Last year, outside of Spokane, a small group of people got together and grew a corn field maze. It was smaller than 10 acres and it drew a tremendous crowd! From what I heard, by the time halloween past, each member (3 of them) of the group made over $100,000 off that maze!

-- Joy in Eastern WA (jparkes@spfarm.com), May 06, 2002

Answers

There was a "Corn Maize" near where I lived too. I never went but I drove past it every sunday and there were TONS of people in attendance. It wasn't all that close to major cities (45 min. at the least) but was in a semi-rural area and close to a highway. They had signs up on the side of the road for miles before the turn-off and I'll bet they made a huge profit. I also saw a refreshments stand and a place to buy pumpkins and other produce. I think tickets were only a couple bucks but don't quote me. COuld be a good idea if you have the right location--and if it fails you still have a field of corn. Just don't loose anybody!!!

-- Erika (misserika129@hotmail.com), May 06, 2002.

They do that here in Kentucky too. They have a petting zoo and a hay ride. The pre school goes to it every year. I told my wife that's what we need to do. If anyone tries it let me know about it.

-- Joel Combs (jwcinpk@yahoo.com), May 06, 2002.

Good Idea. Wonder if I could charge people to traverse my house from front door to backdoor now that its just me and my dogs here.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), May 06, 2002.

they had one near us also with a pumpkin patch petting zoo gorda you could buy it looked like aregular farmers market out there. the one thing they did for advertizing was allowed churches organizations etc. sign up to run the maze for the day for a third of the profits it gor alot of people out i think some of the vendors were allowed to sell for free. we live fairly rural and it was busy all the time schools pay big money for field trips you need to advertize now so they can plan and put it into their budget.

-- ronda (thejohnsons@localaccess.com), May 06, 2002.

One of my husband's customers grows a maize/maze (his regular income is from his greenhouse). As far as I know, he is the only one in the area & I've heard that people drive from miles around to do it! He says it's a lot of fun, too - it's their busiest time of year.

-- heather (h.m.metheny@att.net), May 06, 2002.

I am seriously considering this and have talked with a few of the "designers" who design and market the maize maze for you. It is a huge up front investment, but with the right location, I think you can make a pretty good sum of money. What I want is to have an educational maze, especially for kids, and not the Disney-esque atmosphere. One person emailed me that they made only $3000 last season, but they are in the middle of nowhere. The designer I talked with said I was in a great location (within a 50 mile radius, there are about 750,000). My problem is getting it through our county planning department because of parking problems. It probably won't happen this year, but possibly next.....

-- TD Matheny (theny@intrex.net), May 06, 2002.

There was an article in our local paper about this "maize". The land was rented for the season , next to the interstate and they charged $5 to enter. They went into detail on how the layout was done (Seattle Mariner's logo). Once the corn was a foot high they made the pattern they wanted. It was section off in squares and corn was removed and placed where needed. A picture from above was very impressive! If anyone lived near a college town or had access to land adjacent to a major highway near a big city, it would probably be well worth the effort! And probably a great payoff

-- Joy in Eastern WA (jparkes@spfarm.com), May 06, 2002.

Hi Joy, I haven't seen today's paper, but I do read the Spokesman Review daily and I haven't seen the article you mention. I did drive by the maze though, nearly weekly. It was indeed on the interstate highway, at least you could see it from there. It was on the East side of Spokane about 10 to 15 miles out. It was on a frontage road, a long ways away from a highway exit. We watched it, always wondering how they were doing, because we seldom saw more than one or two vehicles there at any one time.

I think it is a great idea, but I would want to talk to one of those three people personally, before I started planting. Perhaps another indication of their success will be if they re-plant it this spring.

-- Tis I (really_tis_i@yahoo.com), May 06, 2002.

We lived in a farming community in northern California for 5 years before moving to our homestead. They had a maze in that town too. There was a big pumpkin patch, where you could pick your own Halloween pumpkin. There were pony rides, a petting zoo, a big stack of hay bales to climb on, and gourds and jelly for sale. The whole county turns out! There are lots of people there. It's so much fun. Not only is it a good money maker, it adds family fun and atmosphere to the town.

-- Christine Baillie (towanda515@yahoo.com), May 06, 2002.

OK, let's assume for the moment that they make $5 per visitor. then for three owners to make $100,000 each they'd have to get total 60,000 visitors. Is this possible? Maybe, but I'd think only barely.

Let's turn that around. What do you have to do to get $5 per visitor? Well, I'd think just admission fees aren't going to do it. Even though they'd pay as much for a visit to the Golden Arches, some people would be put off by the thought of paying say $25 for "nothing" (admission) for the parents and three kids. OK, so you have to come at it from a different direction. $4 admission, children half-price, children under 5 years free, but you have a hot-dog and hamburger stand there, and probably ice-creams and milk-shakes and sodas and cold drinks. Maybe do-it-yourself barbecue, but they buy the steaks, sausages and fish from you; plus a choice of fresh mixed salads - including something with yoghurt, and cheese, and boiled eggs, and a bean salad and rice, to attract the vegetarians as well. They have to go through your fresh produce, fruit and vegetables and honey store to get to the eatables. That's the way to go, but it takes a lot more effort. If you can afford the effort, then it would work.

