A Quick Halloween Recap

There are good days and then there are GREAT days. The Pumpkin Gods definitely looked down upon us in abundant favor this year, and we are grateful!

To say that we had a great Halloween would be a massive understatement. Everything fell into place perfectly this past Sunday night, and we had one of our best trick-or-treats in many years. The biggest factor, the weather, cooperated fully giving us warm and dry temperatures with absolutely ZERO wind. That allowed us the best fog effects we've EVER had. 

Plumes of chilled fog rolled through the cemetery, hanging in the motionless air, and eventually spreading throughout the yard, spilling out into the street and creeping across to the neighbors' houses. I'm still in awe of how good it looked.

Add to that, every prop worked flawlessly, every light was lit, every jack-o-lantern was illuminated. And as darkness came, every scene truly came to life with lighting that I actually had time to adjust and perfect days before.

The days of Highbury Cemetery being a one-day-only show are over. Setting up at least a week in advance gives me the time to adjust, tweak, and perfect until my hypercritical self is content with the final show.

I have a ton of photos yet to go through, so for now I'm only dropping one teaser photo above. The newest members of the Highbury Cemetery family, my 3 new sheet ghosts, positioned up front and bathed in warm lighting while still casting dark shadows.

Check back tomorrow for the full gallery. I'm really proud of this year's display and I can't wait to show off all the photos.

  

The Day After...

The Harvester of Brine

Please consider this my belated "Happy Halloween!" post that I never got to yesterday! It was on my schedule, but things went a bit sideways yesterday.

I got up early to get a head start on final set up of my display. I wanted to make sure that I had time to spare before the night's trick-or-treat festivities. Props went up quickly and I was making great time. The rains from the past 7 days were FINALLY moving out and the sun started to peek through.

And then the winds kicked up...

My scarecrow, the main in prop in my display, became the first victim. The wind literally blew the whole thing over, snapping the base. And then we saw my Pratt tombstone go blowing across the front yard, landing against a small stone retainer wall, breaking the skull from the tombstone's facade...

So I went from having plenty of time to spare to total freak out in seconds (apologies to everyone helping out who got to witness my barrage of F-bombs!). I was repairing and gluing until the last possible second.

Somehow, I was able to get everything fixed and put back into place as the first trick-or-treaters were coming up the street. I was completely frazzled and exhausted and I was completely out of my Halloween groove.

But then something unexpected happened. The winds totally died down. The fog machines pumped out glorious billows of fog across the yard, allowing my new laser vortex walkway to work well (especially when it got dark). Trick-or-treaters showed up at the house in waves. My props worked flawlessly all night (well, all but my talking skeleton who just stopped working halfway through the night - but he still looked good as a standing reaper at the end of the driveway). And as it got darker, the display looked incredible in the glow of my lighting. 

And my mojo came back. I got back into my character and interacted with trick-or-treaters, parents, friends, neighbors, and curious onlookers.

And everyone who came over to help work the display or to hang out at our first Halloween night party had a blast. It wasn't easy this year, but it sure was fun.

I hope everyone else was able to celebrate Halloween in their own way and do what you do to make the big night extra special! I'm going through last night's photos and I can't wait to share them.

I have a bunch of posts still to get through, so Halloween may be over, but this party still has a little left in the tank. Come back and let's keep it going for a bit, shall we?

 

The Day After...

As I sit here and look out the window, I can only laugh. The winds are whipping around and the cold temperature has just brought us our first... SNOW FALL! Nothing measurable, mind you, but it is definitely snowing today.

And for four days straight before Halloween it rained. The weather during the week of Halloween here in Ohio sure can suck.

But then sometimes we just plain luck out.

Yesterday, the clouds finally parted and the wind died down. The sun came out and I think we hit 50 degrees. For the second year in a row, the Candy Corn Gods looked down upon us favorably and granted us absolutely perfect fall weather for our neighborhood trick-or-treat! I still can't believe how lucky we got!!

Halloween, 2020 was a big success for us, all things considered...but today I am completely and utterly exhausted. Every muscle is sore from yesterday's festivities. I'm taking the day off, but check back tomorrow. I have a whole bunch of photos from last night's fun that I can't wait to share. But for now I'm just going to plant it on the couch and take a nice little nap.

I hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy Halloween in their own little way. Only 364 more days to go. Are you ready?

The Day After...

It feels weird sitting here on October 28th, penning a quick recap of the previous night's trick-or-treat display.

For the first time in over 16 years, we aren't celebrating on Halloween night (as I firmly believe we should be), due to our new neighborhood's schedule: Sunday night, from 5-7 pm. It really doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not here to complain about it.

After finding out when our trick-or-treat actually was (there were conflicting reports of Saturday or Sunday), I got to scheduling everything in order to be ready for the big night. Being that it would be our first Halloween in the new neighborhood, I wanted to make sure we made a BIG first impression.

By Saturday night, I had everything (albeit in a scaled-back version from last year) staged and ready to go. The only thing posing an issue was the torrential downpouring of rain accompanied by gusting winds.

As I woke up on Sunday morning, I quickly checked the weather forecast. The rain would stop by 9, and the winds would die down by 10. Perfect. Except that didn't happen...

