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905 Posts
I broke down around 10:30, does that count,hahaha!
Any 2015 breakdowns?
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372 Posts
We do a big production in the yard, complete with a professional sound guy and lighting guys.
My audio playlist disappeared and all of the genres were reset in my itunes. (I hate itunes) So I quickly had to rebuild my playlist from memory hunting for songs that no longer are listed as Halloween.
The Lighting guys generator ran out of gas... so we quickly had to throw around some super long extension cords to hook up to the house.
Over all minor problems that occurred at least 2 hours before the show but it was enough to rattle my nerves.
My audio playlist disappeared and all of the genres were reset in my itunes. (I hate itunes) So I quickly had to rebuild my playlist from memory hunting for songs that no longer are listed as Halloween.
The Lighting guys generator ran out of gas... so we quickly had to throw around some super long extension cords to hook up to the house.
Over all minor problems that occurred at least 2 hours before the show but it was enough to rattle my nerves.
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45 Posts
Had one of three witches blow over in the thick of things. Had to jerry-rigg stabalizers out of some Home Depot Paint sticks, but got it pretty sturdy in about 5 minutes.
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92 Posts
My big breakdown wasn't a prop, but our toilet. Which meant I spent most of Saturday working on it, rather than my decorations. So when I gfot out there, I only got about half of what I had planned done.
Also, I learned that Dollar Tree Blacklights are worthless. They don't work as black lights, and don't even put out enough light to work as colored lights. Everything else I got from Dollar Tree was pretty great though.
Also, I learned that Dollar Tree Blacklights are worthless. They don't work as black lights, and don't even put out enough light to work as colored lights. Everything else I got from Dollar Tree was pretty great though.
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1,725 Posts
My Cauldron Creep quit stirring. I found out it was just the power supply died, but I didn't have a replacement. It was working till about 6:30 or so. I made a bleeding tombstone that has turned into a PITA. Couple days before Halloween it was acting up and not bleeding properly. I refilled, readjusted everything and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. Well, today I was taking it down and I wondered what happened to all the water in the reservoir. Uh, the bottom reservoir is a planter that has a place to push out drain holes. I never realized that there were perforations where you would push out the holes until I held it up in the sunlight. My bad for not sealing those up.
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1,392 Posts
Our breakdown was with what should have been simple. 
We did a Pennywise this year, and we felt you can't have a Pennywise without balloons. The problem as we all know is helium balloons don't last long, so they're not something you can get days in advance. So I waited until Saturday afternoon to try to find balloons.
First problem was Saturday was also the day of the Florida/Georgia game, which is a HUGE deal in Jacksonville with lots of parties and those parties have lots of balloons. I went to Party City and between game and Halloween partiers you had to stand in line for 20 minutes to get a product ticket, then stand in line for 20 minutes to check out, then go wait in line for 30-40 minutes for your balloons to get made. No way I was standing in line for over an hour for six balloons.
So I left party city and drove across town to two other party stores. One was now an antiques store and the other a woman's shoe store. I finally ended up, after two hours and driving about 70 miles, at a Publix grocery store a mile from my house. I thought they only did mylar balloons but they also do some latex. I had them make the six balloons and got back to my house about 1:00.
Within two minutes of getting the balloons up, one of them popped when it touched a branch. Then within an hour the heat and sun was already destroying the latex and two more had popped. By the time 7:00 hit, all the balloons were popped either from the sun, heat, or biologicals. I did get some pics while five of the six were still alive.
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We did a Pennywise this year, and we felt you can't have a Pennywise without balloons. The problem as we all know is helium balloons don't last long, so they're not something you can get days in advance. So I waited until Saturday afternoon to try to find balloons.First problem was Saturday was also the day of the Florida/Georgia game, which is a HUGE deal in Jacksonville with lots of parties and those parties have lots of balloons. I went to Party City and between game and Halloween partiers you had to stand in line for 20 minutes to get a product ticket, then stand in line for 20 minutes to check out, then go wait in line for 30-40 minutes for your balloons to get made. No way I was standing in line for over an hour for six balloons.
