Highbury Cemetery, 2018

It's now Saturday morning and I'm sitting in my home office, looking out the window. It is STILL raining. I just have to laugh. Four days straight with rain...

I wrote about the weather problems we faced this Halloween here. It was rainy and none of my animatronic props even made it out into the display this year, but we still managed to put together a great cemetery haunt and a ton of people still braved the elements to come check it all out. And we had a great collection for our annual canned food drive, so overall I'd still mark this year's Halloween display as a win.

I'm still sore from the day's events, but the smile is still there. I've gone through the night's photos and I was able to capture the fun and spooky spirit of the haunt, even with less in it. In less than 24 hours, we were able to set up the entire display, run our 2 hour trick-or-treat, photograph, and then completely tear down, leaving no trace of what had just happened. It's admittedly crazy, but it's a part of what makes Highbury Cemetery special. An exclusive, one-night only event. Miss it, and you'll have to wait another 365 days...

So sit back, relax, (grab your raincoat!) and enjoy the photos from Highbury Cemetery, 2018!

The Highbury Crypt
With the evening's rain and reduced amount of props being put out in the yard, I was able to focus more on the front porch. The walk-in crypt is the climax of the display, where trick-or-treaters have to enter to receive their candy. My focus has always been to make sure it has the most amount of detail. 

This year, I got a new blue LED bulb for the overhead light, giving off a bit more overall light, yet keeping a nice, dull cool blue hue to the entire room. I also brought all of my LED flicker light candles in and spread them to each of the four burial chambers. And then finally, I picked up a new Laser Swamp laser vortex from Slaughterhouse Effects. Together with the fog machine, it added an incredible green swirl near the floor. It had kids and adults alike stopping to run their fingers through the light all night. This was an upgrade that made a really big difference!

My only real casualty of the night was losing the small tap light that backlit my custom crow stained glass window. 0-for-3 on getting the perfect backlighting with that thing! Next year, I'll look for something better to really show off the art on that...

And even with the rain and a slow start to the night, we managed to get 437 trick-or-treaters, parents, neighbors and visitors to our door. That's the second most attendance, only 50 behind last year's record total. And last year, we had dry weather. It seems as though the word is spreading about Highbury Cemetery. And that puts a jack-o-lantern sized grin across my face!


The Second Annual Halloween Canned Food Drive
For the second year running, we did a canned food collection in support of the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank during our trick-or-treat. The announcement sign went up in my yard about a week before the big night, informing all neighbors and passersby of the event. And the neighbors showed up for the second year in a row! Kids and parents dropped their canned food and monetary donations into our "Coffin For A Cause" and got an extra-special treat bag filled with candy, plastic jumping spiders and a glow-in-the-dark pin that read "I Filled The Coffin for a Cause!"

In two short rainy hours, we collected 93 canned food items and an INCREDIBLE $151.57 in monetary donations. I really have to thank our friends and neighbors for their generosity in helping to make a difference in our community!! Well done, everyone. Now let's collect even more next year!!

And of course I couldn't end it without thanking the hard-working crew who REALLY went above and beyond in lending help with Highbury Cemetery for 2018. Everyone stepped up and earned their Highbury Cemetery shirts this year! A HUGE Highbury thank you goes out to the following crazies: Mrs. Highbury, Sharon, Karen, Laurie, Josh, Dave from Closed Casket Studios, Brother Scrapes, Stacey and Vince Rager, and Andrew. Without you, I'd just be one guy screaming curse words toward the sky. The dreary, rainy sky!!

And yes, even with the scaled-back display, it all ended on a high. It all came together and we still managed to have a ton of fun. I'm energized to hit the ground running for 2019 and I already have big plans for next year's display. There's only 362 days to go, so it's time to get back to the garage. Are you ready??

  

The Day After.

Tuesday, October 30: Partly sunny, with a high of 63 degrees.

Wednesday, October 31: Rain, with a high of 61 degrees.

Thursday, November 1: Rain, heavy at times, with a high of 49 degrees.

Sometimes we need to take a step back and see things from a larger perspective. All week, I got knots in my stomach when I checked the updated Halloween night forecast. Rain. Rain. Rain. And it wasn't improving. The weather has always been my biggest Halloween night nemesis. The one thing I cannot control.

On Halloween Eve, I sat out on a warm and dry night going over my checklist. Everything was staged and ready to go. The family jack-o-lanterns were carved and ready to be placed within the Cemetery. The props and the lighting were all sorted. The Canned Food Drive coffin was ready for the evening's donations. And the costumes were all laid out, ready for a quick transformation. But I knew that the next day was going to be a challenge...

And sure enough, just as we began our Halloween morning set up, the skies opened up. On-and-off showers plagued our well-orchestrated plans. Each time it would rain, my frustration increased. 30 days of solid planning, building and celebrating were being dashed the wetter I, and all of my props, got. 

