Enough Already!

 

Why does it always rain the entire week of Halloween? I'm trying not to complain, especially with what my fellow haunters on both coasts are dealing with right now, but enough already!

Sunday's forecast, at least for now, is looking good, so the tombstones and props will just spend a few more days tucked safely back in the garage.

Plenty left to do in preparation for the big night, so back to the (dry) garage I go. And may the Pumpkin Gods look favorably upon us all this All Hallows Eve. Send up your pumpkin offerings for a dry and windless night!

Only FIVE days to go until the big night! Are you ready?

 

 

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!!

  

Curse Of The Halloween Forecast

As some of you might have noticed, I was including the forecast for Halloween night in some of my earlier blog posts but have since stopped. That's because as Halloween got closer, the forecast got worse.

I can barely even bring myself to look at the updated forecast, as it looks like for the third year running, we are once again going to have to deal with rain on Halloween night. It's like I can't catch a break. It's like I'm cursed...

I won't lie. Looking at this now gives me a rancid knot in the depths of my stomach, especially after the disaster from last year due to this very same forecast. A year's worth of work and planning, only to have to deal with foul weather again. FUUUUUUUUUU...


Okay, so after talking myself down from the ledge, I have decided to be optimistic. The few props that I did put out in last year's downpour made it through with flying colors (after a few days of drying out in my garage), so I've decided to go full Darwin with my haunt this year - that is, everything is going out on display. Props, lights, foggers, animatronics and everything else. And it's survival of the fittest. Anything that doesn't make it through this year's display will either get fixed or it will go in the trash, to be replaced with something bigger and better for next year.

Mother Nature, you screwed me last year. But this time it's my turn. Rain all you want. Because next year I'll be back with even more in the yard haunt. And it will continue to be upgraded for the elements. It may have taken eleven years, but I'm finally getting smart about things.

And here's to a dry forecast wherever you may be haunting. Turn it up to eleven and crank it out. This is the day that we have all been waiting for. And some rain drops won't get us down. We've worked too hard for this.