This is the first episode of our Vendor Showcase series in partnership with the Haunted Attraction Association. In this series, we’re showcasing HAA Member Companies who are participating in the annual auction happening at this year’s Transworld Halloween attraction. In this episode, Scott “Tater” Lynd of Froggy’s Fog walks us through the scent boxes debuting this year. Also, it’s no secret that we edit our shows, but this episode is different. At the request of the interviewee we’ve left this one mostly unedited, that should come as no surprise to those that know Scott.
Listen Here:
Scott: I am Scott “Tater” Lynd, I am the sales for Froggy’s Fog, traveling salesman, legend extraordinaire, fog juggler, handler, fluidmaster. My job titles go on and on, how long do you have? All right!
Philip: Give us a top line of Froggy’s fog, I’m sure everyone knows about it, but I’m curious.
Scott: Froggy’s Fog is the premier fog fluid manufacturer of the United States. Yeah. We are used in every major amusement park in the country, firehouses, family fun centers, entertainment industries, haunted houses, productions. If you’ve seen something, we’re behind it, does that make sense?
Philip: If you’ve seen fog.
Scott: If you’ve seen fog? No, just see something. You see a cat, that’s our new fog cat.
Philip: So, speaking of fog cats, what do you have planned this year?
Scott: Smoke pants, they’re pants made totally out of smoke and they dissipate.
Philip: Do they slowly dissipate?
Scott: Well, it depends on the fluid that you choose. You can have quick dissipating pants if you just gotta get from the bed to the shower. Smoke pants quick dissipating. If you want to go down to the pool and lounge and relax, we got the long-lasting smoke pants.
Philip: Do they come in different colors too, or do they just have they just have the regular fog gray colors?
Scott: Well, right now we’ve got a couple of different colors coming out, and we got off white, white, and eggshell and then pearl white. So, we got those four coming out and we’ll see if we want to dive into more colors, you know?
Froggy’s Fog Products
Philip: So real products.
Scott: Fog machines, I’ve got all of my fog machines in stock. I will have them ready for cash and carry, hopefully, at Transworld. We are getting containers in every other month it seems like. I’ve got brand new scent boxes that are really sweet. But that’s about it. For new products, it’s probably just going to be the scent boxes.
If you’re familiar with our products, we have a battery-operated scent box that would take a cup. You would put a battery in it in a cup, you put it in your room, and you would forget about it. We have a new one that is either battery operated or plug in. It runs via an app via Bluetooth on your phone. So, you can set up, my haunted house is open 7 to midnight and I want the sent to burst for 10 seconds and then pause for 60 seconds. So it’ll count, it triggers that it’s Friday, when your phone says it’s Friday at 7:00 PM, it’ll kick on, do 10 seconds, stop for 60 seconds, and then go again for 10. It’s atomizing the oil, so a little 4-ounce bottle goes a really long way, especially with it being a four-ounce bottle. It’s a nice little machine that we have now.
Pricing is really, you know, not that more expensive, especially because you’re not going to buy the cups every so often. I know people that take the cups out and put them in some ziplock bags and try to prolong that sent. Well, this, it takes care of that, it automatically does that for you. I think it’s about 70 bucks, or $79.99, some around in there, real inexpensive kind of a way to do new scents, and it does 500 square feet.
Philip: OK, so you have these new scent boxes and then you’ll have a restock for cash and carry for this year.
Scott: Absolutely, hopefully we have. I know we have machines in stock right now. We will have cash and carry. The plan is to get more and more machines in as, as it ramps up to March and Transworld. I know I have four containers coming in pretty quick, so make sure you order your machines through me, nobody else. Somebody else talks to you, just punch them right in the nuts and say they should have been wearing smoke pants.
Philip: Are the smoke pants, are they have barriers also to getting punched?
Scott: They have barriers, and we’re offering scented smoke pants now too, yeah.
Philip: Can you also automate your smoke pants?
Scott: Automated, yep. So, you can get them to pulse or strobe, or fade in and out down the leg, and I’m going to have skinny jeans, skinny pants, skinny smoke pants. That’s coming out in 2024, so next year, yeah. It takes a while to get that tapered leg on the smoke pants.
Philip: Gotta get the trim right. It’s gotta stay. There’s air when you’re moving it kind of waves it out.
Scott: Yeah.
Thoughts On Inflation and Supply Chain Issues
Philip: A lot of technical hurdles to go through. Speaking of technical hurdles, you know, last year supply chain issues, and now we have inflation. How is that impacting you this year?
Scott: We’re being very aggressive on the ordering systems and getting a lot of machines in often to kind of go about that. So, if, God forbid, everything shuts back down again, we’re prepared to at least take care of you.
