Another Halloween Come and Gone
There was much deliberating about Halloween given the job situation this year. I decided to go ahead with the maze after 1) much proding from key accomplices and offers to help underwrite the project and 2) much proding from some of the neighbor kids who had heard of this glorious activity and had speculated on the number of skeletons in the garage. Fortunately between the two factions, it dredged up many fond memories of the screams and terror instilled in hundreds of young and old in years past.
Budgeting was considerably reduced and, as always, many halloween and SCA items were repurposed. New projects were very limited. Some new cemetary fence sections were added to get the juices flowing. Luckily I was able to relocate the company that had the finials that had worked so well on the previous fence sections.
Since we no longer had the sweet corridor between the two garages from the old place, we needed to make a new entrance.
I also made a scissor mechanism to abruptly relocate something 2 feet further from where it started. Some new tombstones were made from some pink foam I'd picked up that someone had left on a curb.
The werewolf crate was made from free palettes. Some new tube stock was acquired and cut in preparation for possible expansion of the grid.
One of the biggest expenses was avoided this year. The plastic sheeting for the walls seemed to be much more expensive than the last time I'd purchased some and came close to being a deal breaker. I took a chance and contacted a local plastics company to ask about waste or otherwise unsellable plastic. They were amazingly generous and donated 5 rolls to the cause. I am extremely grateful for their donation.
We made a more strenuous effort to reap the rewards of the plastic bounty by saving as much of the plastic as was practical.
Several new things were tried this year in addition to some solid standbys.
-Shrinking Tunnel
-Leaf Beast
-Dot Room (Ingleif)
-Spider Egg Chamber (Ingleif)
-Bleeding Wall (Danr & Niko)
An exploratory adventure with Crispin to the Soap Factory haunted house also provided at least one good idea that was added in at, effectively, the last minute.
-Corn Chamber
All of the new ideas met with moderate to outstanding success.
Besides a large number of returning crew, we had quite a number of new crew this year, several who got to experience it as a trial by fire given how uncooperative the weather was during some very inopportune times. Luckily it all came together thanks to solid work, dedication and the application of new technologies. As an added bonus, the night of, the sky was only partly cloudy with nearly a full moon.
All in all, this has become a pretty huge project given the number of folks involved (in maze order so I can remember easier):
The immediate neighbors: Jenny (Gatekeeper and day of setup crew), Jason (for the loan of the ladder of awesomeness), Jay and Irene for thinking it was a cool idea.
The neighborhood: some for not calling the police regarding 3-4 hours of screaming, shrieking and howling, others for enjoying themselves and being blown away by the circus that dropped into their (relative) backyards)
Theodweard (Zombie Killer Guide)
Kathy (Death)
Constanza (Steampunk Guide and day of setup crew)
Tosten (Frankenstein and advance setup crew)
Portugese Tom (Frankenstein's smaller clone)
Cehiro (Biowarfare soldier)
Martin the Younger (Leaf Beast and day of setup crew)
G (Weeping Angel, extended setup crew, take down crew)
Cainneach (Ghoul and day of setup crew)
Cinniu (Ghoul, day of setup crew, take down crew)
Nate (the man behind the curtain for the flying skeleton and the scissor skeleton)
Kale (Vampire, rock star extended setup crew, take down crew)
Ingleleif (Dot Room Beastie, rock star extended setup crew, take down crew)
Crispin (Scarecrow, extended setup crew)
Martin the Elder (Underground Mutant, rock star extended setup crew, take down crew)
Danr (Zombie Victim, extended setup crew, takedown crew)
Lucia (Zombie Doctor and advance setup crew)
Roger (Maniac Killer)
Niko (bleeding wall concept and takedown crew)
Drust (takedown crew)
Taoin (provider of swine heads and other skeletal remains)
Andy (provider of cornstalks)
Tristan (provider of the well)
Neighbor Mike (bringer of beer, coffee and pizzas)
Not sure if I missed anyone. It got to be a bit of a blur towards the end.
Sadly, I've failed to learn appropriately from a number of repetative mistakes. One is failing to properly line up a decent videocamera to document the maze, the props and the beasties. Also, forgetting to let the guides and gate know to do a head count so that we actually know how many people have gone through rather than having to guess. Feh!
Luckily, a number of Day Of still photos were taken by other folks and can be found here: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/detail.sfly?sid=2BbuWTNy5YsIa&imageIndex=6&fid=e8c1de19dddeae86
and here: http://s50.photobucket.com/albums/f335/valkyr8/Halloween%202009/?start=all
and possibly a few other locations.
New ideas are already fermenting for next year. :^)