Thread: Magic Mirror / Singing Pumpkins 2010

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Hello All,

Another Halloween came and went and all in all we had a good Halloween for 2010.

If you have been following my posts here at the Halloween Forum, you will see that I have created two attractions for Halloween this year. The first part was a reprise of the Magic Mirror I have done last year (See "Magic Mirror Help" thread from last year), and also a Singing Pumpkin display.

As I had predicted (from last year) with Halloween falling on a Sunday, I figured I would get most of my TOT action early on and not much activity later on so I opted for a "Family Friendly" Halloween and went with an all pumpkin theme. (I was correct in my predition too).

For the reprise of my Magic Mirror, I did away with...the Magic Mirror!! Instead I used Imagineerieing's "Gordo" electronic puppet. The mirror effect was replaced with a recessed backdrop in which a hole was cut out and elaborately decorated. Behind the hole was my computer monitor and the floating pumpkin face of Gordo. Outside of those changes in the facade, much of what I used for last years Magic Mirror I reused, such as the curtains, scrim, and the special candy delivery table I built last year and, of course, the side entrance vestibule location.

I added some new lighting to the attraction to go with the pumpkin theme and I added some "Luminaries" walkway paper bag lights.

With the modifications I made to the Magic Mirror effect, I was able to start my attraction MUCH earlier in the daytime. I ran it from 12:00pm to 8:30pm without any lighting issues as I had last year.

Unfortuantely I DID have the SAME wind problems as I did last year and I had to take action on tying certain things down and/or continually adusting my display.

Moving to the front of my house I set up a Singing Pumpkin display that I dubbed "Pump K and the 'Kinettes". The display was a setup of 7 pumpkins (5 of which I carved myself using carvable pumpkins from Micheal's Crafts), on shelves that were attached to an inverted trellis. I had faux folliage garland interweaved through the trellis lattice and the pumpkins just to give the display a warmer autumn look. The trellis was held upright via a bush located directly in back of it. The sound system I used had the speaker placed behind the trellis and below the supporting bush. The speaker was concealed via Jute cloth.

The Singing Pumpkins had thier internal lights flash in time to 3 songs that I put together:

1) Grim Grinning Ghosts (Disney Haunted Mansion singing busts song)
2) Monster's Holiday (Buck Owens)
3) I'm Your Boogie Man (KC & The Sunshine Band)

The songs were encoded by a program called "Vixen" and were played back through a 16 channel (of which 10 channels were used) Renard based dimming controller. (This controller system is the same one I use for my Christmas displays).

Ok, so that is the background...So on with show.

I only ran the display of both the Magic Mirror AND the Singing Pumpkins for Halloween day. I figured without pre-advertising, it would be pointless to run the event for more than just that. Hopefully I will change that for next year.

Halloween day turned out to be a repeat of last year in which most of the day was very windy. Luckily I DID plan for that better this year in lieu of last year and I didn't have to do too much 'straightening out' as I did last year.

As I had predicted, most of our Tot's started to come through from 1:00pm on through to dinner time at 6:00pm. The turn out was overall "good", but not "great". I didn't have too much in terms of lines, but I did have to very large groups that did end up forming a line from my Gordo display all the way to the gate. Not too bad considering that last year I didn't have anything remotely resembling a 'line'.

The Singing Pumpkins were a big hit with the neighbors, but because of the high winds, I couldn't set up my tarp that would have sheilded the later afternoon light from my display. So I did away with the tarp and bumped my starting time from 2:00pm to 4:30pm for the Singing Pumpkins.

I did come out of the vestibule every so often to stretch my legs and check on the displays during the lulls in TOT flow. The Singing Pumpkins looked the best right at twilight were you could see both the display and the lights. When it got really dark out, you really could only see the lights. So making a mental note for next year to have a couple of static lights shining on the display.

As it got darker, I could hear (in the distance), an air horn going off every so often. It did appear to me that someone in the neighborhood was doing some kind of display or haunt themselves.

After 6:00pm pretty much things started to die off with about perhaps a group or two coming every 20 mins or so. It seemed like at this time, I noticed that groups were showing up IN CARS! Yup, people actually stopped to see what was going on!

By 7:30 it was pretty much dead out and by 8:00pm I started to pack things up. At 8:30pm I did get one group of girls which turned out to be the same group I got late last year. There was only 3 of them though this year...last year there were at least 6. They didn't stay that long this time either. They were my last TOT's for the night and then I closed up shop.

Overall not a bad Halloween, but I will say that I am very much itching to do a scary Halloween for next year. Next year Halloween is falling on a Monday, so TOT's will be coming out after school and thus the events of the day will shift to the evening hours. I do have many plans in my head for what I am going to do next and I have not settled on anything yet. I do want to do something simple as I don't have quite a bit of room to store props...but I do want to do something that is effective.

I do have intentions on reinstating the Magic Mirror and use that in the late afternoon / early evening hours, but then for nightfall, the FUN will begin...Muhhhaaahaahaahaha!!

Anyway I will be posting pictures of my event shortly, so keep a look out for them!

Until next year!

Geo

Awesome, sounds like a great set up combo. any pics ??