So I was talking to a friend with a degree in sociology and we were talking about this and some interesting things we came up with that BGW could change and some things they unfortunately cannot.
~ There's the interesting part of how expensive the in park experience is. Some she came up with the concept of something like a group of friends want to go. there's 6 total. 2 of them have the money to spend on whatever they want in the park, 2 can spend money on food in the park but not much else, and 2 cant afford anything in the park. So lets say the two with all the money are using their bring a friends that cannot afford anything in the park. So now you potentially have a group where 2 of the groups members might not know that there is consequences to their behavior, 2 who financially have not remorse to their behavior, and 2 that end up going along with the bad behavior.
Part of the solution here was being reasonable with the prices in the park and make it a more affordable experience inside the park while still keeping the hurdle of entry high to overcome. So like a separately ticketed event at $75, from 5pm-10pm, while everything in the park is 40% less that what it has been recently. Now, for a 5 hour window, parents don't see the value in letting their kids go.
~ She's actually of the belief that chaperone policies don't work. In most cases she said these policies more inconvenience one of the parents, who become very disengaged. Especially as the boundaries for many people (GenX, Millennial, GenZ parents) are becoming blurred between work and life. So some parents can feel like they are doing something that takes time and money away from them to have to be there.
She said the idea situation would be that parents would go with kids, or just not allow their kids to go in the first place because they don't want to be there. She said the solution BGW put out there is a way around this conundrum without making something that will work. She said a stronger policy isn't to call it a chaperone policy, but rather call it unaccompanied minor policy and that no minor under 18 shall be allowed unaccompanied by a legal parent or guardian.
~ Now tied to the chaperone policy, but more a wider sociological issue with haunt events is that when you look at research, most often the bulk of people interested at the 15-21 year age range. It's just like the movies of a similar style, that age range is the predominate age group. So inherently Halloween events are going to skew younger.
So what it creates is an environment where more high school and college aged individuals will go, and there won't be enough more mature (30+) individuals that it acts as a natural societal guard rail. She said think of many haunt like events as a real world version of Lord of the Flies. When the normal bindings of the world isn't there, this is what underdeveloped minds in terms of maturity will do. It becomes more primal and things like fights and brawls is the solution to the problem.
So going back to the chaperone policy part of this - given that not as many parents would be tilling to go into the high scare areas, not going into the mazes, it doesn't really help manage those youngers kids all that much. So the parent scoots quickly into Festhaus where they know there will be no surprise scares, while the kids wander the paths and go into the mazes in Oktoberfest, there's no structure to supervision from that parent. Now all the sudden you have 20 parents that are with groups of 10 doing the same thing - you end up with 200 kids hanging out without supervision, and even though the parent told them to stay in Oktoberfest they suddenly are on the other side of the park.
Her opinion is two fold - (1) This is where having some form of a "no scare" wearable is important. Now if a parent feels like they can wander freely through a park without what they don't like interacting with them, then they are more likely to follow the kids around. They said to think about it this way, uniformed security is basically a "no scare" badge and that doesn't ruin the experience, but with customers for some reason we suddenly say it ruins the experience. Basically the no scare issue changes based on the value you see that brings, so when its security it makes you feel safe, but when it's a parent it comes off as annoying because they aren't doing you personally a service.
(2) She said if you look at successful Haunt Only facilities (like Field of Screams or Jason's Woods) - the scare paths are actually wide open areas and they avoid bottlenecks anywhere. They basically are forcing these groups that are unsupervised into tight areas, adding in scares, and not putting an "escape" route; this is where problems happen. So her thought was this is where you have some issues, you can't make some areas of the park that are tighter "one way only" because now you negatively impact emergency safety routes.
~ Ok and now for the major part that she said unfortunately said BGW can't do much of, and this is an issue that has happened nation wide, is we're still heavily impacted by COVID. So you think of something like transportation, cars became expensive, repairs to those cars, gas, goods. It all blew up in costs. So what happened was less teens now have cars than before. So groups that would do something like go further from home (like lets say KD) can't do that anymore because of the costs, so they stay closer to home (BGW) because they can Uber there or that one friend with a car can go there a lot easier.
So with this there are some 'historically safer' spots that are becoming less safe because that's all the further bad actors can go. And in some cases they've learned that with sheer numbers they can overwhelm what little there actually was keeping that place safe. So basically what used to be more small footprint has become more widespread because the things that used to be safety nets for bad actors (getting away from their home, unsupervised areas, staying in small groups) isn't there anymore as their options of movement has become limited.
Anyways - all of this was a long way short of going into this simple thought - this is a multi-tiered issue not just for BGW but more for society as a whole. And while BGW could and should be doing more to help themselves there's also going to be some recognition that while some of these acts happening are glorified and lack true repercussions there's always going to be this action.
