Thread: What did you learn from last year, or years?

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Originally Posted by CobhamManor

Don't let your Samoyed dog out into your display or all of your cornstalks and tombstones will be stolen and destroyed!

Fluffydog! Go post photos on the pets thread! Hehe... snow dogs have a much greater ability to get into trouble quickly. I've never had one but I have friends who do... demon dogs! They're just so darn' cute though...

What I know:

It will snow before Halloween.

Expect wind and rain on Halloween and plan your layout accordingly and build props to withstand the elements

If the tiki wicks get too wet from the rain, use a propane torch to light them

I will get between 150 - 200 ToTs....and that's fine with me

I won't count on help until they show up on October 31st

I won't build everything on my list...so no need to stress about it.

The grass grows back.

Make sure to cut away from your body when using the xacto knife, not towards your body.

Don't shove everything in the garage...try and put it where it needs to get stored in the first place

I'm glad I live where vandalism isn't expected.

Utah is probably the top state for Haunters....lotsa talent around here.

I need to learn to plan first then buy stuff, not the other way around

I learned that no matter how insane I get regarding the scale of my display (and I do get insane) , there will always be critics. If I get another "you should have done this" by a neighborhood someone walking through that barely carves a pumpkin for their own house, I will have another corpse for my display.

Funny how they are never around to help when it is being built.

i learned not to use metal wire stuck through the grave stones to hold them up (tears the insides up, TO THE EXTREME)
[QUOTE]Make sure to cut away from your body when using the xacto knife, not towards your body./QUOTE] this tends to be a thing that i constantly forget

Originally Posted by afearlesshunter

Make sure to cut away from your body when using the xacto knife, not towards your body.

this tends to be a thing that i constantly forget

Well even if you don't forget to do it it still doesn't help if your finger's curled around the other end of what you're carving.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrains

Don't shove everything in the garage...try and put it where it needs to get stored in the first place

WORDS TO LIVE BY!! I've promised myself that if I don't have at least 90% of the Halloween stuff put away in storage after a week I'm going to sell it all and call it quits! It's just not fun when you can't work on new projects because you still have so much crap left out it's filling the garage and basement. 2011 will be different!

Originally Posted by Johan

If I get another "you should have done this" by a neighborhood someone walking through that barely carves a pumpkin for their own house, I will have another corpse for my display.

This is great!

I learned that I pretty much need to take Oct. 31 off from work if I'm going to get everything done that I want.

I've also learned to test out electronics and fog machines at least the week before. I had an MP3 player and Chauvet fogger fail on me Halloween night. Grrr..

I think the thing I will remember most is doing several test runs BEFORE the night of Halloween or even the day before... had two fog machines fry the day before and then another the day of... lesson learned...either buy more or get better quality ones! Also test out the lighting after everything is set up the way it will run on Halloween night...several times, instead of running around like a chicken without a head!

Don't have the scarers jumping out at the scarees so that they run back into where I'm handing out candy.

I've always had a static display, our audience is getting older and I'd like to start putting in some scare factor. It does make me nervous, but with the right plan I think we can do it without any broken kids. I hope