main attraction -- the maze -- was about three hours. Think about that. Three hours, in line -- and the wait is entirely outside.
We passed that giant mass and decided to try the hayride, thinking maybe the maze crowd would die down later. We got in line for the hayride and waited...two hours. Literally, two hours, trudging through the cold. I think we all agreed the ride would have been good, harmless fun (though not terribly scary) if we had waited 15 minutes for it. But no one was in a greal mood to appreciate it after a wait like that.
We got off to find the maze line hadn't subsided one bit. By this point is was 11:00 at night. So...the maze may be awesome, terrifying, wonderfully produced. But there is no way it was worth three hours. Before taking off, we waited in a much shorter line to walk through one of the ridiculously poor "Halls of Horror." No wonder no one was lined up for those.
We were about the only people there over 20 (my guests and I are in our mid-20s and 30s -- hardly old fogeys). It appears to be a massive, raucus, drunken hangout for teens -- who (because of that fact) must be willing to tolerate waiting forever in line (though they show an ample willingness to cut in line whenever given a chance). Four out of our five of our tickets were free (a gift from our realto) -- had we actually paid $15 a person, I would be furious. As it was, we had to just chalk it up to a terribly bad choice for our evening activity.
Trail of Terror: Either get ahold of your operation and figure out how to accommodate these huge crowd of teens, or start selling tickets only in advance to actually allow people to enjoy what you're doing. Your event is an embarassment.
Realtors and others who might think this is a nice giveawy to clients: Don't you dare.
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