Philip: So, should haunters be worried about placing orders early?
Scott: I would say yes, but it never hurts to buy the fog machines now and hold onto them until October. I can’t foresee the future. If I have something in stock now, why would I not want it now? So, it’s one less thing I have to worry about when I’m getting ready to open my haunt.
Philip: Do you think prices are going to be impacted throughout the year, like as the year goes on as we get closer to Halloween?
Scott: Well, we just did a price increase. We do give free shipping on all our fluid now because of that price increase, we do not foresee changing prices in the next year or so.
Why Does Froggy’s Fog Support The HAA Auction Series?
Philip: All right, so this is part of our partnership with HAA for the HAA auction series. Y’all always donate to the auction. Tell me a little about the auction, how you feel about it, why do you participate in it every year?
Scott: it’s very interesting. You said it was the HAA auction, I’ve been always pronouncing it as the, “Haaaa!” Auction. Is it actually the HAA?
Philip: I think I’ve been pronouncing it wrong.
Scott: “Haaaa!”
Philip: Is that the noise you make when they get the donations year?
Scott: That’s when the auctioneer slams the gavel down, says, “sold.” That’s the noise he makes, he doesn’t say sold, he just goes, “Haaaa!” They’re going to hate this interview, and I’m going to be booted off of interviews from now on because of it. What was the question?
Philip: Why do you participate? Why do you think it’s important?
Scott: The HAA is a great industry kind of force, if I will. They are educating constantly. They’re promoting the haunt industry. They’re making it safe. They’re doing their CHAOS series. You know, they’re always there if you need help with particular items, or you know if you have questions, they have that great group that you can ask questions into and then get experts’ opinions and help you figure out, so why would we not? I mean, anything that helps this industry, Froggy’s is going to be behind 110%. As long as it’s genuinely going to benefit the industry and not just say they’re going to benefit the industry and not benefit the industry. If we find out you’re hurting the industry, I will come to your house like dressing all in black. I’ve been working out, have you noticed?
Scott: Black fog pants, just to be clear.
Scott: Don’t be ridiculous, I gave you the colors, I have to spray paint those new ones.
Thoughts On The Future Of The Industry
Philip: Talk to me about the future. We’re in January now and Transworld is upcoming, and we have another Halloween season and I think some people are excited about it because they had some increased numbers last year. But other people struggled with staffing and struggled prices and et cetera, et cetera. So you, having been a consultant, and then also going around and acting in places and having a lot of experience in it and having the vendor perspective, you have a lot of perspectives to share, what do you see as some of the challenges coming for 2022?
Scott: I foresee staffing still being an issue. I see a lot more people moving towards time ticketing, which is going to be a great kind of alleviation because you know how many people you’re going to do that hour. I think more people are gonna try to do cashless, or not cashless, but pre-bought tickets, which is a good thing in the industry I think, because you know exactly how many tickets. If you know you’re going to be short-staffed on the 15th of October you can kind of adjust that ticket down so it kind of alleviates that line and stuff like that. I see that being a good thing.
What To Expect At Froggy’s Fog Transworld Booth
Scott: I also want to talk, because I’m really excited about the near future and what our booth theme… can I do that?
Philip: Yes, oh my. I forgot I have to ask that. I’m very excited about this.
Scott: This it’s going to be fashion, smokepants.com. No, it’s going to be tropical-themed this year. Well, with the tropical theme, you get a volcano and maybe we’ll have a volcano. Maybe we’ll have Mount Froggy sitting up there blasting off every once in a while at the Big Transworld show. When it erupts you’re going to have ash and you’re going to have you know tropical sand, and maybe we’ll find a tiki bar to set up the sales office in. Probably not alcohol, because that’s probably not allowed, especially since that one incident that we’re not allowed to talk about. Yeah, you know that one? Remember the last time the guy streaked through Transworld?
Philip: Yeah, because that was a prototype pants, right? They wore off.
Scott: They malfunctioned and they wore off.
Philip: That poor guy.
Scott: He thought he had one lasting on, he had quick dissipating and his smoke pants right just ran right out from under him.
Philip: I did like the eggshell color you were testing, it was great.
Scott: Eggshell was really good. I like that color, yeah. Off White’s pretty good too. But tropical-themed, so expect you know maybe Hawaiian shirts, tiki mugs, or a volcano, and you know ocean vibes. So, bring your sweet Hawaiian shirts. If you’re listening to this, I know we always dress in black for haunted house shows, but let’s bring the beach vibe to a very cold, probably, March, and let’s try to make it sunny and nice in Transworld by wearing obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirts. I can get behind that, can’t you?