As we got closer to trick-or-treat time, I made the painful decision to scale back and keep all of my animatronics, including my brand new and just-finished rotating skeleton corpse prop, in the garage for this year. No sense in having them ruined in the rain. Honestly, I felt like giving up...

We still set up all the tombstones and lighting, and then focused on detailing the walk-in crypt on the porch. It was an area unaffected by the rain, so I was going to make at least ONE thing look good this year.

It continued to rain as we finished up our scaled-back display and quickly got into costume. 

The official trick-or-treat started at 6, with only a small smattering of kids coming to the house. My heart was crushed. The rain had played havoc on the day's festivities and our attendance was going to be at an all-time low...



But then something happened...

The rain stopped. And a wave of trick-or-treaters appeared out of nowhere. And I mean a TON. Kids, parents, neighbors and outside visitors descended upon our house, marveling at our cemetery set up. Canned food donations poured in. There was a line to get into the porch crypt, with everyone stopping to check out the cool new laser swamp effect at their feet. Even the wind died down and our cemetery and crypt fog was some of the best we've ever had. Suddenly, we were back in our Halloween groove. We interacted with everyone that came up to see the display. I even chased a few of the teenagers down the block. They loved it as much as I did! I just couldn't believe how things had turned around.

After a whirlwind of putting on the haunt, getting a ton of photos of the display, tearing the entire thing down and then passing out everyone's hard-earned 2018 Highbury Cemetery shirts, I was completely exhausted. I could barely walk. My legs, back and arms ached. I sat on the couch with a cold beer and a few slices of pizza, utterly amazed. I had a grin of disbelief etched into my tired face. I still couldn't believe that the evening ended on such a high note. I dragged myself up the stairs for a long, hot shower and quickly staggered into bed...


6:00 am came quickly this morning with the buzzing of my alarm clock. I won't lie when I say that the snooze button was tapped more than a few times. I finally gave in and pulled my broken body out of bed. Every inch throbbed. My feet, my knees, my hip, my back, my arms. But I still had the smile. We managed to pull off another great haunt display, even in the face of bad weather.

As I crossed the room, I peeked out the window. Rain. Absolutely pouring. I checked the forecast. Non-stop, heavy rain all day, but now it was 20 degrees colder than it was less than 12 hours ago.

It really made me stop and think. And it really made me change my perspective on things. While Halloween's weather sucked compared to the day before, today's awful weather probably would have forced a complete cancelation had we tried to set up. In the bigger picture, we got a bit lucky. And while it did rain, and I did have to scale back, it didn't bother anybody else. Throngs of people still came out to see what we had put up this year and we got tons of compliments. And through it all, we all had a lot of fun this Halloween night.



I was able to grab a bunch of photos before last night's tear down and I hope to have them all posted by this weekend. I'll also share this year's donation numbers and will deliver everything to our local food bank by Monday. But for now, I'm calling it a night early. This old body is still aching and crying out for a good night's sleep. See everyone again this weekend!!

  

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Highbury Cemetery Charity Haunt - Year 2!

Last year, we made the jump to becoming a "charity haunt," running a canned food drive during our trick-or-treat. We set up a special display to announce the Halloween night food drive and the trick-or-treaters, their parents and friends responded big time! In just two hours, we collected 143 items of food and $74.30 for the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank.

We had such a great response in our first year, we have no choice but to do it again this year and go even bigger! The announcement display is now up again in the front yard and the word is being spread throughout the neighborhood and beyond!

On Halloween night, any trick-or-treater, parent, or curious onlooker that brings in a canned food or monetary donation to our yard haunt and places it into the coffin will get an extra-special treat bag along with their standard candy handout.

We will have a bag with extra candy treats, a glow-in-the-dark "I Filled the Coffin for a Cause" pin and a cool plastic jumping spider! And if we run out of treat bags, we'll give out some full-size candy bars as a thanks to all who donate.

So if you're in the Akron area on Halloween night, stop by, drop in a donation, and let's do some good for our community! Let's smash the numbers we collected last year!

See everyone in one week!!

  

Highbury Cemetery, 2017

Another Halloween season has now come to an end, but not before one last glorious crescendo that is Highbury Cemetery. This year's haunt display for our neighborhood trick-or-treat will rank as one of the best for many reasons.

We had a perfect evening of dry, crisp autumn weather, bookended by cold, miserable rain on either side of Halloween night. Coupled with the problems that our friends on the east coast had with the damage from their stormy weather, we were very fortunate and very lucky to dodge the same bullet. Although, I must admit that I did stop and laugh when I saw a few snow flakes falling during our hectic afternoon setup.

