OF course, there is a popular belief among public relations professionals that when it comes to the entertainment industry, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And in this era of movie star misbehavior and pro athlete arrests that might sound like sage advice, but it doesn’t quite ring true for the amusement industry. Because a public uproar can threaten an attraction’s survival, the way some parks and vendors market their products when faced with potential controversy has become a crucial aspect of their long-term strategy.

Some facilities and products can’t avoid operating in touchy territory. Haunted attractions, for example, often play on many of the hot-button issues—safety, violence, and religion—that concern society at large. In part as a reaction to these community concerns, seven years ago attraction owners formed the International Association of Haunted Attractions (IAHA), which urges a proactive approach to marketing frights and scares. That way, says IAHA President Liz Foral, when a local school district decides to discourage Halloween festivities and renames the holiday “the Fall Harvest,” or when there are complaints about haunted house blood and gore, IAHA members are able to react effectively.

Foral emphasizes that her group makes a point of being responsive to their community’s needs and expectations. “Effective customer service is crucial,” she explains. “Listening to what people have to say is often the most important thing we can do.” But of course there will always be the potential for controversy when the point of a haunt is to frighten customers. “Let’s be honest,” Foral says. “The more intense and greater the shock value, the more popular the haunts are. ”

How to resolve this dilemma? Foral maintains that being reasonable is the key. “Know your demographics and know the community standards. And remember when marketing that it’s about having fun. We shouldn’t lose sight of that,” she says.

Of course, standards can be difficult to judge. “Expectations change,” Foral continues. “For years, one of our best characters was a severely burned fireman. But after 9-11, that’s inappropriate. No one had to complain about that; we made the decision never to bring him back.”

IAHA member Todd Patton, who runs Nightmarez in Memphis, Tenn., agrees that proactive engagement with the community should be a crucial part of marketing strategy. Rather than avoid potential difficulties, he makes a point of appealing directly to religious groups, scout troops, and schools. And he donates large amounts to charity (Nightmarez has donated more than $60,000 to local charity in three years). So the company’s image is clean-cut. “We also steer away from demons and satanic images, and church groups have been some of our biggest customers,” he says.

Still, the potential for controversy can’t be ignored. “Our first season was 2001, just after 9-11,” Patton says. “We were concerned that body bags and gore would be inappropriate. But we did it anyway and never received any negative comments.”

This example points out how hard it is to predict what might generate controversy. Interestingly, Foral reports that despite industry-wide concern, Halloween of 2001 was one of the best years in industry history. “We didn’t see that coming, but in hindsight I think the public was probably in need of a psychological release.”

“People do like to be frightened,” agrees Bob Turner of Haunted Specialties in Fremont, Ohio. “There’s so much ground that might be covered in a haunted attraction, from Casper the Friendly Ghost to Frankenstein to today’s serial killers, and no matter how you market it, all that lore tends to excite the imagination. In fact, we find that part of the fun for customers themselves is their own exaggeration of the legends and stories. Someone will get excited about a scary haunted house, and before you know it, the rumor is that there’s a house so frightening that if you can reach the top floor safely, you’ll win $100. I mean, come on, show me a facility anywhere in the country that makes that offer. But people believe it.”

Turner enjoys the Halloween hype, and like Foral he believes that marketing issues come down to presenting frights and scares with the emphasis on entertainment. He says the IAHA program of sharing issues and concerns assists him in making his staff aware of potential problems. “We revisit each fright and scare every year, discussing new ideas and any concerns from the previous season. And we train our actors intensively, making sure that they use interaction, rather than reaction, to get a scare. With an interactive fright, customers feel a part of things, so I think they’re less likely to be critical. Our style is called ‘high startlization, low gore,’ and we’re careful to train our people how to respond to the customers’ fears.”

He has occasionally received letters from people who voice religious complaints or concerns about community standards, but his response is always in keeping with IAHA’s emphasis on customer service. “When someone says I’m corrupting the youth of America, I ask them to explain their concerns. I ask, ‘Have you been to my facility? Have you walked through it? And if so, what details did you find offensive?’ That usually does the trick.”

This kind of responsiveness also helps when the unexpected occurs. “You find that some people are terrified of things that most people just laugh at,” says Foral. “Clowns and chainsaws will occasionally paralyze a customer with fear; they’ll literally ball up on the floor and cry. Being able to handle that in a professional way helps the customer, and it sends a signal to the public that we know what we’re doing.”

Marketing can also be an issue for retailers and manufacturers. Morris Costumes in Charlotte, N.C., produces and sells costumes, props, and frightening animatronics. General Manager Scott Morris says that his family’s business works frequently with religious organizations and community groups and rarely receives complaints because they know what their costumers are looking for. “They stay away from our more gruesome pieces,” he says.

Les Sackin, of Love of Money, Inc., in Keyport, N.J., confronts a different kind of potential controversy. Among his merchandise are Civil War-themed historical souvenirs such as reproductions of Confederate money, Confederate flags, and statuettes of Confederate generals. He markets his products to museums, historical sites, and reenactment groups, and he makes a point of offering memorabilia from both sides of the Civil War. “I offer these items as historical artifacts.



