FIrst Two Nights - and the FRONT PAGE of the Fairfax Times Newspaper

So we opened Friday night (10/25) to just over 110 visitors... and continued on Saturday night (10/26) with over 200 more visitors. Screams were constant through both nights, and there was a reported pee-tality in the mine shaft!

We had a great crew and things went very smoothly both nights.
 

10/25/2013 Creepy Nights Cast

Gregg MacDonald (the reporter from the Fairfax Times) even stopped by to present us with some hard copies of Friday's paper - where we made the FRONT PAGE!

Front Page of the Fairfax Times Newspaper 10/25

And a photo of the Saturday night crew with Gregg as well;

10/26/2013 Creepy Nights Crew plus Fairfax Times Reporter Gregg MacDonald

 
Keeping our fingers crossed for a rain-free Halloween night! See you there!
 

S C O R E !!!

Been a HAUNTINGLY BUSY couple weeks but I wanted to share a couple things...

We gather props year round (in fact sometimes years in advance) and this year's haunt was on different I'd been searching for 55 gallon drums for our toxic waste area for at least 6 months, and from the time we decided to do a field hospital many months ago we've been looking for those small details that make it more realistic. Hospitals are tough to do well because to be convincing you need equipment that looks (and typically is) very expensive.

We had planned out most of our props anyway, even coming up with cheap alternatives for the hospital beds/cots - since even army style cots aren't cheap if you don't already have several laying around - and we didn't.

So about a week before we open a doctor's office in the medical complex where Catherine works shut down, selling everything on the premises as an estate sale.

Other home haunters out there will appreciate this even more (I know I'd be jealous) but talk about lucking out...

If you've ever dare shopped for hospital gurneys on EBay or similar - you'd find that even used they run $1200-$1500.

Working EKG machine

3 hospital gurneys and 2 IV stands

Catherine got us 3 - for $25 each!!!
Plus a couple IV stands, an "Exam room" sign... and - wait for it...

A WORKING (Hewlett Packard)EKG machine - with leads ($25!)

Took the truck over to pick them all up Friday morning before our opening night!

Probably going to pick up a couple more items too before they finally shut down the office next week!

It's beginning to look a lot like... #Halloween!

It's been an exhausting couple of months but things are finally starting to look very Halloween-y.

The mine shaft is creepy and dark, the toxic dump has all but its final toxic touches done, the graveyard is taking shape, the decontamination tunnel sprouted this past weekend, the hospital area has taken shape and awaits its first blood, the giant web out front is CRAWLING with spiders, and the morgue is already lined up with bodies. We even revamped several old favorite animated props - look for the "well to hell" in its new reincarnation! What else could you ask for? Oh and did we mention we'll have quite a few more scareactors than we've had before!

We'll be putting some signs out along the local streets this week and I plan to paint a new hours-of-operation sign for the front fence this week. As a reminder (the show schedule is up on our web page at http://www.creepynights.org/2013_show_schedule.html ) but tour nights are the weekend before Halloween (Friday 10/25 and Saturday 10/26) plus Halloween night (10/31); 7-10 pm each night. Feel free to park in front of the house - we'll have some cones and reflectors guiding you). 

We got listed in quite a few directories this year so we anticipate a crowd. We also may be getting a visit from the Virginia Lottery folks who have promised to stop by one evening with some giveaways! 

A shot of the toxic dump area: 

Scaredy Cat has been busy detailing; a few previews of the areas as they come along. First the Field Hospital:

Next the morgue:

More updates when I get a chance to get some more photos! We'll definitely get some shots after we spray the entire hospital area with blood and add the toxic "goo" to the toxic dump area.... ;-)

Light Show Premier 2013

We made it. The Halloween music and light show went online on schedule tonight - October 1st, 2013!

The massive spider web that covers most of the front yard is rockin' and rollin' - even the cocooned victims are singing along. If you pass by, roll down your windows or just tune your car radio to FM 91.1 to listen in on the tunes - each of which was custom synchronized to the 16-channel light show. 

The show comes on at 5PM nightly and shuts off at 9:30pm weeknights and 10:30pm on Friday and Saturday nights. The light show will run through October 31st - then it's gone! Below is a short video I took while we were testing it - just a fast cycling of all the lights:

Also thanks in large part to help from Will Bentley (and Gabriel) this past weekend we finished the mine shaft structure assembly and wiring - including the thunder and lightning system that RATTLES the entire back yard! It's a massive 20'x20' enclosure full of surprises; and with luck we'll get most of the detailing done this coming weekend.

The toxic area is also coming along nicely... We have several more large items to move in there, but here's a preview of how it's starting to look:
 

Stay tuned... some VERY COOL news to be announced soon!