As a "haunted attraction type person" myself, I have always been interested in this venue. Years ago I acquired a nice book, along with, a set of cassette tapes called "Manifestations", which I enjoyed very much. These fellows seemed to have a good thing going down in Texas, and, spilled the beans on their operation. Not sure if it is still available.

Michael

Back to the OT for this thread,"How to market a seance?".
Here is a few things to think about,for Home parties!
Having background in haunted attractions is a plus,but keep in mind...people come for the thrill,and they also can leave knowing it is all set up for a scare!
They can also leave,with the laughing after the scare!
Now,when you use the statement of Seance,people think you are trying to make contact with the dead/spirit!
Also,people will not want to chance doing a seance in their home,thinking someone/something may stay in their home,when the medium/performer has left !
Also,many people will not even touch a ouija/talking board!!!
So,trying to market for an exclusive Seance,is not the way to go! IMHO
I think one should try and market themselves,as a Spooky/Paranormal entertainer,and have a option for also doing Seance! We say it is for entertainment,but others will believe what they will believe.
Now,for your target audience...You may end up where you may not want to be,if someone just books you for a Seance! You need to also check out,the group that wants you to perform for them! (Performer,needs to watch his enviroment too!)

Also,you have to come up with how to define,seance!
Doing a few Spooky Magick Tricks,does not make it a seance!
How,far will you go,as a Medium ?
Can you give everyone the roller coaster ride,bringing them back to a happy place!
Do,you take them down the hole,then just walk away?
What,if after you leave a home,something has stayed?

I just think if you push mainly doing Seance,your bookings will be few!

Don't take my post wrong,I mainly want to do Seance,parties too!
I've found,I was looking for darker and just wanting my effects,to come across as reallity!

That,was not the true me!

So,I decided to do the effects as real,but recovery for each one with the humor!

Best of wishes in everyones search for how to market!

I stated this before,My new Character for 2014,would be the 'Love Child' of "Alice Cooper & Elvira"...(Attitude)

I'm thinking of giving "I spent the night with Godzilla,and Survived!" tee shirts to the Women !
Now,trying to figure BOR product for the show !

YEP ! Above,was a Joke about the tees !

I have (I think) almost all of Paul Voodini's material as relates to séances. . . two thumbs up on all of it. But as far as marketing goes, I like Docc Hilford's idea of giving them a quick little séance, or spirit reading, right there (and using your business cards.) Then it's just a quick upsell for the full séance, or a private sitting if they want. "Now, do you wanna see something really spooky?"

Oh, by the by Paul. . . I'd be very interested in a BOR booklet from you!

Absolutely bring it back paul.

giving them a micro seance then up sell is the premise of my post above but done on a larger scale. the fact that I'm paid weekly to self promote my home adventures is icing on the cake.

May I modestly suggest The Bigger Book of BOO! It covers just about everything you can imagine in doing intimate seances (I prefer to refer to them as Ghost Hunts.)

http://www.jewelpro.com/boo/books.html

Seriously, this wouldn't be still selling and the staple it has become if it wasn't useable stuff. Oh, and my good friend Jim Magus wrote the Introduction as well as contributed along with Andruzzi and others. The very last chapter is a true marketing story that may give you some neat things to consider.

TEB3/Lary/Traveler

Steven,
another venue are all the "Ghost Hunting" or paranormal conventions as they already enjoy the thought of spirits (bill it to them as a way to finish the evening off in grand fashion)
Vlad

I ran a seance and paranormal entertainment show at a Bram Stoker convention in Whitby a few years ago. One of the best nights ever!

I second that!

I've been starting posts here about this subject for years.
I just can't figure out who & how to market my seances to.

Here's what I have on my site:

Do You Believe That Ghosts Exist?
Want To Find Out?


Welcome to The Seance Theatre!
If you and your friends like a good ghost story, this is like experiencing one first-hand!
The Seance Theatre is a re-creation based on seances that were common entertainment a hundred years ago. But, in this case, we won’t be contacting a deceased friend or relative. Instead, you will have a choice of 2 different seance presentations:
• The Stanley Hotel Experience
Can an inanimate object possess a sort of ‘ghostly residue’ from years of existance? The Stanley Hotel, located in Estes Park, Colorado, is the hotel that author Stephen King based his Overlook Hotel on in his masterpiece, The Shining. During this seance, we explore the Stanley through first-hand accounts of apparitions and also by trying to make contact through unconventional experiments

• The Women of Whitechapel Seance
The Whitechapel district of 1888 London was the scene of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders, still unsolved to this day. This seance is held in an attempt to make contact with any of the Ripper’s victims and to, hopefully, bring closure to the case. Not for anyone with a weak heart.

Each seance is interactive, which means some of the guests (both living and dead) will participate in seemingly paranormal activity. No Ouija boards are used and each performance runs about 2 hours. For ages 18 & up.


The 'Whitechapel' seance is based on Paul's excellent ebooks & also The 13th Seance which I really like.

I've sent out rack cards along with letters to bed & breakfasts & libraries & friends.
I get no response.

I'm sure that I'm missing something in procedure because when I come here to the Magic Café, I always see a bunch of you posting about all of your seances.