~ There's the interesting part of how expensive the in park experience is. Some she came up with the concept of something like a group of friends want to go. there's 6 total. 2 of them have the money to spend on whatever they want in the park, 2 can spend money on food in the park but not much else, and 2 cant afford anything in the park. So lets say the two with all the money are using their bring a friends that cannot afford anything in the park. So now you potentially have a group where 2 of the groups members might not know that there is consequences to their behavior, 2 who financially have not remorse to their behavior, and 2 that end up going along with the bad behavior.
Part of the solution here was being reasonable with the prices in the park and make it a more affordable experience inside the park while still keeping the hurdle of entry high to overcome. So like a separately ticketed event at $75, from 5pm-10pm, while everything in the park is 40% less that what it has been recently. Now, for a 5 hour window, parents don't see the value in letting their kids go.
~ She's actually of the belief that chaperone policies don't work. In most cases she said these policies more inconvenience one of the parents, who become very disengaged. Especially as the boundaries for many people (GenX, Millennial, GenZ parents) are becoming blurred between work and life. So some parents can feel like they are doing something that takes time and money away from them to have to be there.
She said the idea situation would be that parents would go with kids, or just not allow their kids to go in the first place because they don't want to be there. She said the solution BGW put out there is a way around this conundrum without making something that will work. She said a stronger policy isn't to call it a chaperone policy, but rather call it unaccompanied minor policy and that no minor under 18 shall be allowed unaccompanied by a legal parent or guardian.
~ Now tied to the chaperone policy, but more a wider sociological issue with haunt events is that when you look at research, most often the bulk of people interested at the 15-21 year age range. It's just like the movies of a similar style, that age range is the predominate age group. So inherently Halloween events are going to skew younger.
So what it creates is an environment where more high school and college aged individuals will go, and there won't be enough more mature (30+) individuals that it acts as a natural societal guard rail. She said think of many haunt like events as a real world version of Lord of the Flies. When the normal bindings of the world isn't there, this is what underdeveloped minds in terms of maturity will do. It becomes more primal and things like fights and brawls is the solution to the problem.
So going back to the chaperone policy part of this - given that not as many parents would be tilling to go into the high scare areas, not going into the mazes, it doesn't really help manage those youngers kids all that much. So the parent scoots quickly into Festhaus where they know there will be no surprise scares, while the kids wander the paths and go into the mazes in Oktoberfest, there's no structure to supervision from that parent. Now all the sudden you have 20 parents that are with groups of 10 doing the same thing - you end up with 200 kids hanging out without supervision, and even though the parent told them to stay in Oktoberfest they suddenly are on the other side of the park.
Her opinion is two fold - (1) This is where having some form of a "no scare" wearable is important. Now if a parent feels like they can wander freely through a park without what they don't like interacting with them, then they are more likely to follow the kids around. They said to think about it this way, uniformed security is basically a "no scare" badge and that doesn't ruin the experience, but with customers for some reason we suddenly say it ruins the experience. Basically the no scare issue changes based on the value you see that brings, so when its security it makes you feel safe, but when it's a parent it comes off as annoying because they aren't doing you personally a service.
(2) She said if you look at successful Haunt Only facilities (like Field of Screams or Jason's Woods) - the scare paths are actually wide open areas and they avoid bottlenecks anywhere. They basically are forcing these groups that are unsupervised into tight areas, adding in scares, and not putting an "escape" route; this is where problems happen. So her thought was this is where you have some issues, you can't make some areas of the park that are tighter "one way only" because now you negatively impact emergency safety routes.
~ Ok and now for the major part that she said unfortunately said BGW can't do much of, and this is an issue that has happened nation wide, is we're still heavily impacted by COVID. So you think of something like transportation, cars became expensive, repairs to those cars, gas, goods. It all blew up in costs. So what happened was less teens now have cars than before. So groups that would do something like go further from home (like lets say KD) can't do that anymore because of the costs, so they stay closer to home (BGW) because they can Uber there or that one friend with a car can go there a lot easier.
So with this there are some 'historically safer' spots that are becoming less safe because that's all the further bad actors can go. And in some cases they've learned that with sheer numbers they can overwhelm what little there actually was keeping that place safe. So basically what used to be more small footprint has become more widespread because the things that used to be safety nets for bad actors (getting away from their home, unsupervised areas, staying in small groups) isn't there anymore as their options of movement has become limited.
Anyways - all of this was a long way short of going into this simple thought - this is a multi-tiered issue not just for BGW but more for society as a whole. And while BGW could and should be doing more to help themselves there's also going to be some recognition that while some of these acts happening are glorified and lack true repercussions there's always going to be this action.