We also had a night that was free of the typical haunt display snafus that we had suffered in the past. No electrical problems (like the time my new 1300 watt fog machine tripped the breaker in my house causing half of my cemetery lighting to go out, only to have my led lights cycle through the circus-like range of color choices against my tombstones when the circuit was reset) or any real prop issues (like the year when my shiatsu ground breaker's arm broke off half way through the night, only to lay lifeless next to a twisting head inside his half unburied coffin). The only casualty was the round ball on the top of the Highbury obelisk that broke off after a brisk gust of wind knocked it off. A relatively easy fix for next year.

And finally, we had a near-record breaking amount of trick-or-treaters, parents, friends and curious neighbors. Even on a weeknight, the hordes continued to enter through our cemetery gate and didn't let up until the very end of the night. Add to that the number who showed up with donations for our first annual canned food drive and our night was a complete success. I was blown away with the amount of food that was donated in a two-hour window, and I know that it will help make a difference in our city.

When the last trick-or-treater departed at roughly 8:45 pm, it was time for the final act. A quick canvassing of the entire haunt with my camera, and then 11 people tore down the entire display in record time, leaving no trace of a haunt display that was fully operational just one hour before. The amazing show had come to a close for another year, but not before a whirlwind of Halloween madness and fun that was had by all.

Late that evening, I transferred the photos over to the computer. I sat in a weatherbeaten, exhausted, crumpled mess and giddily scrolled through the shots that I had just captured. Each photo elicited the joy of the evening's fun. I fell quickly asleep that night, smiling in the satisfaction of another successful year of Highbury Cemetery.

So sit back and enjoy the photos from Highbury Cemetery, 2017...

The Harvester of Brine
With literally hours to spare, I completed this new vine-laden scarecrow figure. He took his place at the foot of the cemetery entrance, exposing a glowing, salt-withered pumpkin heart inside of his rotted chest cavity to all who dared walk by.

I was REALLY happy with the way he turned out, especially under the dramatic red and orange lighting. I may look to add a small white spotlight next year, just to better define the arm that pulls back his shirt and exposes the glowing red led heart. Look for a full post on the Harvester of Brine in the very near future!

The VERY recently refurbished shiatsu ground breaker worked flawlessly all night, garnering much attention and many compliments from his position at the top of the cemetery!

The Highbury Crypt
With a few minor adjustments, the second year of the Highbury Walk-In Crypt was a big hit. The crypt, which was set up in my front porch, was the final destination for the trick-or-treaters, as they had to walk in to get their candy. I pulled the lighting way back this year, creating a much more ominous tone. The darker room also gave more attention to the illuminated stained glass window in the back wall as well as the two corpse-filled Highbury crypts on either side. A steady stream of mildew-scented fog kept the atmosphere nice and creepy!

My 5-year-old son's super cool jack-o-lantern! I'm slowly bringing him into the Halloween fold...

After all was said and done, we had roughly 489 trick-or-treaters, parents, friends and curious neighbors through the cemetery gates. I say "roughly" because there were times that there were so many people coming through at once, we couldn't count them all. In the two hours of trick-or-treat, we had a constant flow of people coming in and out, many hanging out to see all that we had on display.

And as always, I have to thank each and every member of the Highbury Cemetery crew. Without their dedicated help, there would be NO WAY that Highbury Cemetery would be the yard haunt that it is today. Glow-in-the-dark thank you Highbury Cemetery t-shirts go out to Sharon and Karen (two of the three of us available to somehow get the entire display put up in time for the first trick-or-treaters who showed up - I absolutely could not have done it with out you two!), brother Scrapes, Andrew, neighbors Joe and Stacy (whose yard is slowly being taken over!), Vince and Stacey Rager (our new official Highbury Cemetery family members!!) and Mike from Castle Boulevard (you snuck out before I was able to give you a shirt - I'll have to drop one off at your house!!). A very successful display thanks to you all.

But we aren't done there...

The First Annual Canned Food Drive

As I said earlier, 2017 was our first year as a charity haunt. I decided to do some good for the community (as many other home haunters have before me), and run a canned food drive to support the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank during trick-or-treat. I created a special announcement sign and placed it, along with my new "coffin for a cause" in my front yard about two weeks before Halloween. I also posted the photo to our local neighborhood Nextdoor app.

The response I got was overwhelming! A neighbor dropped off a huge box of lollipops to add to the special treat bags given out to all donations (the treat bags consisted of a glow-in-the-dark "I filled the coffin for a cause" square button, a plastic jumping spider, two fun size candy bars and a lollipop).

During the two hours of trick-or-treat, a non-stop line of people came up and dropped their canned food donations into the coffin for a cause. I was so happy to see kids dropping their cans into the coffin!

At the end of the night, all of the food and cash donations were tallied. And I'm incredibly happy to announce that we collected 143 items of food and $74.30 in monetary donations!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who donated! With this donation, we are making a positive impact together in our community. This has reinvigorated me and has given me a new purpose for the yard haunt. I can't wait to do this again next year.

Now let's collect twice as much for 2018!!