So I left party city and drove across town to two other party stores. One was now an antiques store and the other a woman's shoe store. I finally ended up, after two hours and driving about 70 miles, at a Publix grocery store a mile from my house. I thought they only did mylar balloons but they also do some latex. I had them make the six balloons and got back to my house about 1:00.
Within two minutes of getting the balloons up, one of them popped when it touched a branch. Then within an hour the heat and sun was already destroying the latex and two more had popped. By the time 7:00 hit, all the balloons were popped either from the sun, heat, or biologicals. I did get some pics while five of the six were still alive.
Our heater stopped working that morning. Thankfully it stayed about 65 all day and dipped into the 50s that night so overall the house wasn't freezing. Tech came out yesterday and found dead bees bad clogged the exhaust line which tripped the pressure switch and wouldn't let the heater fire up. Who knew!?
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720 Posts
Our only break down was in the middle of TOTing my son turned on the second little space heater we have to warm the garage. It blew a breaker in the garage so it was a quick fix. So over this year i am going to put in a larger breaker box so i can rewire the garage to handle the load. I have two sections of lights for the display running out of the garage and then all the lights and power in the garage but all will be great next year.
Yeah a little of everything.
Ran out of candy, 300+
One fog machine stopped working 100%. One only worked 50% and the 3rd maybe 80% They all tested 100% 2 days prior.
Several of my props didnt function very well in the dark but 100% in the light. Ive figured out the fix, hopefully.
45 mph winds kept me from doing 3 of my outdoor videos.
Heavy rains kept a lot of trick or treaters away.
Ran out of candy, 300+
One fog machine stopped working 100%. One only worked 50% and the 3rd maybe 80% They all tested 100% 2 days prior.
Several of my props didnt function very well in the dark but 100% in the light. Ive figured out the fix, hopefully.
45 mph winds kept me from doing 3 of my outdoor videos.
Heavy rains kept a lot of trick or treaters away.
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770 Posts
My big negative was I started setting up the yard too late and didnt get everything set up being one of my 2 big spiders. My theme for the yard was
giant spiders with a 35 foot spider web. I got 1 spider setup but not enough time for the 2nd. Everything else went fine.
![Tree Grass Yard Backyard Lawn]()
giant spiders with a 35 foot spider web. I got 1 spider setup but not enough time for the 2nd. Everything else went fine.
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1,940 Posts
Awesome spider!, Rigormortor!!!
This year had more small go-wrongs than ever before. Still- everybody was happy and it turned out great. In a way, all the problems gave this year a slightly different look- and so it won't be the same-old display (hopefully) next year.
That being said, SECONDS before hooking up the outside speakers to the CD player, I pull the power cord and knock the player to the ground- breaking the CD carousel. So NO music or SFX.
20-30 mile wind gusts completely destroyed one of my Victorian gas lights and put the kibosh on fog, big flat-sided props, cloaked figures, small light props. On a bright note, I placed rusty chains over my styro coffins to keep them down and liked the look so much, I think I'll do that every year instead of stakes.
The curtain on the window in fhe window of my FCG fell back down across the window. Didn't catch it until the last 45 minutes of TOT.
The wind vibration knocked out two of my accent smaller lights.
My disco ball rotating light- that worked perfectly throughout staging, burned out its light bulb as I turned it on right before TOT, leaving the room with a huge bay window of silhouettes- dark.
I had glow bracelet rings as the rings for my treat "fish pond." They were old and half didn't light up much. Plus, there were fewer tube connectors than bracelets. Had to frantically Scotch tape the last few.
This year had more small go-wrongs than ever before. Still- everybody was happy and it turned out great. In a way, all the problems gave this year a slightly different look- and so it won't be the same-old display (hopefully) next year.
That being said, SECONDS before hooking up the outside speakers to the CD player, I pull the power cord and knock the player to the ground- breaking the CD carousel. So NO music or SFX.
20-30 mile wind gusts completely destroyed one of my Victorian gas lights and put the kibosh on fog, big flat-sided props, cloaked figures, small light props. On a bright note, I placed rusty chains over my styro coffins to keep them down and liked the look so much, I think I'll do that every year instead of stakes.
