Thread: So how did your halloween turn out?

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Well.. it's come and gone again.. still got some cleaning up to do!

I was really bummed about the supposed rain.. and didn't really put much effort until the morning of when it looked like the rain may not show up.. so then I scrambled to get my fog chiller done, put out some more decorations, get my strobe up, put out some PAR30 lights facing the grave stones...

In the end.. we just got things done.. barely. But it was overall a success. Sadly.. soon after I turned on my fogger and strobe.. rain struck! I felt bad.. I didn't realize it was raining, bunch of kids had come up with there parents, and I was like "Oh F___ I gotta get my fog machine and lights out of the rain!!

So.. sadly, barely started out and a short bit of rain showed up. I wasn't sure how long it would last, or if it would come back once it did.. so I turned off the strobe (actually I thought it shorted out.. it was off on its own.. turned out my kid shut off his bedroom light which controlled the socket I had some stuff plugged in to!!!), and shut the PAR lights off. No sooner I did that.. the rain stopped. It did come back a couple ore times tho.. so oh well.

I gotta say.. my fog chiller sucked. I did that vortex design in the 60 qt igloo cooler, and my Chauvet 1250 just blasted right thru it. I even filled it up with ice then put some dry ice..about 8 lbs, on top. Man.. what a let down. I am guessing the Chauvet is just WAY too powerful for it.. or I need to find some way to get it to slow down. I suppose I'll play with it once I clean some things up. But sadly.. my fog did not lay low at all. Worse tho was that there was an apparent breeze that I could not feel at all.. but the fog would come out.. raise and roll right backwards.

So the down side was.. my hard work and franly lots of money this year getting stuff set up.. and mind you 1/2 of it in the 11th hour because the weather had cleared a bit.. really didn't pay off this year. I suppose living on a corner house may make it harder for a nice thick low lying fog... too many areas wind can come in thru.

But at least I scared the crap out of several kids... many more wouldn't come up as I sat there with my "death" painted face, robe with hood..all black.. looking like I was a prop.. but then moving ever so slowly. That part is always fun.. only I think next year I am going to look into a good mask.. it takes too long to paint my face on my own.

So.. how did your nights go? I'd post some pics.. but because of the rain I didnt bring it out.. and then it turned out battery was dead later when we went to use it. Bah! Such is life.

So now the thing is.. what to do next year.. not even sure if we'll be in this house or not. Trying to look at buying a house.. so not sure I want to consider anything now. lol

See this is where the weather proof fog cases would have come in handy I told you about. When you have on and off rain like that and it is not really that heavy to not do anything you could have still had your machine out. Sucks to hear you didn't get to use it much. This is why I weather proof case a lot of my stuff for situations like this. Then again I have been doing it for 15 yrs so it is one of those live and learn kind of things. With that you have just lived and learned which will make things better for next year and so on because you will be better prepared. Like I said, kids will come out raining or not as long as it is not a heavy down pour and there is no lightning. You will know for next year.

Yea generally anything over 1200 watts you want to use a trash can chiller design. I have learned that from experience. The cooler design works best with machines under 700w or lower. The breeze you were getting that you couldn't feel were the upper level winds aloft or steering currents that was moving the Low pressure system through. That is why I have mentioned as well as others it is good to set your machine up in several different locations and test it for the best possible effect for times like this for when the wind or breeze is coming from a different direction. Of course if it is high enough it won't matter because the breeze or wind will just carry it right off which is why I was saying if your fog is gone in 20 secs it is to windy and a continuous fogger won't help much ether except burn a hole in your pocket on fog juice. It is all a good learning experience though which you can apply to next year and so on.

This was the first year in 15 I did not do a display because of schedule conflicts with Halloween being on a Friday. Also I have not gone t-o-t with my daughter in 3 yrs so I wanted to spend the evening with her. It was sad having not done one this year and a lot of people were disappointed because of it. I assured them all 2009 will make up for it greatly though especially since it falls on a Saturday. It was cool though to get out for once to see what everyone else was doing. It is over and now I am on the same level with you guys and that is getting ready for 2009!!! So I don't have to be so bummed out anymore because I will be right in the mix with yall next season. Only 364 days!!!