Value-adding is always the way to go - just selling raw materials at rock-bottom prices is one of the reasons why small family farms have gone out of business. You might not make make $100,000 , but if you make $50,000 nett then you ought to be doing OK. I really don't think a maze per se would make money, but a maze to pull people in to spend money could be a great idea - just not easy.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), May 07, 2002.

They have a maize maze (actually they call it the amazing maize maze) here in New Zealand which has grown so much every year. They have a web page where you can see what they do, albeit on a large scale. http://www.maizemaze.co.nz/

-- Catherine in NZ (cathgray69@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

I have been through a maze, twice!! The elem school that my children attended last year (before we started homeschooling) made two trips. The corn maze had an article running in a local paper and also the State Market Bulletin ran an article. Anyway the maze was very fun. When the school went we did it sorta of like a race. At the beginning of the maze they gave a list of questions and throughout the maze were multiple choice answers to these questions. Depending of if the ? was answered correct or not determines who gets out first. At the back of the maze was a tall bridge to cross over and you could see the entire maze and see how far you've come. We enjoyed it alot. They did have chicken wire strung beside some of the corn. It seemed that they left just enough exposed for touching. And the kids did touch. Some too much. The cost was 4$ for kids and $5 for adults. They did have a Snow-ice stand. There were bathrooms and a 'play maze' made of hay bales for the very young. Good luck!

-- Michelle Thomas (mpthomas83@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

From my book: How to Earn Extra Money in the Country (still free if sent as an e-mail attachment upon request to scharabo@aol.com. Those who use hotmail.com need to use another provider for this.)

STRAW BALE OR CORN MAZES:

If you put up a lot of straw (or hay) bales, before storing them inside, evaluate the possibility of mak-ing a maze out of them. A Greenup, IL farmer does this as an attraction for his highly successful U-Pick pumpkin operation. Some 3,000 bales are made into a 100-foot square maze with walls stacked five bales high so people cannot see over the top of them. Located in several areas are 12 and 20 foot square courtyards where people can congregate and compare notes on how to get out, which typically takes an hour. On busy days someone walks on boards on top of the maze to ensure no one tries to climb up to see where to go (and thus may topple bales) and to assist anyone truly lost. In 1992 approximately 10,000 people, some of whom drove from sixty miles away, went through the maze. While this farmer uses it as a draw to his U-Pick operation, admission on the or- der of $1 for adults and fifty cents for children could be charged. The design can be adapted from mazes in puzzle books. (See The New Farm, Septem-ber/October 1994.)

I also saw a brief item on a newscast where a corn farmer had laid out a maze using a cornfield. The entire field is planted and then thinned out to make the maze. A consultant who specializes in designing corn mazes is Brett Herbst, The MAiZE, P.O. Box 970086, Orem, UT 84097-0086 (801-489-1118 or www.cornfieldmaze.com. From other items I have seen, these are becoming increasing popular around the country. The advantage over straw bales is less effort to construct and after the season the standing corn can be harvested for low-grade silage.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 07, 2002.

We went to a maze in Sterling MA....twice in the same year, and still couldn't find our way out without help (yikes!) Up here they charged $7 a head ( a few years ago) and I have no doubt that you could get 60,000 people in a season. The place was packed, and you had to wait till the people in front of you were on their way before they let you in (altho there were plenty of lost souls piled up at the dead ends!) This place used sorghum. They also sold maps of the maze if you wanted (we didn't....should have!) and had a refreshment area. If you go by $7 each split up by the number of hours we spent in there it was really cheeeeeep!! :)

-- Sue (sulandherb@aol.com), May 07, 2002.

There was a great article on corn mazes in the April 2002 issue of Stockman Grassfarmer. They claimed it was a very profitable thing to do. They even gave directions on how to make a proper maze. Go to www.stockmangrassfarmer.com and maybe you can get the issue.

-- CNoll (CBirder@aol.com), May 07, 2002.

Tis I - I was taking out some old newspapers the other day to be recycled and I happened to run across the article that was written in the Spokesman Review back in Novemeber. So, unfortunately it wasn't a recent article. Geez, I should have saved it!

I used to drive by it every evening on the way home from work on I- 90. There was always a few cars there even during the weekdays, but come Friday evening and the weekends, that place was packed! At night they had it "haunted" just before halloween.

They have done this the last couple of years in that area. Once on the south side of the freeway and last year on the north side.

-- Joy in Eastern WA (jparkes@spfarm.com), May 07, 2002.

back in wis , the college does this every year, the pair it with a farmer and the gourds and pumpkins, .. think abt it , if you planed enough punkins , and the indian corn that they sell for sometimes as much as 2.00 an ear... and made the maze, called the local tv station and paper for a cool "public interest" story.... you could really have it made... and if you say X% of the profits will support, whatever charity, then you would really bone up on the profits, plus helping out a needy group, thats whatone place did, they donated 25% of profits to a food bank(what a great idea)...

i couldnt see how i could do it, not enough people .. but if youre withing an hour ofr so of a metro area.... go for it!

in fact, the paper and radios generally cover halloween event listings for free, if its a charitable thing.. invite a radio station out to broadcast... boy you really could go to town with the thing...

-- Beth in ND (famvan@drtel.net), May 07, 2002.

I don't think it would be worth the hassle of dealing with all those people. Trying to make sure they're not scaring the animals, touching the elctric fence, climbing the sides of the barn, walking all over the garden, no thanks! I would rather have the peace and quiet than the money.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), May 07, 2002.