Thread: This year's haunt pics, and lessons learned for NEXT year

Tweet

Pics and videos of this years effort are (finally!) posted. I had to upload the vids 3x before photobucket correctly converted them.

http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p...2007halloween/

First things first...credit where due:

• Thanks to David from Raven Manor, for his double-Axworthy drive design, and for patiently explaining the finer points of his design that I just didn't get
• Thanks to Brian Lorsung for a TERRIFIC medieval skeleton cage design

This year we had an increase in ToTs of somewhere between 50-75%. We were hit by wave after wave of them....totally ran out of candy. Our best guesstimate is somewhere around 500.

Some of the parents made a point of commenting on the new stuff, since they apparently are now making a point of coming around to see "what's new". (parents coming back to "see what's new" is the biggest incentive to ADD for each year...!)

New this year:

• Totally redesigned AFG...that actually worked most of the night without my babysitting it constantly.
• Animatronic Dracula figure hiding behind a tombstone in the back of the cemetery, scanning back and forth
• The skeleton cage. (wife suggested placing a spot on this so it was more visible. The added benefit was every ToT that walked between the spot and the cage caused "Talk Back Jack" to start talking at them. It terrified quite a few! )
• Animatronic hand sticking out of the newly-filled grave. This was the most-commented on addition, even over the AFG.
• A 2nd fogger. It made the cemetery foggy all night instead of only at times.

Lessons Learned:

• Mid-September is NOT the time to start on the year's new additions
• Brian Lorsung is right...you really DO need a bench vice to bend the metal slats for that skeleton cage, and a drill press to drill through them. I wager it took me hours longer without those two tools.
• The AFG really IS as temperamental as everyone warns. Because of that, I ended up only being able to "tune" one of the two tracks I had intended to have running.
• J-B Weld is a wonderful product....!

congrats on your working axworthy! Hand in the grave looked great!

Looks great, love the ghost, medieval cage, and dracula.

Thanks for posting up the videos! I really loved the ghost in your graveyard.


You have a wonderful display!!

awwwww...those are some awesome props!

The sign on the skeleton cage is perfect.

It looks good! Congrats on the AFG. Building one of those has been on my incredibly long wish/to-do list for some time now. I'm jealous!

It looks good! Congrats on the AFG. Building one of those has been on my incredibly long wish/to-do list for some time now. I'm jealous!

Great yard! Very nice new additions, gonna be hard to top those!

Were you able to load all your pics at once? My photobucket is making me do one pic at a time.
Val

Great job! Love the skelly cage. Gonna leave it out all year to rust?