{"id":36609,"date":"2015-10-08T17:22:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T17:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=36609"},"modified":"2015-10-08T17:22:37","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T17:22:37","slug":"acc-entrepreneur-transforms-backyard-haunted-house-into-a-national-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/10\/08\/acc-entrepreneur-transforms-backyard-haunted-house-into-a-national-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC entrepreneur transforms backyard haunted house into a national icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an unassuming building nestled in the parking lot at ACC Highland sits Jon Austin Love. He\u2019s tucked away inside a small room with his eyes fixed on a wall of computer screens. The images flashing before him are grainy, but he\u2019s mesmerized.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6626\"<\/a>He watches as crowds snake through the labyrinth just beyond the walls. They\u2019re shrouded in darkness and surrounded by the sorts of creatures that haunt you in your sleep. Love listens as terrified screams reverberate off the walls. He cracks a smile.<\/p>\n

Love frightens people for a living.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s humbling. I never thought 13 years ago I would be producing haunted houses for a living,\u201d says Love.<\/p>\n

Love helped launch what\u2019s become the nationally recognized and treasured House of Torment.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Are you ACC? Tell us your story<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt started off as just this small, fun project in my business partner\u2019s backyard in South Austin,\u201d explains Love. \u201cNeither one of us could have anticipated how it would evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, they figured out how to merge art and business.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn economics<\/a>\u00a0class I was taking at ACC really set the foundation. It empowered me to look at production from a business perspective as well as a creative perspective,\u201d says Love. \u201cWe turned that small backyard haunted house into something more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6695\"<\/p>\n

House of Torment is now a national operation with haunted houses in San Antonio, Phoenix, Chicago, Denver, and Austin. There are 30 full-time employees and more than 1,000 seasonal workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of fun, but it\u2019s been a very strategic process,\u201d explains Love. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like running a sports team, but instead of running plays we\u2019re creating immersive, cinematic experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love works with local artists to design and build sets. He networks and partners with haunted house production companies throughout the nation to develop big, horrifying events.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a model that Love hopes will continue to thrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen that it works. We want to get the right people in place to make it grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terrifying the nation one city at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an unassuming building nestled in the parking lot at ACC Highland sits Jon Austin Love. He\u2019s tucked away inside a small room with his eyes fixed on a wall of computer screens. The images … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3556,"featured_media":36616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[530,531,529],"class_list":["post-36609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-am-acc-profiles","category-students-and-alumni","tag-house-of-torment","tag-iamacc","tag-john-austin-love"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}