Hidden Gems: Meet Brian Garff of Panic Point

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Garff. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Brian Garff and Geoff Huguely, business partners since 2004 in various endeavors, saw an opportunity to open a Haunted Attraction in the Raleigh area. Inspired by a haunt in Maryland, we set out to learn about how to start a “Haunt” of our own. We had experience in locating landowners, so in 2010 we began to contact owners of farmland in Wake and Franklin Counties. In February of 2010, we met Jim Moss, who owned a farm in Youngsville. After a series of meetings, we agreed to lease the land and open The Haunted Forest at Panic Point. So, we built a website and set our opening for September of 2011. It was a true “Ma and Pa” operation that year. The Actors and Support Staff volunteered to give their time and abilities to the endeavor. On the first night, it rained and it seemed like no one was going to come. Some of us jumped in a car and drove to Triangle Town Mall to hand out flyers and encourage people to join the fun. 27 people showed up that night. A couple of weeks later we got our first taste of success when 600 people came to experience Panic Point. We joke that at the end of the season we paid the bills, and had enough left over to buy a ham sandwich. In 2012 we could afford to put cheese on it. We stuck with it, began paying the staff, and experienced modest increases in attendance for a few years. By our 5th season, in 2015, we knew Panic Point would be around for as long as we were. So many people ask us, “What do you do the other 11 months of the year?” which makes us laugh, because the two partners fill the roles of CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, CTO, HR Director, Producer, Director, and ditch digger, to name a few. It takes all year to prepare 36 unique scenes across 47 acres. We didn’t hire our first full-time employee, our Creative Director Mitchell Fink, until this season, 2021. 

Now it takes about 150 people every night we are open to operate Panic Point. For our staff, it is still a labor of love. But each year we become a haunt family. Only a select few have been with us since the beginning, but every year we add more die-hard, dedicated people who help make the business run. The contract with our patrons is simple: hand over a little dough and we’ll scare the pants off of you. Many Haunted Attractions are a single, continuous attraction, but we operate more like a Theme Park, where patrons enter the 5 main Attractions in the order they choose. The Haunted Forest, The Dark Trail, Killers in the Corn, The Howling Hayride, and The Menacing Maze. 

In 2020 we had to make major adjustments to our plan, but we were able to open with a lot of help from the Franklin County Health Department. Over 20,000 people showed up in 2020 in small, controlled groups that were more than happy to wear a mask and follow social distance guidelines. We had no Covid cases among the staff and no known transmission among the patrons. It was a very different year. The Hayride could not operate, but we are happy to have been able to provide what we always aim for: a fun, safe, scary experience. 

Some of the side attractions have been retired, like The Leap of Death, and The Zombie Shootout. Patrons play carnival games for the chance to win a Panic Point T-Shirt, and in 2021 we are offering another side attraction, The Carny Crypt experience, an audio/visual experience inside a restored trailer that holds the mystery of the Blauer Brothers Carnival fire of 1961. We spin tunes in the Midway, light a couple of bonfires, and offer concessions as well. 

Running a Haunted Attraction is a constant exercise in creativity, which keeps us on our toes all year long, but we love it and see no end in sight. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road is never smooth, but we’ve been able to avoid any “Extinction Events”. The biggest struggle was getting the word out early on without breaking the bank. We’ve always injected our own capital into the business and try to carry very little debt. This allows us to focus on the product. We’ve laid miles of cable and wire, handled thousands of 2 x 4s, and searched high and low for the resources we need to put on an amazing show. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We specialize in event planning. Despite branching out a bit into other endeavors on the farm, in the end, the core business is the Haunted Attraction. The more we grew, the more we knew we needed to keep our focus on the core product. Expansion means more nights, like “The Yuletide Nightmare” and Panic on St. Pat’s. We begin in mid-September, so the “Haunt Season” is really 6 months. In 2021 we held our first ever Zombie Prom, as an alternate event for high school students. Everyone had a blast, and we will be holding it again in 2022. 

Our brand represents an experience unlike just about any other. We take pride in the positive feedback we get from our customers, and that we have held onto the local, family-owned business feel. The 2 of us still answer every phone call that comes in. Technology allows us to access our customer base any hour of the day, and it is not uncommon to have a nice 20-minute chat with a customer while preparing dinner or sitting on the beach. We focus on clear, precise communication at all levels, and we constantly tweak our messaging to make sure people know who, what, where, when, and why. 

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
We work incredibly hard to put on a show, but we have a motto: Nobody cares how hard you work. They only care about the result. One of our biggest strokes of luck was to begin working with a friend who was starting a Local Inbound Marketing company, which taught us SEO, among other things. We’ve never met anyone who knows more about the business. Finding our landlord and establishing the business in Youngsville, Franklin County were both critical. When we presented our business plan to the Town Council in 2011, we were interrupted about 3 minutes in by a call for a vote. We thought we were doomed. A vote to approve was called. All “Aye”. Somebody banged a gavel and said, “You’re good to go.” The town has been incredibly supportive. Fire, Police, EMS, local businesses putting out flyers. We are proud that we are part of the economic engine of Youngsville, bringing thousands of people to town every year. 

Pricing:

• $29 – $39 depending on the night

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.RaleighHauntedHouse.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/panicpointnc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PanicPointNC/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/panicpointnc?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4w7hEelPPKEJNWlrPS2JxA