Funworld November 2009

Designers and operators share their perspectives on how mazes are a no-brainer for the attractions industry
by Keith Miller

Since the first corn maze appeared in the early 1990s, mazes have enjoyed tremendous growth and popularity as paid tourist attractions. The number of corn mazes in the United States alone shot up from fewer than 100 in 1998 to more than 800 in 2008, according to Corn Mazes America, which serves as an informational source on agricultural mazes; nonagricultural mazes are enjoying significant growth, as well. Until now, relatively few of these mazes have been linked to amusement parks, FECs, and other attraction facilities, but that might be about to change.

Brett Herbst, owner of The Maize in Spanish Fork, Utah (www.cornfieldmaze.com), which helps more than 200 agricultural- maze owners in the United States, Canada, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom design, build, and manage their mazes, says mazes offer many advantages for the attractions industry: “They’re relatively cheap, they’re safe, they don’t break down, and you don’t have to invest hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.”

There are other benefits,, too, according to John Humphries, owner of “Mountain Maze” (www.mountainmaze.com), a 5,200-square-foot labyrinth located at Pillow’s Funtrackers family entertainment center in Ruidoso, New Mexico. “They get a lot of repeat business, a lot of families, and one person can run them,” he says, adding that they can also be quite profitable. “We get 65 percent of the gross as profit.”

As to why growth of mazes at amusement parks and other attractions hasn’t yet kept up with their rapid proliferation elsewhere, Greg Gallavan, owner of Amaze’n Mazes in Winter Park, Colorado (www.amazenmazes.com), believes he knows. “I think there’s a still a bad taste in people’s mouths after putting up mazes and expecting them to make money from people just walking through it without involving a game, [contest], or anything interactive,” he says. “We’ve hit on an idea where we have someone help guests clock in, and then they’re timed. It’s a lot different than the old mirror mazes where parks expected to make money just from people walking through them.”

Gallavan has seen mazes work at many ski resorts, where, if the lines are very long at the alpine slides or the slides close due to lightning, people do the maze. “The same can happen at parks,” he contends. “It can work when the lines are long at rides or when rides have to close because of lightning.” His opinions come from experience, having designed and built mazes for Wild Adventures park in Georgia, Glenwood Caverns in Colorado, and Sun Coast Adventure Park outside Kingston, Jamaica.

Even on the crowded grounds of a big theme park, where available land is at a premium, mazes can work. Just ask Adrian Fisher of Adrian Fisher Design (www.adrianfisherdesign.com) in Durweston, Dorset, England, who made an ingenious use of space a few years ago with a maze at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England. “We built a very large maze in the dead unused space under the roller coasters,” he says. “The attraction to it for a park is that there’s much less waiting time and much more playing time in a maze than with a roller coaster.”

Why They’re Popular
Herbst says one reason for the popularity of mazes is their broad appeal: “They’re liked by many different age groups. In the daytime, you get the families and the grandparents, and at night, the teens, college kids, and a lot of church groups.”

It seems one of the main factors in this increasing popularity is the integration of games, contests, and prizes. “We give prizes, and the faster you get through the maze, the better prize you get,” says Humphries. “They have to find all four letters of the word ‘maze,’ and it takes about 18 minutes.” The letters are about a foot square and are placed at various locations through-out the maze. Humphries says games and contests make mazes especially popular for birthday parties and other group outings, including team-building exercises.

Another factor that adds to “Mountain Maze’s” popularity is Humphries’ ability to change it. “It’s made out of cedar plank supports, and it has plastic panels that can be moved around,” he says.

Design and Marketing
The design of a maze is determined somewhat by its location— obviously a cornfield maze wouldn’t be a good fit for an urban FEC—but current trends have more to do with the tools used to design the mazes and with added special effects than layout.

“Ten years ago, we designed them all by hand on a grid, and now we cut them all on a computer and use GPS,” says Fisher. “We’re also doing more themed walkthroughs with an adventure dynamic, and there are quite a few interactive technologies. We’ve got two or three proposals out right now with animatronics, and we’ve been doing fog and different forms of lighting for years. We’ve been using lots of water lately—waterfalls, side jets, bubbling walls. We did one maze with more than 200 jets of water. And we’ve been introducing tunnels in hedge mazes.”

As to whether a maze has to look great from the air, even though the people walking the maze never see it from that perspective, Herbst responds, “Yes, it’s very important. Perception is reality, and if people see a picture of a corn maze in the shape of something, it has a much better marketing advantage and delivers more positive dialogue and word of mouth. If there’s no awe factor, who wants to do it? But if you have some cool design, an operator can charge more.”

He says marketing is now done through billboards, radio, and the Internet. “Also, texting is very important now,” he notes. “They can get instant clues on their phones for scavenger hunts and other games.” Getting listed on visitors’ bureau web sites and travel web sites is crucial, and having video with the sounds of people enjoying a maze posted on YouTube doesn’t hurt, either.

Bill Balfour, general manager of EnterTRAINment Junction in West Chester, Ohio, says it’s important to note, however, that the marketing messages should be different for the child-dominated daytime crowd versus the nighttime crowd, especially if the night guests are coming for a horror-themed Halloween maze.

Of all the possible advantages of mazes to the attractions industry, Fisher sees one as paramount: “In a time when people want to do more as a family, mazes are a great thing to do. They’re about activity, time together, decision making, and discovery.”