The curtain on the window in fhe window of my FCG fell back down across the window. Didn't catch it until the last 45 minutes of TOT.
The wind vibration knocked out two of my accent smaller lights.
My disco ball rotating light- that worked perfectly throughout staging, burned out its light bulb as I turned it on right before TOT, leaving the room with a huge bay window of silhouettes- dark.
I had glow bracelet rings as the rings for my treat "fish pond." They were old and half didn't light up much. Plus, there were fewer tube connectors than bracelets. Had to frantically Scotch tape the last few.
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375 Posts
Only had a few mishaps, but was able to recover quickly. I was hesitant, but they seemed to work ok while testing. Never use CFL bulbs with a lightning box. Blew out 3 or the 4 lights during ToT. Luckily I had more in reserve to quickly replace them. And also, my Axworthy's line popped off the pulley's about 30 minutes in. Got him back up, but as a static prop.... again.
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1,985 Posts
The kids played with the CVS talking Headless Horseman too much, and killed his batteries. I didn't know it until I put him out on the 30th, and a ToT's parent wanted to hear him talk. Figures that it was super dark, and I lost my tiny screwdriver the day before!
My talking Home Depot witch also pitched forward and a piece of plastic snapped off of the tube that holds her head on. It didn't seem to make a difference, but I wonder how long it will last, now. I'll have to reinforce it somehow next year, as well as fix up my Bucky and Wally, both of which have broken bones.
As far as things that I could have controlled...I putzed around and didn't get a lot of projects done.
We had to scrap the fence and tunnel idea at the last minute due to budget constraints. I overspent on crap, basically.
I also did not get to enclose the porch with the sheets that I bought, because I messed that up, too. I bought four white sheets, and one very light off-white sheet. I bought one pack of black dye, thinking that it would make all five sheets grey. It made the white ones varied shades of kerry blue, and the off white one tan. So, I had no sheets.
Then I didn't put up the Scene Setters, because of the wind. I also didn't get the decorative pieces done for the fireplace, but I did get it done well enough to actually use it. I don't think that many ToTs noticed it, because they really didn't come up the wheelchair ramp. Most used the stairs, which is around a little bend on our porch. Soon, the ramp will be gone, so we won't have it for 2016.
Also negative...last year, the porch was too bright with regular bulbs in the porch light. This year, it was too dark with flicker bulbs. A lot of parents were driving by, and slowed down like they wanted to stop, but realized we were "open" after they were too far away to park and come back (hey, try slowing down, maybe? speed limit is 25!). So now I have to find a happy medium type of light.
My talking Home Depot witch also pitched forward and a piece of plastic snapped off of the tube that holds her head on. It didn't seem to make a difference, but I wonder how long it will last, now. I'll have to reinforce it somehow next year, as well as fix up my Bucky and Wally, both of which have broken bones.
As far as things that I could have controlled...I putzed around and didn't get a lot of projects done.
We had to scrap the fence and tunnel idea at the last minute due to budget constraints. I overspent on crap, basically.
I also did not get to enclose the porch with the sheets that I bought, because I messed that up, too. I bought four white sheets, and one very light off-white sheet. I bought one pack of black dye, thinking that it would make all five sheets grey. It made the white ones varied shades of kerry blue, and the off white one tan. So, I had no sheets.
Then I didn't put up the Scene Setters, because of the wind. I also didn't get the decorative pieces done for the fireplace, but I did get it done well enough to actually use it. I don't think that many ToTs noticed it, because they really didn't come up the wheelchair ramp. Most used the stairs, which is around a little bend on our porch. Soon, the ramp will be gone, so we won't have it for 2016.
Also negative...last year, the porch was too bright with regular bulbs in the porch light. This year, it was too dark with flicker bulbs. A lot of parents were driving by, and slowed down like they wanted to stop, but realized we were "open" after they were too far away to park and come back (hey, try slowing down, maybe? speed limit is 25!). So now I have to find a happy medium type of light.
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