PCC Haunted Lagoon

BACKGROUND

The Polynesian Cultural Center’s (PCC) Haunted Lagoon was in its second year as a unique family friendly event in the spirit of Halloween taking place throughout October. Unlike a traditional haunted house, the PCC’s Haunted Lagoon takes guests on a spooky, meandering canoe ride through PCC’s seven island villages.

RESULTS

The PCC’s Haunted Lagoon attracted 46,027 visitors over a span of 20 days, a 383% increase from the previous year’s event, or about 34,000 more visitors total. In 2008, its first year in operation, the event attracted only 12,000 visitors. The PCC had calculated that it needed to attract 400 people per night to make the Haunted Lagoon profitable in 2009, it attracted 2,300 people per night, with a peak crowd of 4,339 on October 30.

Overall, by utilizing media pitches, advisories, press releases, video news releases, social media and a lot of follow-up, the Haunted Lagoon received a significant amount of coverage leading up to and during the event, as well as post-event coverage. Our PR efforts maximized the reach and complemented the efforts of paid media.

Publicity included multiple stories in the state’s two dailies and TV stories on three of the four local network affiliates (CBS, NBC, ABC), netting over 12 minutes of broadcast coverage. Our primary audience was also reached via a cover photo and full-page story on the front-page of the business section of one of the main dailies, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. A feature story with photo ran in Pacific Business News, Honolulu's leading business tabloid. Our secondary target audience, visitors to Hawaii, were reached via a front-page story, with photo, in Oahu Concierge, a monthly magazine targeting hospitality industry professionals.