Ten Thirty One Productions

Ten Thirty One Productions was an American entertainment company based in Los Angeles that created, owned, and produced live attractions in the horror genre. It was featured on Season 5 of Shark Tank where it received the largest investment in the history of the show. The company was sold to Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group.

Ten Thirty One Productions llc
TypeThemed entertainment company
IndustryShow business
Founded2009
Founders
  • Melissa Carbone
  • Alyson Richards
Headquarters
Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles
Area served
United States
Key people
Melissa Carbone (CEO)
Brands

History

Ten Thirty One Productions was founded in 2009 by Melissa Carbone and Alyson Richards.[1] The same year, they launched Los Angeles Haunted Hayride in Calabasas, California.[2][3] The company generated $400,000 in revenue during its first year of business.[4]

The company appeared in Season 5 (2013) of Shark Tank, where Carbone pitched the company to potential investors. Ten Thirty One Productions landed what was the biggest investment in the history of the show when billionaire Mark Cuban paid $2 million for a 20% stake.[5][6] The company used the money to expand operations from California to a national audience, and Cuban helped secure ticket distribution contracts with Live Nation (its CEO became another investor in the company) and Ticketmaster.[7][4][8] After the show, the company had to triple its cast and crew to nearly 1,000.[4]

Ten Thirty One Productions brought in $3 million in revenue in 2014.[9] The following year, the company created New York Haunted Hayride.[10]

In 2018 an accident at a New York event caused injury to one patron, followed by a lengthy lawsuit that resulted in no guilty verdict.[11] Eventually, Ten Thirty One was purchased by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, the world's largest haunted house company. Melissa Carbone, as well as Alyson Richards of Ten Thirty One, remained with the company.

Live attractions

Los Angeles Haunted Hayride and New York Haunted Hayride are Halloween-themed attractions. They are held once a year, beginning in early October and running every weekend through the end of the month.[12] To prepare the events, the company polled 30,000 people and asked them what they feared. The three most frequent answers were: darkness, claustrophobic spaces and clowns. As of 2015, the attractions employed about 250 actors.[3]

To minimize its environmental footprint, Ten Thirty One Productions recycles and composts; features plastic-free concessions, hybrid and electric production vehicles, biodiesel fuels, 100-percent reused or recycled sets and wardrobes, and plant-based concessions; and offers carpool discounts.[13]

Los Angeles Haunted Hayride
Main article: Los Angeles Haunted Hayride

Los Angeles Haunted Hayride is held in Griffith Park Zoo in Los Angeles. Visitors are taken on traditional tractor drawn, hay filled wagons through a fantasy world of ghosts, demons and monsters. The attraction offers five different "scare zones" along with dining, retail and other activities.[10] The site includes a 10,000 square-foot clown maze where even the attendees wear clown masks.[3]

Ten Thirty One begins planning each year’s Hayride in January, writing scripts and designing scenes and props for each scene. Everything is first built in warehouses, and 10 days before opening, pieces are brought to the 30-acre site in trucks and reconstructed there. The event employs hundreds of actors and attracts an average of 15,000 guests each weekend.[14]

In 2016, when the event carried the theme "Secret Society," attendees could leave their wagons for the first time in the event's history, to have a secret society initiation experience on foot. The "Trick or Treat" portion of the attraction tripled in size, with life-size suburban houses. Also, Universal Pictures took over the space in the newly named Ouija: Origin of Evil in the first such partnership for Haunted Hayride.[13]

New York Haunted Hayride

New York Haunted Hayride is held in Randall’s Island Park, a spot that had been used for asylums and psychiatric hospitals.[10] The attraction is a half-hour, 4,000-feet-long trip around a 12-acre section. As of 2015, it employed just over 100 actors.[3][15] The experiences for Halloween 2016 included House of Shadows, Theater Macabre, and Purgatory Haunted Village.[16]

The Great Horror Campout

The Great Horror Campout launched in 2013,[17] when it spanned nine U.S. cities over 11 weekends.[18] The campout is an overnight, 12-hour event. Participants are assigned tents and given tips for surviving the interactive camping experience. From there, campers can tailor their experience to their own comfort level, from a simple campfire night to "Hellhunt," a horror-themed scavenger hunt. Other interactive activities include simulated kidnapping and a game called "blood tag." The events are populated by 100 masked actors. The Campout travels along the West Coast every summer.[2][19]

Other attractions

Ten Thirty One Productions opened a haunted boat attraction, The Ghost Ship, which had its maiden voyage in Orange County in 2011, and Great Movie Horror Night, a series of horror movie screening parties in Los Angeles.[20][18]

References
  1. Richard Feloni (31 October 2016). "The CEO of a highly successful Halloween company shares the business advice she got from Mark Cuban". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  2. Melissa Wylie (29 September 2015). "How a Halloween haunt turned a year-round moneymaker for this startup". BizWomen. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  3. Marshall Heyman (18 October 2015). "Haunted Hayride Hitches Up in New York". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  4. Graham Winfrey (31 October 2014). "Inside Mark Cuban's $2 Million 'Shark Tank' Horror Deal". Inc. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  5. Nicole Weaver (20 November 2016). "'Shark Tank' Success Stories: 6 Products That Made Big Money". Cheat Sheet. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  6. Young Entrepreneur Council (14 July 2014). "Our 7 Favorite Shark Tank Pitches". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  7. Richard Feloni (21 November 2014). "The 12 biggest Shark Tank success stories". Financial Post. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  8. Ben Russell (7 May 2016). "Ten Thirty One Productions Update – 1031 After Shark Tank". Gazette Review. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  9. Richard Feloni (23 July 2015). "20 successful entrepreneurs share the most important lesson they learned in their 20s". Business Insider. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  10. Larry Olmsted (9 September 2015). "Halloween Scares: New York & Los Angeles Get World-Class Haunted Houses". Forbes. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  11. "Morris v. Ten Thirty One Prods., LLC, 2021 N.Y. Slip Op. 31138 | Casetext Search + Citator".
  12. Brittany (6 October 2015). "Los Angeles Haunted Hayride Returns To Griffith Park". Canyon News. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  13. Alesandra Dubin (19 October 2016). "Why One Company Is Banking on Highly Produced Horror Experiences—Not Just for Halloween". Bizbash. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  14. Neal Ungerleider (28 October 2015). "Why This Former Media Executive Created The World's Scariest Hayride". Fast Company. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  15. Johnny Oleksinski (17 October 2015). "NYC's new Halloween show is on the site of a former mental hospital". New York Post. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  16. Carla Hay (21 October 2016). "Get Thrills at These New Halloween Attractions for Groups". Bizbash. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  17. Calvin Alagot (12 June 2014). "Great Horror Campout Scared the Crap Out of L.A. Last Weekend (VIDEO)". LA Weekly. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  18. Jason Ankeny (23 September 2014). "For Shark Tank's Biggest Winner, Business Has Been Scary Good". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  19. Beth Jensen (1 July 2014). "Pleasanton: Sleeping with the zombies at overnight horror camp". The Mercury News. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  20. Hugo Martin (11 October 2016). "See what's killing haunted houses and other independent Halloween attractions". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
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