Production Manager Haunted Houses
As a Production Manager for the Haunted Houses at the amusement park Gröna Lund’s Halloween Season 2021, I was responsible for planning, efficiency and experience of the park's five temporary haunted houses. The work was mainly focused on preparation and developing new strategies for shortening wait times for the visitors while maintaining high quality and experience.
Project length: 6 months
Year: 2021
Company: Gröna Lund
My roles: Production Manager Haunted Houses
Trailer
What I did
Planning the Haunted Houses
The main focus was to increase efficiency by making sure visitors would easily find the way through the houses. This was done by changing the layouts in some crucial places where we had noticed previous years that visitors would often get confused or slow down. I also removed blockers like doors and drapes. In some places light was also used to guide visitors in the right direction. For quality, one of the haunted houses was also redesigned from the ground up with new rooms and scares.
Haunted House Design Documents
For each of the haunted houses I created a separate Design Document. The idea was that everybody from construction workers to management could have access to these so that everybody was on the same page and preparations could be done efficiently while maintaining quality. I chose Notion for these documents so they could be easily shared with relevant partners, updated in real time and being able to set and remove permissions as needed. Some examples of what was included:
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Blueprints with fire safety, actor placement, working environment factors, effects and more.
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Scene descriptions with actor instructions, safety procedures, and photos.
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General information such as opening hours, age recommendations and narrative.
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Queue logistics with blueprints for building the queue lines and signs.
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Character info with instructions and images for make-up and costume.
Clearly defined goals
New goals for visitors per hour was set for each haunted house. These were calculated using earlier years’ data by investigating which of the haunted houses had high efficiency and identifying the reasons for this. The goals were then communicated to everybody working on the haunted houses, from management to actors.
App for real time statistics
To make sure efficiency could be measured easily in real time, I commissioned an app that was created by the IT department. The app was designed to be easy to use for staff members and management. It was also designed to remind the staff of the short term goals continuously.
Other details
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Prepared information and documentation about more than 30 different roles and 300 actors.
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Helped plan the recruitment process by preparing strategies for the auditions and how to reach as many potential actors as possible.
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Continuous discussions with the external partners that would deliver costume and make-up.
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Budget responsibilities.
Results
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More than doubled the amount of visitors going through the haunted houses compared to previous years.
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Significantly shorter wait times. Average wait time was reduced from 42 minutes down to 15 minutes.
Endorsements
"It was a pleasure working with Pontus! He is a creative and structured production manager. He always met the deadlines provided. During the project he was able to lead the work in doubling the capacity of our haunted houses by thinking in new ways and making sure all departments worked towards the same goal."
- Johan Lotsander, Business Area Manager at Gröna Lund