Fear Factory bills itself as New Zealand’s Scariest Haunted House, and it backs that up: more than 14,000 guests have been too scared to finish the tour, their names now sitting on the company’s “Chicken List.” Every one of them checked in first. Founder Simon Smith launched Fear Factory in Queenstown in 2013, the first indoor attraction in a town built on outdoor adventure, and he’s used haunted house waiver software to run it since opening day.
What Fear Factory Needed From Check-In
Setting the scene starts before guests ever reach the maze. They walk through a creaking iron gate, up echoing concrete stairs, into a shop front lit with flickering lights, skulls, and cobwebs. Whatever check-in looked like, it had to fit that atmosphere, and it had to move fast enough to handle large groups and walk-ins without breaking the mood.
The whole process takes under a minute, and Simon credits it with adding a sense of “quality and professionalism” to the experience, right down to the iPad holders, custom-made to look like gnarled, hairy Wherewolf hands.
The Question That Makes Fear Factory Scarier
Every Wherewolf arrival app is built around the operator’s own questions, and Fear Factory’s is unusually direct.
“We ask our guests ‘What Scares You?'”
— Simon Smith, Fear Factory
The answers directly shape the attraction. When “The Walking Dead” spiked in popularity, Fear Factory added more zombies. When “It” hit theatres, clown numbers went up.
“Being able to have your guest check-in process become a way to collect data and directly impact the quality of your attraction experience is very powerful. Attractions that don’t leverage the check-in process to improve their experience are missing a big opportunity.”
Turning Guest Data Into a Smarter Ad Budget
Simon didn’t start out knowing how to run a marketing budget. Early on, Fear Factory signed with a wide range of media channels just to get attention, without much sense of what was actually working.
Wherewolf changed that by capturing age, gender, location, and referral source alongside every check-in. That data showed which channels were driving bookings and which weren’t.
“We quickly dropped certain print media channels that were expensive, and shifted over to digital channels that had a better ROI. We started spending less while getting more results.”
14,000 Guests Couldn’t Finish Fear Factory. Every One of Them Checked In First.
For an attraction built on atmosphere, check-in had to disappear into the experience instead of interrupting it. Haunted house waiver software gave Fear Factory a check-in that took under a minute, guest data that shapes what’s actually inside the maze, and a marketing budget that stopped guessing.
“Wherewolf has paid for itself ten times over. I can’t think of a tourism business that couldn’t benefit from the data a Wherewolf arrival app can collect for them.”
— Simon Smith, Fear Factory