All I'm gonna say is there was more then one car that pulled in front, and the parents said "Oh hell no" and pulled away. And the wind was not my friend.

I had a great time. In the beggining the wind was picking up a little, knocking down some of my things. But the wind stopped by the time the tot's came. This only downside is this kid tried to puck a fight with me. He got mad that I scared his sister. He was probably 15 years old 80 lbs soaking wet. I told him if his sister was so scared than maybe he should have kept her on the other side of the road. You can hear and see my house from 2 blocks. But anyway the news showed up and my maze was on the 11 o'clock news. Even though they got my last name wrong on it. Oh well only 364 days left till halloween gotta start preparing for next year.

Magic8697, sorry to hear about the kid with an attitude, that sux, we are fortunate to have over 20 police officers patrolling our neighborhoods, keeps the kids and rowdy adults in line, like you, everyone can see our house a decent distance away, we have several friends and family members that enjoy helping out with the haunt, I think that it helps keep things under control too.
With 250-300 kids stopping by along with the cars that stop in front to see, the kids and parents that give the ole "no way I'm going in there" salute...lol It can get out of hand without the extra bodies (pun intended).
I think we have come up with a fairly decent idea to keep the crowd flowing next year.

Wow.. I can't believe some kid tried to start something on halloween cause his younger sister got scared? That's ridiculous.

Well.. not all was bad.. I usually dress up as "death".. I wear a black robe with hood, all black clothes/socks/shoes.. paint my face white with black outlines for teeth, and black side burn like things... it's a picture common on most makeup kits you can find. Black eyes/nose as well. I had several young kids go away from our house.. we have cobwebs up all over.. and even tho my fog didnt work for the graveyard.. I did put it by my doorstep and would blast it as people came up. If my kid hadn't turned off his bedroom light (I had the light out.. but music playing and trigger for strobe and thunder going), my music would have played. I thought I blew a fuse because of the rain coming down and thought maybe it fried my strobe and blew a fuse.

But.. I made 6 kids cry... my neighbor couldn't come over to our party because her daughter was so scared of me. Funny thing that was.. she knew it was me.. and was ok.. but a group of 7 teenaged girls had walked up just as she was coming over.. and I scared the jebesus out of the girls.. so shes was like "oh hell no.." and then never came over. lol.

Best part was scaring those 6th grade boys that were mean and throwing things at my daughter's friend. I told her go to school Monday and in front of everyone tell them her dad scared them... but then.. that may cause problems for her later on.. so figured not such a good idea.

There weren't nearly as many kids out this year.. probably due to the rain.. but also our house complex is made up mostly of asian and indian families and while many did come out, I know several that did not. Also happens to be Diwali so many of them went to other parties.

I gotta be honest.. I love doing this stuff.. but it's so much work for so little turn out.. that honestly I don't know that I am going to do much more next year.. unless we finally can buy a house and find a neighborhood that appreciates the effort and enjoys it. Like I said..I think this year was cruddy because of the weather mostly.. and next year is a Saturday.. so that should be the best of the days to have it on.

I had a thought... there is this prop that if I am going to buy any props.. this would be it.. it's this half torn body that moves on the ground.. and its arms move a bit as if its dragging itself with its fingers on the ground. I thought.. this would be the coolest thing.. blow a bunch of fog down the walk way.. then have this prop crawling out of it. ROFL. Now that.. would be great!! I gotta see if I can find it.

Texan,

Yah.. you're right..I thought about putting a tarp over it.. but just ran out of time and hoped for the best. Oh well.. the wind was ruining it anyway.. so it didn't much matter bringing them in. I did infact try one other location.. but the cooler and fogger were just too big. We live on a corner house.. our grass is on the side by the walkway to our front door. I'll try posting pics see if they come out now.

my halloween turned out great, except my fog machine was not working. I had lots of dummies, and many animatronics (cheap ones)

Second try for some pics.. attaching them this time..

Well, I had about half the number of TOTs I normally have. <100 this year. I blame the fact that it was a high school game night (Go Lions!), 40 degrees, and
seven "are you kidding me" o'clock curfew this year. WTH!? I plan to write a letter about that one.

Other than that, It was a pretty good Halloween...and I still have candy