OK so I am out of the business of doing a huge Halloween setup. For probably 10 years we did a monster setup with 4-5 fog systems including a yard-wide water-based system, 5-6 sound systems, many many tombstones, pneumatic props, mechanical props, voice modification boxes, 5-6 thunder and lightning set ups, a bunch of skeletons, and on and on. We had as many as 400 visitors on a night, just super amounts of fun. We would tone down the displays early in the evening so that the little ones would approach the house — but we still had a number who just would not come up the driveway. We also gave out a lot of candy because, well, if you made it to our door, you earned it. Great times but we’ve moved on, for now anyway. (Well I do have two storage pods full of gear that I need to resolve. If you’d like to buy one full of Halloween crap sight unseen, let me know).

So no big display this year. But may do something small. If I do just one thing, it might be “Hallowindow”:http://www.hallowindow.com/. The videos are awesome and we have some large windows. I admit I do get sucked into sites like “Monster Guts”:http://monsterguts.com/index.php — a great selection of prop supplies. But I will resist. Oh and I love these awesome light fixtures from “Schoolhouse Electric”:http://design-milk.com/schoolhouse-electric-table-lamps/ — A steampunk, mad scientist vibe.

See this is the problem, I say I am going to do a limited thing, and before I know it I have planned out a whole scene and purchased another storage pod full of stuff. Slippery slope.

The nice folks at “Monster Guts”:http://monsterguts.com just sent email reminding me it is 6 months to Halloween. I’ve been on hiatus the last couple years but it may work out that I can do a smallish display this year. I may have to tone down my ambitions but we will see.

My recipe for a quality halloween experience:

* Fog. Love fog. You have to have some fog. There are a million options out there. At the minimum, you need a machine that has a duty cycle timer on it so that you can let it run unattended all evening — you don’t really want to have to manually control the fog all night. I have about 4 of these. If you want to go bigger, well the sky is the limit. I have a whole-yard water-based fogger that puts out an impressive amount of fog via a 1/4″ tubing distribution network. What I’d really like is one of these “babies”:http://www.google.com/search?q=Jem+Glaciator+X-Stream+Heavy+Fog+Machine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a but that seems extreme. Or a liquid nitrogen based system which is really extreme!
* You need to have some quality “bones and skeletons”:http://www.anatomical.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_57_A_HALLOWEEN+ITEMS to spread around. Not the crap sold at the seasonal halloween stores. The 10lb bag of bones at anatomical is pretty nice.
* Thunder and Lightning. You’ve got to have thunder and lightning. If you don’t do any other lighting, do this. I’ve liked the “i-zombie”:http://www.i-zombie.com/ controllers in the past.
* Ambient music. If you want some music playing the background, it is hard to beat Bach organ fugues in a minor key. Almost any of them will do.
* Tombstones. You can buy some nicelooking but pricey foam stones at the Halloween specialty stores. And there are a million guides on the internet to making your own out of foamboard. You can whip thru a lot of them in little time in foamboard, I would make your own. And they store easily and are usable year after year.
* Coffin. Whip one or two up out of plywood, your “basic plans here”:http://www.shallowvalley.com/pincherplans.html.

If that is all you do, well, you will probably have the best place in the neighborhood.

Optional but very very good additions to your project:

* “Hallowindow DVD”:http://www.hallowindow.com/. This thing looks awesome. It does demand a projector and some sound equipment but I love it.
* “Webcasting gun”:http://monsterguts.com/miscellaneous-prop-parts/the-webcaster-gun/prod_202.html. Simple but makes great webbing.
* Another simple webbing idea — get some black thread and dangle a bunch of it from the trees over your driveway, etc. No one can see it and everyone feels like they are walking thru spider webs.

I probably won’t get to my more extreme efforts this year

* Talking animated tree with voice modification box. This has always been a huge hit but it takes some work to set up.
* Pneumatics. A lot of work to set up and maintain.
* My full size mausoleum that I built out of foamboard a few years back.
* Various animated ghosts. Always winners but certainly won’t have time.