Thread: Essential Halloween Planning

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Hey forum peeps! Need your imput for this one.

I'm putting together a guide for my clients and Facebook likers called The Essential Halloween Planning Guide, and naturally the first place I turn for my own ideas is to you all. SOOOOO I'd love some help and imput from you all for this free e-guide I'm putting out in September.

The question is: What are some of your essential Halloween planning steps? Or... "I'm ready to start getting ready for Halloween, my first step is ________"

(Other than the obvious of course, which is checking in here)

If I use your essential step, I'll give you a shout so I can promote you and thank you officially in the guide.

I think it will make a fascinating thread here in the forum and be a great help to everyone as they plan for this season. Can't wait to read what everyone says!

The first thing I do is get a notebook, decorate it with something spooky and start collecting all my ideas, things I see that other people have done that I might want to recreate, anything that inspires me goes into the notebook. From there I start looking over the things I collect (pics of props, party ideas, masks, haunts, lighting that worked for others, recipes, anything goes) and begin to think what would work best in creating my haunt/party. I save the notebooks year to year and can look back when I remember an idea or to just enjoy. Good luck with your guide!

1. Figure out the purpose of your decorations - is it for a party or just for trick or treaters (Party planning is a whole other issue is itself!)

2. Come up with a theme.

3. Come up with a budget.

I'll post again if I think of anything else. These are probably the most generic but are easy to elaborate on in your article.

My first step is to decide whether I am going to do a theme for the year or not.

Determine your power requirements. It's no fun finding out during setup that you need yet another extension cord or 3-way adapter.
Get some quad paper - the kind with the printed 1/4" grid - and use that to lay out the display. Scale the layout to the actual dimensions of the display/haunt area and be sure to check the dimensions of the props as well. Of course, small adjustments are always made during setup but this way you know that your props will fit comfortably in the space you have.

Well first thing for me since I host a home haunt is, GUEST SAFETY! That is always #1 in my book. This is for the protection of you and the guests/TOTs. This is a must for any host of a Commercial Haunted house, Halloween Party or Home Haunt(especially if theres a walk-thru). Best of luck on your excellent plans for a guide book!

I don't like to plan, so I usually dig out all the boxes, unpack everything and then go for it.
But I suppose if it were your first Halloween you may want to plan...
1. Budget - decide what you can re use or fit in from your stash. (& like mommyto3 said plan for party/tot/ or just yourself) 2. plan your layout 3. shop 4. see what you can make instead 5. buy supplies, the ones you prefer to buy and not make, and probably beer 6. make props 7. decorate...

mysterymaiden

Your question...."I'm ready to start getting ready for Halloween, my first step is ________"


My answer...."I'm ready to start getting ready for Halloween, my first step is start planning November 1 ... it takes a long time to build props, tombstones, fences....." LOL I hope your guide turns out great, have fun

Thanks everyone, the guide is coming along great! I'm still creating it, so I'm open to more ideas if there's still a few floating around out there. It will be debuting on the Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/shotinthedarkmysteries - look us up and we'll keep you posted when it comes out so you can see your credit on the thank-you page!

The first thing that we do to start getting ready for Halloween is that we find a theme that inspires us. If one doesn't just occur to us out of everyday life, then we watch as many horror/scary movies as we can to get the scare juices flowing in our brains.

Once we land on a theme or two that we like, we think about what kinds of rooms and scares would fit into that type of a theme. Then, based on the types of rooms and scares we can think of that would be associated with the themes, we make our final decision on which theme we'll go with.

At that point the real fun begins! I have a sketch of my house layout on my computer, and we go through that sketch and label the rooms, and think of what we want in each one, and so on.

After we have a general idea of what each room is going to be/contain, then we make lists of what we already have that we'll use in which rooms, and what we want/need to make or change.

Once we have a general idea of what we want to do and what we need to make/change/repair, we make a list of the items that we need to make those things happen. This can also be partially a dream list, including things we'd love to be able to do if we can.

Then, we figure out a budget and a priority ranking for all the stuff on our list, so we get the most important stuff first, before the possibility of the budget running out becomes a possibility.

Then start making whatever we want to make new for the year, and we proceed from there.


I hope this helps a bit! Good luck with your e-guide! It's a great idea.