LAIE, Hawaii — The Polynesian Cultural Center near Oahu's north shore has been Hawaii's No. 1 paid attraction since 1977. But that hasn't made the tourist magnet immune from an overall decline in ticket sales blamed on the depressed economy.
So directors haunted by the threat to the PCC's payroll decided to get creative. Now, when the October moon rises over the PCC's palm trees and trademark lagoon, the park transforms into an expansive spook alley that has become wildly popular, especially with the locals.
The PCC has a symbiotic relationship with the adjacent BYU-Hawaii: Some 600 students work at the PCC as part of a work/scholarship program that pays for their education. In return, the PCC has a perpetual workforce of performers and support staff.
When traffic at the gate slows, "The money is still going out (in wages) even if people aren't coming in the front door," said PCC President and CEO Von D. Orgill. "What were we going to do, tell students 'Sorry, we can't fund your scholarship anymore?' So with a down economy, we had to figure out ways to keep things going."
"Haunted Lagoon" is radically new for the PCC, where the daily setting features the legacy dances, art, dress and culture of the Pacific islands. "When we decided to do something for Halloween, the response was, 'Haunted lagoon? Polynesian Cultural Center? How does that work?'" Orgill said.
Staff enthusiastically jumped on the unlikely mix of culture and creeps when the idea first started to brew in 2008. Unlike the PCC's marketing and operations plans that have been refined over the PCC's 46 years of operation, Haunted Lagoon launched last year with a large measure of spontaneity. Staff scrambled to make costumes and build sets that wouldn't interfere with the park's main operations. They rifled through their CDs at home and loaded up their best spooky music in boomboxes for mood music while thrill-seeking patrons waited in line.
PCC protocol director Bobby Aoki said the PCC's number-crunchers figured the center needed to attract 400 people per night to put Haunted Lagoon in the black. Some professional promotion boosted by word-of-mouth advertising resulted in three times that many people lining up each night for the Halloween attraction last year.
Honolulu spook alleys have a creep factor focused on older teens and adults, said Ray Magalei, the PCC's marketing director. The PCC decided to make the attraction a good scare that was family-friendly. "Our guests will scream and turn to each other and laugh at themselves," Magalei said. "We see a lot of families, a lot with younger children."
A test of the Haunted Lagoon's ongoing viability came after the first season, when the PCC administrators reported to their higher headquarters: The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"How wholesome is a haunted lagoon?" Orgill mused, knowing the Halloween attraction would be on the PCC agenda when he met with church President Thomas S. Monson. "President Monson chuckled. He thought it was kind of cool," Orgill said.
Plans for this year's haunt were reinforced by taking a popular character from last year, a ghost named the "Laie Lady," and making her the focus this year. Posters and tour-guide promotions are bolstered by the "Legend of the Lady" found at www.hauntedlagoon.com. Coloring contest winners featured on the Web site give some visual clues about the attraction's best scares, including slimy figures that swim through the lagoon and pop up unexpectedly in front of visitors' canoes.
Staff that went recruiting this year's zombies, ghosts and other spooks left no swamp unprobed as they rounded up a cast for Haunted Lagoon. Many in the cast already work at the PCC or are among the BYU-Hawaii student body. Administrators at BYU-Hawaii had the squeeze put on them to participate, and a number of the staff's children are also in the cast, including Magalei's kids, who are under Dad's orders to get their homework finished early so they can be part of the haunt.
Perhaps the scariest thing this year is the traffic getting through the parking lot of regular PCC visitors. People in line about 9 p.m. on Friday said the wait was about two hours. Some grown-ups who perhaps had heard about the crowds were feeding their kids dinner in line while they waited.
Magalei said locals see the PCC as primarily an attraction for tourists, but visitors to the Haunted Lagoon are mostly locals — many driving from as far as Honolulu on the opposite side of the island.
Magalei estimated 2,300 people bought the $15 children's tickets or $25 adult admission ($10 and $15 for locals) to the attraction Friday; 2,700 lined up for a scare on the lagoon Saturday. Haunted Lagoon is being presented Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. "We're going to have to change the schedule and go daily the week of Halloween to keep up," he said.
"The entire (University of Hawaii) football team came. People are coming in groups of 12, 15, 16," Magalei said. Tour agents are already making referrals for Halloween next year, wanting to know the schedule and prices for 2010.
e-mail: sfidel@desnews.com