Regarding my other venues, I'm doing fine getting shows.

Anyway, I hope this thread doesn't die to soon.

Radio ..... I can help.

Marqus - hire the venue yourself and sell tickets locally. Selling a seance into any venue is difficult as the word 'seance' carries with it such connotations. It's difficult in the UK, I can only imagine it's even more difficult in the US.

But hire your own venue and you're laughing. The word 'seance' and 'ghost hunt' that only acted to scare venues away now become intriguing words to draw punters in. I cover all of this in It's a G-G-Ghost! but essentially hire a venue (as cheaply as possible), allay any fears that the people who are letting you hire the venue may have by telling them it's for a Victorian historical society who are interested in recreating a Victorian spiritualist meeting (!), or even just call it a magic show, they don't know, and then sell tickets on-line with a Paypal button. Your local press & media will give you tons of free publicity (a ghost hunt! On a slow news day that's a god send!)and you'll easily sell 20 tickets or so.

If you wait for a venue to agree to let you run a seance in their precious building and pay you to do it, you may be waiting a long time.

There are many full-time professional companies that started off in exactly the same way that I suggest. Typical websites of companies making a decent living from it in the UK are:

http://www.frightnights.co.uk
http://www.hauntedhappenings.co.uk

These are not big companies with plush offices and dozens of admin staff. They are essentially one man/couple operations. The websites look very professional and they sell the idea very well. They started off hiring small venues and after time to grew to the extent where now they hire castles and grand stately homes. It's hard bloody work - but if this is what you want, it's there for the taking. And you can do this on as small a scale as you want, or as large a scale.

I worked in the biz for around 8 years. Eventually the late nights got to me and I decided to pack it in for health reasons. I had a young family and getting no sleep on a Friday night and a Saturday night just proved too much. However if you're able to snooze in on the next day, great!

Paul,

Good info, good stuff.

I guess the next step would be to rent a room at the hotel(?).
Then what? Advertise to the public? Or send invitations to friend?
Or send out direct mail that mimics an invitation?

Perhaps do the first one for free (if you can afford to) just for friends? Just so you can get a feel of how the night will run, iron out any glitches etc.

The best way of advertising (and by far the cheapest) is on social media - Facebook especially. You can have a website that explains what your evening will be all about plus the all-important PayPal button (for paying customers). A Facebook event page should be set up, share it with any local paranormal groups etc., invite friends, and have the Facebook page have links to your website. Keep the Facebook page nice and active, lots of updates, share spooky Youtube videos, and get a bit of a buzz going. And contact as much local media as you can.

For very little outlay you can start your own little business.

Thanks! I will start looking into this this weekend.

Sounds like a good plan!

To Dave/Slim:
After I get all my ducks in a row, I think I can get into the radio side if I want to. I know 2 DJs at 2 different stations.

Thanks for the great info!!!

I just bought a bunch of eBooks off of Voodini's site. I haven't had much time to read them over in any detail, but what I've seen so far has been very interesting and helpful, especially from a more "realistic" side of seances and whatnot. I highly recommend buying a few eBooks from his website!

I have read Paul's texts The Paranormal Entertainer and his newly-updated JTR manuscript. Both are outstanding and provide a lot of information on what it can take to give a successful seance.

They are great works! I'm interested to purchase his release It's A Ghost soon...

I concur, David. Paul's works can really arm an entertainer to step into this arena.

I had a scheme to partner with a couple of the more off kilter, local bars and perform a few back room, "speakeasy" shows. As well as piggyback on a couple of theatrical performances in an after hours setting -- when the theater would just be dark anyway. This seems to me to be a solid way to get my chops together and begin building a reputation. The endgame though would be to rent a theater for a run and sell tickets. You get total control of your environment, a regular schedule of performances to build a momentum, and countless opportunities to make contacts.

I would think this is rarely the type of thing people would want to book privately, in their own homes. Make a night of it, out on the town? That's a different story all together. Who books performers to come to do a show at their home? I would imagine the answer is not many.

Thanks for this thread. Lots of valuable perspectives here.

>The best way of advertising (and by
>far the cheapest) is on social media

Absolutely.

When you are trying to attract an audience with unusual interests or tastes, one good place to go is Meetup.com. Look for any special interest groups within a hundred miles or so that might be interested in something like this and send announcements about it to the group owners. It's fast, easy, and free to do that. I know that I can always pull in a certain number of people from Meetup.com for any type of performance or event we host. For seances, you could approach everything from horror lovers to people with interests in history.

Craigslist is a good place to advertise, too, and is also free and easy. So is Pinterest. Pin a lot of seance and spooky pictures to a Pinterest page, along with something that advertises your shows. I am always amazed at how many people come to our events because they saw something on Pinterest.

Libraries, used bookstores, and comic book stores often have places where you can leave flyers. The bulletin boards we have hanging up in my library always draw a lot of interest from the patrons, and I let local entertainers put posters and flyers on them.

You might also want to explore the idea of doing seances at horror conventions. There are a number of them these days (my favorite is Texas Frightmare Weekend), and the people who attend them would love this sort of thing.