Thread: Found my 2009 theme...

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I've been tinkering with concepts for a couple of months, and thanks to helpful chats on this forum, I have come to embrace the idea of a spooky old town square.

My plan is to have a pumpkin patch with a tall scarecrow at the enterance, then ToTs walk on a boardwalk through the cemetery and past the mausoleum as they make their way to the front porch. The front porch is the midway point where they will receive their candy. After that, ToTs continue to the "town square" where they can look at spooky shops like the witch's apothecary and other storefronts (I'll have to do some brainstorming) and there will be a town square with some sort of centerpiece, a few stocks (one with a skeleton and a very sturdy one for people to play with and take photos in). At the end of the haunt, people can enjoy a cup of hot cider.

Here's a doodle of how I hope everything will fit together.



The boardwalk will have a railing of some sort (don't know yet if it will be wood, rope, or chain) and will have orange ropelight underneath to help with illumination.

The town square will be the big build. I'll reuse the apothecary storefront and tower, but I'll put on a new roof for everything, and carve a neat Apothecary sign out of 2" foam. I want to do a nice town square, and for now I'm thinking stocks and benches. One stock will have a skeleton and the other will be available for photo ops. I'll have two benches in the square. One will have a witch and one will have a skeleton. Again, these will be set up for photo ops.

I will also reuse my witches and cauldron, but I'm going to set it up as though they are giving a demonstraton, or teaching a class, in the town square.

Whew! This is going to be a lot of work! Good thing I have 6 months.

Here are some pics of a quick stock I made on Sunday. I'll need to reinforce it a bit, and do some aging, but you get the idea. This will be the static prop stock. I will also build a very sturdy and safe stocks for ToTs to look at and touch.

whoa, that will be sweet. good thing halloween is a ways off. you are right, you will need some time to pull it off. hey, for a suggestion, how about some stantions with pumpkins heads and the orange rope lights between them.

I love your plans. Your diagram/sketch looks amazing. One question for ya, for the boardwalk, are you going to make it off the ground a little bit or will it just lie flat on the ground? The reason I'm asking is if you were to make it off the ground so it was like a bridge you could have low ground fog coming out the sides. Then the orange light would really look fantastic.

Also for the Town Sqare center piece you could make a large Jack-O-Lanter. I got this idea from "Halloweentown". Man disney is awesome for having such cool movies.

Either way(s) I'm looking forward to seeing this!

The boardwalk will be raised a bit, but only a few inches.

No pressure but I will be stopping by to do a "review" for the hauntforum site. So you better do a really good job. I think the old spooky town square sounds like a great idea. I can't wait to see how it all turns out! I have been working on my "boardwalk" as well.

Sounds awesome! I hope you post lots of pictures as you start to get it together.

I'm curious how having the candy drop in the middle works out.

I've never really considered having it anywhere other than the end...

Sounds like a fantastic plan! I'll look forward to seeing your progress!

Originally Posted by UnOrthodOx

I'm curious how having the candy drop in the middle works out.

I've never really considered having it anywhere other than the end...

I found that last year, kids were anxious to get the candy, but then the parents wanted to walk around a bit and look at things, especially the apothecary with all the cute bottle labels and interesting things on the tables and shelves.

So, what usually happened was the kids would rush up to get the candy, and THEN they would look around.

This year I thought it would be good to provide a clearer path for ToTs to follow to get to the front porch and then they can continue on to the apothecary and town square with time to look around and enjoy.