Thread: So how did it go?

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I had a fun night, not quite the turn out I wanted but I had a good time... Those that did come had a good time and I got a lot of nice comments...

How did it go for you?

We had a good night, not as many kids this year but we did manage to put on a good scare. We got lots of positive comments from parents saying they hope we do it again next year.

By most standards pretty bad...looks like I had 13 tots. But thats a record for me. With all my lights and decorations it really brought them in. Next year I will advertize the walk thru graveyard I will make thru the year. Tommorrow we are going to try to go get a ground fogger 1/2 off.

Better than expected for us. It started raining around 3 am this morning and continued to do so until five or sixish this evening. As I was driving towards the suburban neighborhood where we take my daughter every year in Rossville, sprinkles of rain started to come down on the windshield. I was thinking, "Oh, no.....you'd better not!" Luckily, it didn't amount to anything and the rain was done for the day, it just got cloudy after that. My daughter was a zombie, my sister in law was a druid, my brother was Pinhead and I was that lady in the urban legend story who wore a ribbon around her neck to keep her head from falling off. We regrettably didn't take any pictures but my brother's Pinhead outfit got him compliments and people wanting to shake his hand and pose for pics with him. He was really pleased, since last year, people had jeered at his vampire costume. My daughter didn't score very well as far as candy amount goes, but we had a fun time and ate McDonald's on the way home. When we came home, the full moon shone down over the house and I knew I'd file this year away in my memories as one of the best, ranking up there with Halloween 2006. I think in the next couple of years I"ll try to get my gang to do a mummy or pirate theme with me. There was a little four yr old Jack Sparrow walking around tonight and he was adorable! Hope he got lots of candy....

We did awesome this year, not as high of a turn out an usual, but non stop until about 10 pm or so.. All i can hear in my head is the tons of people still screaming their lungs out... Music to my ears.. Time to start stocking up and planning for next year * grins *

Well the rain stopped this evening and we had a great turn out, 200+! We had a few kids too afraid to come up to the door and several little tots being forced by their parents to make it to the front door.

On Long Island NY, it was like a hurricane all day and night. I was watching everything outside like a hawk. I initially had to redo a bunch of wind blown stuff, and some stuff simply had to come in. No way it would hold up to 30 mph winds. I'm seriously thinking about replacing all my tombstones with wooden ones from now on. Styrofoam and wind just do not mix. None of them broke or got away, but they took a battering. No amount of staking would ease it, and I staked a LOT! I'm thinking weather proofed thin wood tombstones staked in with serious stuff. It would alleviate SO much stress on me...and them. Tombstones make up a large part of my display.

You either have to learn from this years weather and correct the weak spots, or you'll always be at the mercy of the weather. I plan on going bigger next year with lifesize props and to ensure they can be displayed outside I'm gonna do wooden dioramas, enclosing the props in scenes. All of that hassle is better than the hassle of babysitting delicate props and decorations all day long in the elements- even keeping some inside. Live and learn.

Through it all I had 40 scared and happy tots. They LOVED my haunted yard and I loved hanging in there for them. The rest of our neighborhood was dark, so I was disneyland and they loved it.

Dan

It went very well, and looking back to all the griping I did about the weather/wind/rain/etc..I was overall very pleased with the night. Steady stream of visitors starting at 6:00 p.m right up until 8, with a few stragglers and some friends from work that stopped by. All of my 8 helpers had a ball and did their parts perfectly. Well timed scares, lots of screams, compliments on the haunt, folks taking pics and video. The weather turned out fairly well, with temps in the low 50's. Rain stopped around 1 p.m and the wind died down substantially from yesterday, although there were still gusts. Fogger crapped out for the with prop but no biggie. A lot of kids said "trick or treat" and "thank you" much to our delight. A police officer stopped by to check out the display and was very complimentary. I was fully prepared to scale way back this year given the setbacks with the weather but it was full tilt and a lot of fun. Our number were down from last year by about half but it may have been the chilly weather. Glad it's over though. I'm beat!!

Well we didnt have near as many trick or treaters as we have had in years past so I was a little disappointed. This year I finnaly broke down a bought a pnuematic prop and an FCG, both of which I have wanted for years, even attempted to build a FCG a few years back but could never get the rig right. And I also made a wolf from the xmas deer. Needless to say I was very excited to show off these great props and very few people went through our garage haunt. Good news is that those who did said it was great and lots of people asked about my props and how they worked. I just can't figure out why there were not many ToTers this year. It hadn't rained since early this morning and while the the weather was cool around 50 dregrees, it wasn't freezing and definetly wasn't one of the coldest Halloweens our area has seen. Hopefully this isn't a sign of Halloweens to come! Oh well Halloween 2009 down and many Halloweens to plan for in the future. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween and happy planning for next year!

Well... it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. My set-up was just about perfect, and the ToTs we got were all generally either impressed or terrified, which is what I shoot for. But the city limited ToT time to 5-7, which sucks (it's barely even *dark* at seven!) and it rained most of the day, which affected the number we got badly.

We did get some good scares, though. Even had a few run away. The kids seemed to really dig the theremin I was playing, too. Most of them wanted to try it out before they left (and I let them, of course).

So, things went off okay on my end, it's just the other uncontrollable factors that messed things up. Seriously though, anyone else have wacked out ToT times? I mean, 5-7? Two frickin' hours? When I was a kid, it was 5-10. And I'm not that old, either, only 24. What the heck happened?

Anyway, I let it be known throughout the neighborhood that I would be serving all-comers until midnight, and I actually did get a handful after the official end.