[Halloweinerdog Lover]

Hey preparing for Hallowe'en next year, planning to shop the sales this year for my theme next year since this years is all sorted out. I want to do a haunted carnival, I saw a skelton tight rope walker on here which was amazing, and I plan to have a clown with some tnt and a clown in a small kiddie car, but was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions?

 

[Warrant2000]

You could do all sorts of carny games with animated Bluckys as the patrons.
Fortune teller
Ferris wheel
Whack-a-mole
Water gun squirt
Juggling
etc...

In fact, there's a video someone posted around here of one of the producers of The Simpsons show, the local news covered his front yard a few years ago and he had an amazing setup. It looked all pretty straightforward to make and setup.

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

hmmm those are good ideas, how would I do a ferris wheel? I have a pretty big front yard so all those sound great

 

[creepyhomemaker]

Yea it was called Boney Island and it was on the HGTV show What's with that really haunted Halloween house? Look up Boney Island on YouTube there are a bunch of videos of it. Instead of Whack-a-Mole it was Whack-A-Ghoul.

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

oh my goodness, that is exactly what I want to do! Thank you soooo much!

 

[Wolfbeard]

Well, if you want to do a killer clown in a mini clown car, it is easy. I built this guy with a PVC frame and chickenwire body. I bought a cheap kids costume on sale at K-Mart. I used a wig head under the mask. The hands were clothes hangers, duct tape and garden gloves. The entire proip cost only about $20, since I got the car for $3 at a yard sale.

I built this tight rope walker with a $10 ground breaking skeleton from Walmart. The body is PVC frame with bubble wrap for the filling. I got the gymnastics costume at Goodwill for $3. I built a 2x4 frame with a piece of metal conduit for the "rope", painted white. The umbrella is PVC, clothes hangers and creepy cloth. Under normal haunt lighting it was pretty cool. This shot shows the gory details under artificial lighting, including support wires for reference.

Here's the last suggestion. I used my FCG rig to make a marionette theater with a fresh corpse on strings. Again, PVC, chicken wire, a fake head ( kinda' looks like Reba Mackentire). Just keep the joints loose, using rope or wire. I attached the knees to the wrista with fishing line, so the feet moved up and down in tune with the Alfred Hitchcock Theme: 'Dance of the Marionettes.'

There are more ideas in my photo album here.

Eric

 

[Conman]

Wow, I too am planning a Carnival theme this year and I hadn't even thought about Wolfbeard's ideas. I will definately include all three of them.

I am planning to include a fortune teller or magician type scene and of course a freakshow with things like the wolfman, a human torso, crocodile lady,and......the invisible man! (lol, talk about getting lazy)

 

[bones jones]

every good carnival has to have a horse carousel. perhaps a twist with the Headless horseman on a carousel pony?

 

[Bubbels]

The room / tent of oddities.

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

wow these are awesome ideas, thanks for the pics Wolfbeard, that clown in the car actually looks like a person, so well done! I saw on boney island a blucking putting a sword down his throat, thought that was pretty unique, that could go in your freakshow Conman! And the carousel is such an awesome idea, I just need to get an image in my mind of how to do that

 

[wristslitter]

Wristslitter approves of this theme.

 

[Junit]

Nicely done! The skeleton on the rope is a clever idea

 

[BadTableManor]

Several years ago I did a party for a friend, whose theme was Edwardian Sideshow. I made these banners from a twin sized sheet. I printed out some images I found online, and painted it on with regular craft paint. I also made a Rubber Skin man, but must've deleted the pic.
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j310/chadthecabinboy/spidora1.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j310/chadthecabinboy/spidora4.jpg

The Wheel of Torture game is always fun, too. Spin the wheel and the skeleton hand dangling from above pointed to what challenge the party guest got; A pickled people display (freaks of nature in jars); we tossed a couple of blow-up mannequins dressed as dead clowns in her pool. That was a creepy sight, seeing these deceased clowns slowly floating around.

A fun theme.

 

[bones jones]

And the carousel is such an awesome idea, I just need to get an image in my mind of how to do that

I found some carousel horses online but they are about 400bucks each for authentic ones. I would try to fabricate the look by buying a large stuffed animal horse. Run a pole straight through him and into the ground or a stand. Then paint him up black and put some red led lights for eyes. If you are as saavy as some of the prop builders on here you could make it go up and down too.

 

[GhostMagnet]

Love the theme. Hobby Lobby has some backyard carnival decorations in their party aisle. Some of the signs are on striped canvas and they look pretty cool. You could always re-purpose them. They have some other cool, retro carnival kind of party supplies as well, besides signs.

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

I wish I had a hobby lobby around here, Im in Canada and pretty much all I have is a Michael's! I'm keepin my eyes out for things to make the carousel too for sure!

 

[Mz Skull]

I'm planning on a psycho circus theme for next yr and these are GREAT ideas!! I was going to have a skelly in a ticket booth in front of a vortex tunnel that you had to walk through to get into the party. Then inside I was going to have trapeeze(i'm not a good speller) skelly's overhead torn in two. That's as far as I had gotten so far....These idea's are wonderful!!
Be sure to take lots of pictures!!

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

Boney island on youtube was the best place to get ideas from if you want to do a circus or carnival, it really covers just about everything!

 

[meatball]

fun to build

I did a haunted CARNEVIL a couple years ago I went the thrift store and got about a 100 stuffed animals. With the help of my wife and our dog just unloaded with ripping the limbs and heads off of them. We used them as the carnevil "prizes". I also made a wheel for the trick treaters to spin to decide what candy they would get.

 

[Halloweinerdog Lover]

the wheel for the candy is a great idea meatball, do u have any pics?