We started setting up at 11, only to be hampered by gusting winds throughout the day. Tombstones were swaying and blowing around and my stomach was in knots. Not to mention the nagging fear that we'd go through the trouble of setting this all up and we'd get no trick-or-treaters. The stress was weighing heavy on me.

As we got closer to show time, the winds finally began to slow down, allowing us to quickly put the full cemetery together. As I stepped back, I took a second to take it all in. It actually looked pretty damn good! The knot in my stomach began to release, but I realized that I still needed to put my costume on with mere minutes to go.

As the clock struck 5, we took our places within the cemetery. And slowly trick-or-treaters showed up. Not as many as I was secretly hoping for, but they still came.

As we really got into our groove, a strange thing happened. The wind died down completely. And the sun broke through the clouds. It's as if the Pumpkin Gods were rewarding us!

And then I noticed my fog machine and chiller setup. PERFECT, lingering plumes of thick, chilled white fog rolled across the entire cemetery, creeping around my tombstones and stretching out into the street, creating the greatest fog display I have ever been able to achieve. It was AMAZING!

Mrs. Highbury snapped this photo as the sun began to set...

Perfection!! I was giddy with what was happening.

Trick-or-treaters, their parents, and neighbors began to file down the street, checking out this new display in their neighborhood. We ended up getting a nice turnout and I was pretty happy with this year's setup. 

As trick-or-treat wound down, it finally got dark enough out to get photos of the display bathed in its truly spooky lighting. I got a collection of great photos that I'll be posting up with a full review after Halloween.

Overall, our first Halloween was a huge success. The nervous planning and stressful setup gave way to a great weather, an ever greater display and a ton of fun with friends, family and new neighbors. We were the talk of my son's school bus this morning, and Highbury Cemetery has planted the first seed in becoming the new neighborhood "Halloween House."

  

The Day After.

The radio alarm clock clicked to life at 5:30 this morning. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze again. I pulled my worn body out of bed shortly after 6. I could barely stand up and every square inch of me throbbed in a dull pain. But the grin was still there, stuck on my grizzled, exhausted face...

After 3 solid months of late night prop building and prep work, the high holiday had arrived. Halloween was finally here. And it rewarded us with perfect fall temperatures, calm and dry air, and a record-breaking horde of excited trick-or-treaters and their curious parents.

The setup began in a flash at 10am and the last tea light candle was turned on at 5:50 pm, giving me roughly 10 minutes to come up with a makeup that would render me frightening.

And somehow, it all worked. Every light, every sound, every scream, every glorious veil of fog that hung ghostly in the still night air. I even managed to come up with a decent and frightening makeup!

Halloween 2016 will go down as our best one yet - not bad, considering we have now been doing this for 13 years! We had more people come over to help set up, more people to come over and help act, and more people to come over and help tear down. I don't think I could have asked for a better show from a better group.

The last prop was placed back into the garage by about 9:45 and that was it. Halloween was over. The once-a-year extravaganza was complete. We were all completely spent, but we were all buzzing with the energy from the night's show. We ended up staying out until about 10:30, talking excitedly about all the great scares that we had just gotten and all the plans for Halloween, 2017. Only 364 more days to go. Are you ready?

Stop by in the next day or two, as I'll be posting a full review and a slew of great photos from this year's haunt. I had a chance to preview them all and I think I was able to capture all the wonderful things from the night's show! But for now, I think it's just time to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

See you in a few days.

 

   

The Day After...

Every inch of my body aches, but I couldn't be any happier. We set everything up and the weather held out, resulting in our best yard haunt show in years. And we had a much bigger turnout than I expected. I was able to get a little video and some photos before the night time rains came, and we were able to get everything torn down and back into the garage before getting too wet. 

I'm still riding the incredible high from last night's festivities, but I'm going to take today off and just melt into the couch for the rest of the afternoon. I'll have the photos ready to go for tomorrow. I hope everybody else had an amazing Halloween!!

 

The Morning After

Another Halloween has come and gone, and every inch of my body aches as I sit here and type this. Definitely a sign of a good night of haunting!!

Everything went up in the yard haunt in record time and the makeup went on smoothly...

...and then the rain started. Less than an hour before trick-or-treat. Damn. Cursed again. Luckily, it wasn't a torrential downpour like last year, but it continued throughout the rest of the night to put a damper on the evening's events.

We still had a great turnout of kids, parents and curious onlookers and we still got all props and lighting set up in the yard, so overall I would call it a success.

All the props are now in the garage, slowly drying out, and so far it looks like only my talking skull greeter was affected by the rain. By the end of the night, he wasn't so much talking as just blurting out a random sound every few seconds. Hopefully after a few days of drying out, everything will be okay.

I have quite a few photos to go through and will post them as quickly as I can. The rain actually helped with the cemetery fogger and I think I got a couple of really great fog photos. And because everyone and everything was pretty soaked by the end of the night, I opted out of shooting any video, as I think everyone, myself included, was ready for tearing down and getting into the house for some dry clothes and warm food.

But for now, I'm going to plant myself on the couch for a while and decide on whether I want to make the trip to the annual Dia de Muertos parade in Cleveland this afternoon.