The fact is, there were two sides in that conflict and some people want to collect items that represent both North and South. If Confederate symbols are displayed alone, the meaning can be misconstrued, but as part of a Civil War display, it makes sense. So that’s how I market it—offer customers and visitors both sides,” Sackin says.

Marketing an entire park in the face of controversy is a much more complicated matter. When the Rev. Marvin Rosenthal began planning The Holy Land Experience theme park near Orlando, Fla., he envisioned a living biblical history museum. “When people come here, we hope the Bible will come alive for them and, I pray, change their lives,” Rosenthal told the Maranatha Christian Journal. “The goal of the park is to create a wholesome, family-oriented, educational, and entertainment facility where people can come to be encouraged, instructed, and reinforced in their faith.”

To this end, the park re-creates elements of the Holy Land during the Old and New Testament eras. Visitors can wander through 15 acres of replicas of Herod’s Temple, Christ’s garden tomb, and the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. No thrill rides are offered. Instead, the park hopes that its architectural recreations will work in conjunction with costumed religious characters (including a white-bearded Moses who offers rules for park behavior rather than commandments), animatronic figures, and multimedia presentations to create a “multisensory experience” in which customers “will be encouraged in [their] search for enduring truth and the ultimate meaning of life.”

But what might appear to be a straightforward religious endeavor became a focal point of controversy before the park even opened its doors. Some Christians questioned whether the recreation of sacred sites was appropriate. And representatives of Jewish groups voiced concerns because Rosenthal is a Messianic Jew and his ministry, Zion’s Hope, is dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity. Rabbi Daniel Wolpe told the Orlando Sentinel that such proselytizing is offensive because it implies that Judaism’s traditions and beliefs are incorrect, and a protest was planned for the park’s opening day in February of 2003.

The Holy Land Experience’s strategy seemed to be a straightforward continuation of its mission and an appeal to its core audience. It offered information on its web site, www.holylandexperience.com, and the Zion’s Hope ministry promoted the park. On opening day, the demonstration failed to materialize, and the Holy Land Experience reached its 800-person capacity by noon.

The developers of Dracula Land in Transylvania, Bulgaria, are hoping they’ll have a chance to enjoy that kind of opening day, but they have been involved in a series of controversies that may prevent their plans from ever leaving the drawing board. The theme park is intended to celebrate the hometown of Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for traditional Dracula stories.

The Romanian Tourism Ministry believes that a Dracula Land park would bring a much-needed economic boost to both Vlad’s supposed hometown of Sighisoara and the surrounding area. Original plans included $30 million worth of amusement rides, an open-air amphitheater, hotels, horseback-riding facilities, and even a restoration of the city’s medieval castle. Government officials projected that 3,000 jobs would be created and that the park could be followed by construction of a golf course, a hotel school, and an International Dracula Center with an archive of Dracula history and legend.

Many locals, however, were not pleased to hear that their quiet town might soon be overrun by an estimated 1 million tourists per year while its image would be distorted into the home of “Mickey Mouse with fangs, lots of Vampire kitsch,” as one observer put it.

The plot thickened, much like a Hollywood horror story, when, according to the Los Angeles Times, soon after the government announced its Dracula plans, a priest appeared on the scene to do battle with the Prince of Darkness’s arrival. Father Hans Frolich, a Lutheran priest in Sighisoara, took up the cause, telling CNN, “This place will be invaded by those who practice satanic rites and buy drugs. What could children see in such a park? People who sharpen their teeth and drink blood or some crazy guys clad in bed sheets posing as ghosts? It’s ridiculous.”

The Romanian Orthodox Church, the dominant denomination in the country, also objected. “We are not glad that Romania will be associated with Dracula. We are disturbed by the name Dracula,” Bishop Vincent Ploiesteanu told the Los Angeles Times.

But many some shopkeepers and business people supported the plans. The area already has Dracula-themed restaurants, statuettes, and even directional signs, they argue. “Dracula, who was he? He’s a myth, and if people want it, shouldn’t I sell it? One thousand books and 250 films were made about him,” local entrepreneur Olimpiu Langa told the Christian Science Monitor.

As the controversy spread through Romania, the Tourism Ministry backpedaled. It responded with a feasibility study that suggested the park could perhaps be built elsewhere in the region, though Tourism Minister Matei Agathon Dan insisted Sighisoara remained the best location. The park must maintain ties with its Dracula roots, he told the Monitor. But the government didn’t publish the results of its study, and investors began to lose confidence in the project.

The situation further deteriorated with the involvement of the United Nations and Greenpeace. UNESCO has listed Sighisoara as a World Heritage Site, and it complained that the development plan threatened the town’s historical integrity. And Greenpeace protested the plan’s impact on the area’s ancient oak forest, much of which would be cleared to make room for the park.

Although the Tourism minister was replaced and the government agreed to move the park to a more developed location, perhaps even at a resort spot on the Black Sea, at this time the park appears permanently stalled.

Whether or not a more proactive marketing strategy, with forthcoming responses to area concerns, might have saved Dracula Land remains open to debate. What does appear to be true is that when controversial products and parks demonstrate a willingness to be forthcoming, customers and the community often respond by supporting those businesses. As the IAHA’s Foral stresses, “There’s no substitute for openness.”