Thread: Day of or All season?

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I was surprised in my posts how many home haunters like me put out thier displays on the day of Halloween. I thought I was alone we have a town wide decorating competition and MY stuff may be the best in town but I never enter because it has to be up weeks before Halloween. I was shocked that there are alot of us that may do some lite decorating but only set up the top shelf displays the day of. do you set up for the season or the day of?

Season, with the exception of a few days we had to bring everything in for a tropical storm.

the whole season. I just dont see the sense in taking the time and effort to put things up to only be able to enjoy them for afew hours.

Right now I have most everything up, but with reservations. I know my stuff could get stolen and it bugs me alot.

Many people have to deal with stolen or damaged props, and I do not blame them for the 1 day set up and take down.

Some people like the magic of their stuff being there one day, and boom total awesome for one day only.

Some people do long term set ups, but that takes so much patience and the weather must cooperate. I have already taken my stuff down 2 times and set back up 2 times- once fully down, once just a few large props down- due to wind and rain.

Haunting is fun, but to me- weather is King. We are at the mercy of wind rain and snow. And if there are jerks in your hood who keep stealing stuff- like poor Chaserbug- then your Halloween becomes really scary!

Originally Posted by hollow

Haunting is fun, but to me- weather is King. We are at the mercy of wind rain and snow. And if there are jerks in your hood who keep stealing stuff- like poor Chaserbug- then your Halloween becomes really scary!

So true...I'm a one-two day gal. I used to try to put everything but the animatronics out early. But it would just break my heart to see any of my stuff 'walk'. AND the wind/rain. Seems we're always battling it here in NJ. Drives me nuts that I feel like a yoyo bringing it out to pull it back in again...grrrr

i put it all out for a day or two. theres usually some haunted eye candy on the yard but not the good stuff. for me its a combo of having things stollen and usually not finishing my props till the 13th hour.

Originally Posted by Shadowbat

the whole season. I just dont see the sense in taking the time and effort to put things up to only be able to enjoy them for afew hours.

+1

We worked our butts off for this Halloween. Only getting to see it one or even two days wouldn't make the time, effort, or money worth it. Halloween is also about the entire fall/harvest season to us so it is important to enjoy it as long as possible. We also jumped into this years efforts fully realizing that we are at risk of vandalism, in fact almost expected it due to getting a large amount of pumpkins stolen last year. We aren't into animatronics or any store bought stuff so seeing anything like that get stolen isn't a problem, but weather beating on all of our paper mache made us worry a bit. Thankfully all of our preparations paid off during one rain storm.

Also, this year we are really trying to up our TOT count. We don't live in a city limits subdivision, but rather a neighborhood in the outlying area of town so setting up early (we started setting up Oct 10th and just finish last weekend) was sort of an advertisement to the traffic going up and down our street.

If I was so worried about stuff getting stolen that I would only setup on Halloween, I'd probably quit decorating altogether. Besides, I couldn't come close to setting up on one day.

I start putting stuff up early in the month and continuously add to it. I was talking with a couple that were doing a drive by the other night and they said they keep coming back because it's always changing.

Always weather related most of my yard haunt is set up the day before afraid of it breaking or being stolen

I put out stuff I can easily replace or didn't cost me anything about 2 weeks out. The expensive stuff or things I couldn't bear to lose go out the day of and come in that night.

I compare out setup with the way circuses used to do their setup/take down - always they did the setup/take downs at night so that it was more magical that way. Our really cool stuff and lights/fog only happen the night of Halloween and everything is completely gone the next morning.