Horrific news from Surfers Paradise. Draculas Haunted House is to close in the new year. 

According to the Gold Coast Bulletin the owners think it's too scary for families with young children  (of course it is but who'd think other, and "too confronting" for Asian tourists, apparently. 

They intend to convert it into a new attraction where you take a selfy and various unspecified digital effects interact with your photos. 

Hmm. I'll have a look at it but it certainly doesn't sound like it could be anywhere near as good as it is now. I hope to be proven wrong. 

Think a horror version of Ripleys...  Or a FN maze with no scarers...

Draculas in Melbourne announced closure not long ago, citing lack of interest from the punters.  They said in the release that the GC locations would remain open.

19 minutes ago, pushbutton said:

Horrific news from Surfers Paradise. Draculas Haunted House is to close in the new year. 

 

8 minutes ago, webslave said:

Draculas in Melbourne announced closure not long ago, citing lack of interest from the punters.  They said in the release that the GC locations would remain open.

 

The Haunted House is above their store in Surfers...  Not the Draculas Restaurant...

For clarity, here was the release.

17 minutes ago, webslave said:

Draculas in Melbourne announced closure not long ago, citing lack of interest from the punters.  They said in the release that the GC locations would remain open.

Saw that. I really hope they know what they're doing and it turns out much better than the bulletin makesit sound. 

According to that release from October the Haunted House was going to be changed anyways so...  Slow news day?

When it comes to the GCB, it's always a slow news day...

8 minutes ago, Johnny said:

When it comes to the GCB, it's always a slow news day...

Yep, but sometimes as the saying goes, no news is good news (but wouldn't it be great if they just printed NO news rather than rubbish!)

How ironic.

A bit of a shame really, the Dracula’s haunted house is pretty awesome. Fingers crossed whatever replaces it is something unique and well done.

2 hours ago, T-bone said:

A bit of a shame really, the Dracula’s haunted house is pretty awesome. Fingers crossed whatever replaces it is something unique and well done.

It really is. I just wonder if they should be looking at how they're marketing it, and better targeting the sort of people who would enjoy it.

Selfies? Really?  Meh!

Edited December 7, 20178 yr by pushbutton

9 hours ago, MaxxTheMonster said:

The Haunted House is above their store in Surfers...  Not the Draculas Restaurant...

To be fair, most people would associate "Dracula's" with the restaurant, so the topic is a little deceiving.

12 minutes ago, westical said:

To be fair, most people would associate "Dracula's" with the restaurant, so the topic is a little deceiving.

Except this sentence here differentiates the two...

10 hours ago, MaxxTheMonster said:

Except this sentence here differentiates the two...

I know, but that’s not in the topic. 

On 12/7/2017 at 9:53 AM, pushbutton said:

They intend to convert it into a new attraction where you take a selfy and various unspecified digital effects interact with your photos. 

it doesn't get any worse...

So, basically, they are turning it into Snapchat?

1 hour ago, strop said:

So, basically, they are turning it into Snapchat?

No. Nothing as interesting as that. Just a place where you can take srlfies which digital effects will interact with. 

You could then upload them to Snapchat if you want I suppose. 

Soooooooo boring! 

I really hope I'm wrong and it ends up as something good. 

I believe it is meant to be a trick art museum...slightly better than just a place to take selfies.

Trick art museums can be pretty fun even if you don't take a lot of photos.

Thanks RossL.

I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a trick art museum but I'll look online for some info.

Ok. Having seen a few videos it now seems better than the Gold Coast bulletin made it sound,  although I still doubt it could be as unique and immersive as it is now. 

Will be interesting to see though. 

Maybe something like Artvo (http://artvo.com.au/)?

27 minutes ago, webslave said:

Maybe something like Artvo (http://artvo.com.au/)?

Could be interesting! 

On 07/12/2017 at 9:53 AM, pushbutton said:

Horrific news from Surfers Paradise. Draculas Haunted House is to close in the new year. 

According to the Gold Coast Bulletin the owners think it's too scary for families with young children  (of course it is but who'd think other, and "too confronting" for Asian tourists, apparently. 

They intend to convert it into a new attraction where you take a selfy and various unspecified digital effects interact with your photos. 

Hmm. I'll have a look at it but it certainly doesn't sound like it could be anywhere near as good as it is now. I hope to be proven wrong. 

"too confronting" for Asian tourists. The Japanese haunted houses make Draculas look too tame. granted not all Asian tourists have experienced Japanese haunted houses before.

I think this is really pressure from families to make all the attractions "family friendly" so they want any form of attraction that has one unsettling thing in it to be removed and replaced with a "hip, phone/social media" centric style in the main tourist areas (Cavil Av, Surfers Blvd), I am probably wrong cause I don't have children but I think that families should have more common sense about where they take young children around these attraction areas, other people enjoy these attractions too

 

if It was some type of market pressure to deliver only family friendly attractions, it wouldn’t have lasted over a decade... it’s simply a sign of the changing times and consumer interests.

7 hours ago, YaBoySlam said:

"too confronting" for Asian tourists. The Japanese haunted houses make Draculas look too tame. granted not all Asian tourists have experienced Japanese haunted houses before.

 

 

But plenty of trick art museums in Japan and some parks over there also have trick art rooms in them.

At a guess the trick art museum in Odaiba (tourist attraction central) is probably more popular than the haunted house also there.  Either of those is well down any Odaiba bucketlist, just like a trick art museum on the Gold Coast.