Thread: planning for 2010? I need some help please

Tweet

Halloween 09' was a huge hit for us. So for 2010 we have decided to put on a haunted halloween carnival theme. We will be using both the front and back yard this year so space is not a problem. However we are not sure what to add. ANY ideas you have for booths, prizes,games, decor is greatley appricated. We are going to start sketch plans after the winter holidays. Thanks in advance for all your ideas.

Are these booths and whatnot, then, displays, or interactive games?

Personally, I've always wanted to do 2 things that would fit in such a thing.

A sideshow.

A medicine show.

Or some combination of the two.

The sideshow can include gaffs and oddities as well as acts.

The Medicine show can also include gaffs and/or displays showing the perilous journey to obtain the magical elixir, or Vaudeville style acts to prep the audience for the pitch.

If you are thinking more along the lines of a haunted midway.

The classic games would be ring toss and the pop a balloon with a dart booths. A small funhouse would be a welcome attraction. Popcorn and cotton candy stands are almost mandatory. From my experience with the school who sets up the teacher's rooms in this fashion, each teacher doing their own. Avoid bean bag tosses, anything golf, and cake walks. These rate among the least popular annually.

How about a geek tent?

You may want to consider a ChromaDepth 3D section. It really has a carnival-type vibe. Here's some pics of carnival Chromadepth art for some ideas:









A tunnel would also be fun:

instead of a ballon pop thing have a bigger voodoo doll dummie that kids can throw darts at, or if you want just a static prop, have like little pigmies blowing darts at a tourist or somthing like that lable it death darts

UnOrthodOx- For the booths we want to have at leaste a prize one, a candy stand and two or three interactive game ones. The back yard is really big so I'm thinking a few display ones just for the extra effect would be cool.

Terra- I love the 3-D stuff. I'm not a very crafty person but maybe I'll be able to get someone to help with that. The neon colors look very haunting.

ihauntu- That's a great idea with the vooodoo doll. How big should be?

Thanks for all the ideas guys! We have came up with a few since last night. They are a forutne teller booth, a porto-potty with a monster coming out and lots of neon colors.

Johnofmars- What's a geek tent? Maybe geek zombies that come back to haunt the jocks at the carnival? Think Night of the Living Dorks....

These are a couple youTube videos that may give you some ideas and inspiration. Of course, creepy clowns tend to dominate circus and carnival themed haunts, but some of the ideas can work sans clowns, too.

Knott's Scary Farm has done a circus/carnival maze in some form for a lot of years. Warning: this video may give you motion sickness courtesy of the cameraman's swaying motion (though it does convey the thoroughly "off" quality of the maze). I liked the mutilated plushie prize room, where various large midway toys were ripped up and splattered with "blood," and an actor in a really ratty mascot costume waited to jump out (basically a camouflage sort of thing). There was plenty of lewd humor, like the elephant stall, complete with pachyderm back ends armed with air cannons and rope tails and a softly-padded brown floor - ew.
YouTube - halloween haunt... CARNIVAL OF CARNIVOROUS CLOWNS 05


Boney Island was one of those haunts I really wished I had seen in person. It is probably more like what you are looking to do, with plenty of clever puns and scenarios.
YouTube - Boney Island Yard Haunt 2007

I'm not sure if this would be particularly helpful for what you are looking to do, but old abandoned amusement parks are creepy as all get out (and curiously pretty). There's a lot of beautifully eerie photography out there of such places of past joy, and much of it seems like fodder for haunts and nightmares alike. I would love to make an abandoned roller coaster prop (see nightmarish clown train toward the bottom of the page); maybe a short stretch of broken track and a rusted-up coaster-car perched precariously on the end. I personally would place this coming out of some dense plants, or in a haunt I would paint a perspective image of a coaster in the distance and the track merging with the painting and coming out of the wall.
Dark Roasted Blend: Abandoned Amusement Parks in Asia

EDIT: looks like it took me too long to write all this and find the sources; hope these are still of some help. And a "Geek," as it was used before being applied to those of a nerdy leaning, was usually a sideshow performer who went with a lunatic persona, known for biting the heads off of various critters during the show. And this is why I prefer to be called a nerd-ette if I'm going to be classified by someone (though that still has a derogatory source); I just have too many hang-ups over the old use of the title "geek."

we went to spooky world one time, they had a maze of mirrors. you couldn't tell what was mirror and what was real clown till they stepped out. we were screaming and running and laughing.
i did a clown theme one year and and we had clowns in a maze. some clowns were painted up to blend with the walls. it went real well. for a game we had throw the beanbag through a clowns mouth. you could also have a pick a duck game and roll a ping pong ball across some bowls.
if you do a search you will find quite a few do this theme. halloweenbarb and finn for a couple
terra, those pictures are fabulous

Thanks everyone for the help. All this will make for a much better process. Im wondering if the picture of the clown I have on the website is to scary. Should I tone it down a bit? That's were we got our insperation.
you can just click on my siginture to see it. (piczo)