# Lighting Challenge



## spinwitch (Jun 14, 2009)

We had our museum's Haunted Trail again this year--a quarter-mile path through the woods. This always presents a challenge--we have three weeks to build with limited people (usually 4-5) and a limited budget. This year we had an extra challenge: no power!

They were supposed to get it fixed--and did--and it went out again. Fixed again, out again. Two days before the trail opened, and no power. Even if it got fixed, we knew we couldn't trust it.

We can report that it is possible to light a quarter mile of woods with battery-operated LED lights. One of the guys came up with the brilliant idea of cutting 1" pvc into foot-long stakes, and putting a 45 degree elbow on the top. Drop in a small flashlight and voila--pin light. We also go a bunch of the led headlamps, took off the straps, and screwed them to posts and panels. Paths could be marked with witch jars.

Fortunately we did have power the nights of the trail so we could have our beloved fog machines. We didn't change any of the other lights because it was too late to check the lighting effects--and we didn't trust the power anyway. But it turned out that all the pin lighting showing just the props and keeping everything else pretty dark was quite effective.

Must have worked--the line to get to the trail was 1 1/2 hours long. We ran at least 1000 people through on Saturday night.


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

Awesome! wish I could have seen it.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Sounds like some ingenious solutions. I think you're right on with the LED observations. I've made flicker LEDs for a variety of different locations and uses all over my house and haunt. A couple of AA batteries will run a 'bright as a candle' LED for dozens of hours... and likely dozens of more hours beyond that if you can stand a small loss of light output. But once your eyes are somewhat dark adapted, a candle gives off quite a bit of light...especially when exploring haunted trails and woods.


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## Manon (Aug 2, 2011)

Brilliant! I could have used a couple of these ideas this year!


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