Congratulations! You have officially finished your very first season of Haunt! You got your first scare, you made some new friends, and you have some stories. You’ve caught the Scare Acting bug and you can’t wait for next season. But now you have to wait a whole year before you can scare again, what are you to do?
There are actually four main activities you can do for your new hobby. You can attend conventions, work on your character, listen to haunted house podcasts, work at off season haunts. The fun part about this hobby is even though it is seasonal, there’s more to it under the surface than you’d think.
Haunted House Conventions
Believe it or not there are many Haunted House Conventions around the US and a few outside of the States too. A lot of these conventions are trade shows for haunted house owners, but they usually appeal to scare actors as well.
They typically have such things as masks, makeup, costumes, animatronics, and other items for sets. The Haunted Attractions Network has a list of conventions along with their dates, locations, and websites. I’m not sure if this is a complete list, but it is a substantial one.
The largest of them all is TransWorld in St. Louis. If you are really into haunting, this is a must go at least once. They have multiple high end vendors for the industry and a mix of free and paid seminars for you to attend. If this is a bit far for you to travel, check the list mentioned prior to see if there is one closer to you.
Work on your Haunt Character
Another thing you can do is work on or build a new character for haunt. Odds are for your first season you either used a costume provided to you or you through something together quick from what you already had or stopped by a local halloween shop to get something.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a new or old character, upgrades to costumes are always an option until you find what makes you happy. You have months to find pieces that you want, so don’t be afriad to take your time to find that right piece.
Working on lines is also a fine activity. You may have come up with a few hits during your time at haunt, some good some bad, and you’ll want to remember the good ones. Consider writing them down, and writing down some new ones too. Based on your character, what lines would fit?
Character backstory is one more thing to consider. You might encounter or have encountered a point where a customer asked you something about your character and you didn’t know how to respond. You now have time to flesh out a backstory and will be able to answer those questions. This works at non-narative haunts. Some are scripted, so stick with the script, otherwise, you have more creative freedom to build your own character story. Granted this may never come up, but if it does you are ready. Plus if you have a love of writing, this will give you another excuse to get your creative juices flowing.
Haunted House Podcasts
There are a few Haunted House Podcasts out there, not a ton, but a a few for sure. One of the larger podcasts is the Haunted Attraction Network Podcast. They touch on scare acting, but also much more than that. Other aspects of the Haunt Industry are also covered like tickets, food, and events. I’m not sure what their upload schedule is, but they have been around a while.
Another to consider is HaunTopic Radio, they go behind the scenes of haunting. As of writing this they operate as a monthly podcast. With over hour long episodes, there is pleanty of content to listen to.
One final one I’m going to suggest is Haunting U a podcast for home haunts. Their upload schedule seems a bit sporadic, but there are over 80 episodes as of writing this and has been going since 2017. There is pleanty of contnet to listen to!
There are more podcasts about haunting out there, but the three mentioned are enough to get you started!
Off Season Haunts
You have your main haunt in season, but what about off season haunts? Some haunts will do a short run in the off season, usually around holidays such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Some will do a short run in the summer too.
Your main haunt may or may not do this, but feel free to look around and see if any other haunts near you are running an off season one! If you don’t feel like working one in the off season, you can attend one. This gives you the opportunity to experience a haunt if you didn’t during regular season for haunting.
The off season is a little more active than you’d expect so make sure to be on the lookout, cause you’ll never know what you’ll find!
The next part of our series, will be it’s finale. Concluding thoughts will be given. Make sure to watch for it!
Scare Acting 101: Part 8 The Off Season is marked with CC0 1.0 
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