Thread: What changes occured after being written about in the paper?

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I moved into my current home about 2 years ago. The first year I was here and started decorating it attracted the attention of the local TV news who came out and did a short "hometown" news segment on me. That years I got about 1700 TOTers on halloween and 200-400 people a night coming by to see the house. Last year there was no news crew but the crowds grew to about 2300 TOTers. We went through over $500 in candy and glow bracelets. I live in a culdesac and the traffic was jam packed to the entrance of the neighborhood a mile away. The attention from news papers and TV can be fun and is great on the ego but it can cause thngs to get bigger then you ever intended. Sometimes I think about taking a year off to slow things down....but then I come to my senses!

Part of me says, sure I'd love to have it in the paper, but then I come to my senses and say what for? I just felt like maybe I was crazy because I didn't . The reactions i got when I said no way was like...why not? and I got that look. I dunno... I'm content with our 120 TOT's and if we get more by natural word of mouth that's fine, but I'm not sure about all the other stuff....we'll see what happens. It may never happen Thanks for the suggestions!

I have been pictured in the paper every year since 2002. I have had feature articles in 2004, and 2006. They did a live scene in 2005. For me it hasnt gotten out of hand, for the first hour and half we hand out candy, then it turns over to the middle school-college kids who come out for the haunt. After the paper my drivebys before Halloween definately increase.

People have mentioned contacting the local paper to us. Mr. L is against it. The past two years there is so much traffic in the neighborhood that the police set up cars at the entrance to our subdivision and direct traffic. Last year many people told us they were disappointed because they couldn’t get in. There wasn’t anywhere to even park and walk in to the subdivision. That really got to me because some of these people were driving quite a distance to see our haunt and didn’t get to. We told them to come at 5pm this year to avoid the traffic and we’ll give them the “lights on” tour, lol! Our number of TOTers has increased 75 people per year so last year we had about 365. I can’t even imagine having 2,300! Word of mouth seems to have spread the news about us so we’re happy with that.

I guess it all depends on where you are. I am in a small town, surrounded by other small towns. Even our biggest town sponsored events with full media coverage dosen't bring in 2000 people or more. It is good for us to have the newspaper articles out here. We have not had TV coverage. Last year was the first year we had articles in the papers. It was fun to see it in the paper, but it really only inceased our crowd by about 10%. We had just over 200.

I can see where you would be asking for trouble if you are in an area where you could potentially attract a crowd of thousands. That many people in one place, especially a place not designed for that many people is always potentially dangerous, never mind the cost of extra treats, grow products or whatever you give out.

I guess if you are getting as many TOTers as you can handle, there really is no point to the coverage. At least not ahead of time. It probably wouldn't hurt to have them come on Halloween night to cover what is happening. Publicity a year in advance is not likely to draw that many more people. People have short memories.

One thing I didn't mention - Props and Special Effects look better on TV than they do in person. Our Mad Scientist's Lab looked way more authentic on TV, and the Sweeney Todd's Barber Shop looked like a Museum set piece. We had Victorian London era posters on the wall, old ads for Hair Tonic and a antique Barber Chair and Pole. The camera even panned down to the real human hair on the floor! Everyting just seemed to look more REAL. Is that strange, or what?

With the 2300 we had last year I thinks its fair to say we are right on the edge of being out of control. For 10-14 days prior to halloween we have 200-400 peoplea night come by to see the house. This year we are discouraging peope from coming back on Halloween to reduce the crowds. So far we have not had any vandalism or complaints. Even with that many people they are well behaved and the mess only lasts for about 3 hours. Be intereting to see what daylight savings time does......

Word does definately get around after puplicity like that. I used to belong to a church in Tenn. that has grown so large they finally had to build their own building. They used to rent an old abondoned house, but they had so many people go through a part of the floor collapsed while they were setting up one year. They quickly built a make-shift building out behind their church. Now they have a permanent bulding with a circus tent out side of it for the lines of people waiting. Instead of candy now they rent a snack wagon. About 95% of their stuff is inside the buidling which can be locked. So theft hasn't ever been an issue.