# 2008 Haunting Fun and 2009 plans



## waldiddy (Aug 4, 2008)

We had a great haunt this past year, and from what I heard, ended up having the best house in our development. We had a haunted house that looped through our backyard and through our garage, plus we had several special effects in front windows. I haven't been on the boards yet this year, but it's time to start gearing up for 2009!

A couple of things that went wrong:

The head-on-a-table illusion is really hard to pull off. Because I couldn't find 2 used mirrors reasonably close in size, I had to build a rectangular table, which isn't an entirely convincing illusion if it's not square. Plus, the table is really heavy! Even so, the table got some great reactions from the kids.

We should have had Enter/Exit signs up. We had some people trying to go through the garage, which was the exit.

My niece was our guide, an idea i'm going to dispense with this year. We periodically had large groups waiting for her to guide them, and the groups were too large. I think self-guided is better, but with people at various stations to control the traffic flow. 

My FCG broke!! We were running the ghost a lot the nights prior to Halloween and it was running fine. Then, on Halloween, my strings broke. I didn't put in eye-screws to guide the twine; so they finally broke on Halloween and my marionette is all twisted up. 

I need someone at my place who's really good at make-up. I just don't have the patience for it, especially on Halloween when time's so short. 

With no one manning the fog machines, I think they ran out of juice pretty fast. We really needed 1 person to walk around and monitor all the moving parts.

What did work?

I think we had 100 ToTs, but it looked like some were repeats, bringing other relatives through. We were busy!

Our best illusion was our dot room, which was in the garage. I used safety pins to secure WalMart black sheets from 6'6" high PVC walls in a 10x10 "room". I also painted the floor in this section black, and hung a 3' blacklight from the ceiling. And, I used neon yardsale stickers from WalMart on the floor, walls, and my friend's black costume. He was covered head-to-toe and was literally invisible. The effect was fantastic. I don't think you need a ceiling that's been dotted up for this to work; the dot room was open from the 6'6" to the 8' ceiling and, even so, it worked great. 

I know lots of folks use neon fabric paint instead of stickers, to save effort for the next year. I tried the paint, but the effect was poor compared to the stickers. The stickers looked like they were floating above the fabric walls; they were really vibrant. The paint was muted and dull.

A really neat effect that I threw together at the last minute was using a projector inside my car on our driveway to display trailers from classic Universal films (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc) on our garage door. I also stuck a homemade skeleton inside the car, in the driver's seat, wearing a suit from Goodwill. 

This year: I want to better utilize an arbor in our backyard. It would be a great "stage". It's got a grey flat-rock floor and 6 6" wood posts that stand around 8' tall. The arbor is 32' x 12'. So, in between each post is a gap of either 12' or 16', depending on which side of the rectangle you're looking at.

I could create some kind of walls and set them up a couple of weeks early, to save time on the big day; I want something that's wind & rain resistant, and really cheap.

So, I'm thinking pallets are my best bet, but I'm not entirely sure how to arrange a frame that can be secured against the arbor posts, is relatively easy to store, can be built & assembled quickly, is safe in case of bumping or falls, and isn't too heavy. If I can pull this off, I bet that my arbor could be split into 3 or 4 "rooms".

I did make a small frame this past year for a kitchen window with pallets screwed into it, to create a 'boarded-up window'. It's a great effect. Pallets are wonderful things!


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## The Bloodshed Brothers (Jan 25, 2009)

zah and i are going the pallet route...i lost sleep last year on windy nights. i was so afraid to wake p and see the haunt torn apart, thanfully it didnt. Pallets are real easy to come by around here too. There are plenty lying around all over town. Plus they look cool.

good idea for the dot room we used spray paint for ours which made it more like random dots and lines room...which still looked really cool.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

did you get any pictures?! (licking lips)

You made me think about the exit anentrance sign, we are going to have a path this year, because last years "just walk around the yard in circles" wasn't so conducive to traffic flow.

Sounds like you had fun! POST SOME PICS ALREADY!


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## waldiddy (Aug 4, 2008)

I've got a few photos (not very impressive ones). I'm afraid my haunt is really small potatoes next to many of the haunts you guys manage each year. I'll try uploading some stuff to flicker. 

One other thing about 2008: I'm in central NC, and it was COLD! By 9 pm, the ToTs had pretty much stopped and we were all freezing.

You know, on the pallet walls thing ... I could border my arbor in frames made from 2x3s or 2x4s ... a few 4x8 frames filled with pallet wood might just work, if the frames are supported on the outside by beams angled at 45 degrees. Does that make sense? Then, there's the question of interior walls, but I might be able to simply hang smaller framed pallet sections from the arbor ceiling, which is a set of 12' long 2x4s. 

to get really good feedback on this question, I should post some pics of my arbor in its boring unHalloween state, so you can get an idea of what I'm working with.


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## waldiddy (Aug 4, 2008)

OK ... got some pics up, but compared to alot of what I've seen from you all here, these are really not impressive.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

I've got a few from Halloween 2008, plus the 3 last pictures are of my arbor today. I had another idea about using pallet wood last night ...

What if I simply used whole pallets, but turned them up on their sides. I should get about 8' in height from stacking them 2 high, and then they could be secured with screws or bolts, plus I could nail boards on both sides for additional support.

Getting them to stand up could be achieved by lining up the pallet sections at 90 degrees from one another and then using a 2x4 on top to brace the two sides; plus, this would subdivide the arbor into rooms.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Just looked at the guy in the dot room picture - it really is a nice effect.

I like that you listed what worked and what didn't. That's useful information for your fellow haunters.


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## joker (Sep 25, 2007)

For your arbour walls you might conisider using privacy fence panels. Much ligher than the pallets it would require for the same coverage. I use two of these on my front porch and secure them at the top by using those pistol grip style clamps.









Check out local lumber yard or home improvement centers for damaged panels. These can sometimes be found for free if someone is replacing their privacy fence they're more than happy to let you haul them off.


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## naberhoodhaunts (Mar 29, 2008)

why dont you just use black plastic for the walls. a roll of 10' x 100' of plastic 4 to 6 mill is about 40 bucks. since the arbor seems to be protected from the wind, that should do just fine. you could drape the plastic using the cross beams between sides then cut slits on one side for a doorway. secure it to the arbor using one inch strips of cardboard over the plastic then staple with 1/4 inch or larger staples from a staple hammer. cheap and reusable.


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## waldiddy (Aug 4, 2008)

I actually used quite a bit of black plastic for walls in my garage, and it worked really well. For the outdoors, it'd be so nice to have some kind of sturdy wall, both surrounding the arbor and for interior divisions. Plus, pallet wood just looks so darn cool, when used in a facade. 

To really use that space, and to be able to set it up well in advance of 10/31, whatever material used has to stand up to wind and rain. We get a lot of wind in central NC, especially during transitional seasons like spring & fall.


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