Fear normally costs $30 a person, but Ten Thirty One Productions found someone willing to pay millions. The Sherman Oaks company produces horror attractions such as spook alleys and haunted houses. Locally, it’s best known for the yearly L.A. Haunted Hayride. But the company’s biggest event of the year occurred last fall on the TV reality show “Shark Tank.” Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, put up $2 million for a 20 percent stake in the company. It was the largest offer to date on the show. “I think the next generation of entertainment is experiential,” Cuban said during the episode. Chief Executive Melissa Carbone and newly named Chief Operations Officer Melissa Meyer, who appeared with Carbone on “Shark Tank” dressed as a zombie, used the money to launch a New York version of the Haunted Hay Ride and a summer event called the Great Horror Campout. “We’re a mix between Tough Mudder, a horror campout and the Hunger Games,” Meyer said. Customers at L.A. Haunted Hayride pay $30 for 25 minutes of terror at the site of the old zoo at Griffith Park. For another $12, they can get an all-attraction ticket featuring performances at Theatre Macabre, a stroll through a haunted village, a scary maze and house tour with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Also, the Seven Sins sideshow includes “flesh and furniture melting into one” and “the human pig-machine puking riches from its muzzle.” Ten Thirty One is riding a national trend of fear-mongering. A generation, ago Halloween was a night of fun for children, but growing adult participation, pop-up Halloween stores and more elaborate costumes have turned it into a major date on the economic calendar. The National Retail Federation, a trade group in Washington, D.C. reports that 69 percent of consumers plan to celebrate Halloween in 2014 and spend an estimated $7 billion. Ten years ago, Americans spent less than half that. Carbone founded Ten Thirty One in 2009 with former business partner Alyson Richards. The two ran a yearly Halloween haunted house out of their home before starting the company. “We started doing research and found out it’s a $7 billion industry,” Carbone recalled. With Haunted Hayrides on both coasts in the fall and the Great Horror Campout summer tour, Carbone and Meyer have their hands full. For now, they plan to expand by growing attendance at the three events. – Jon Nelson
