High Impact Outdoor Visuals???

[Raycliff Manor]

Anyone want to participate in a Brainstorming Session? I'll start. We've been looking into high impact visuals for our attraction property. Something to grab the attention of people passing and cool visuals for the guest to enjoy when arriving and while at the attractions.

Of course we've been incredibly inspired by Haunted Overload's huge creatures. We even have ourselves on a waiting list for telephone poles with the utility company.

So what other ideas have you seen used, used yourself, or ideas are thinking about incorporating as outdoor high-visibility enhancements to your attractions?

We've been looking at the Wind Visuals - http://www.funkites.com/featherbanners.htm (considering white with blue or green lights on them)

We're also looking into lighting up many of the trees on our property with colored lights and are considering options for this. Any suggestions or recommendations?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, ideas and suggestions!

Kel

[sophisticatedterror]

If you have trees...how about dmx fixtures either up lighting the trees and fading from color to color or ever the fixtures with moving gobos projected on the tree...exp..a moving fire gobo or water gobo...they would look really cool on the trees...Just throwing out ideas...



kale

[Front Yard Fright]

I think those waving inflatable guys you see at like car dealerships would be something to consider. I know Dreamreapers in Illinois has a few of them with scary faces painted on them.

[Raycliff Manor]

Zach and Kale, those are a great idea! Anyone know of a good source for haunters to get these? Ken?

Thanks Zach and I look forward to more ideas!

Kel

[gadget-evilusions]

Lights shooting up your trees would be ok. Although with your location Kelly I don't know if it would make as much an impact as say, a searchlight. I think strobing your trees would draw more attention that say, something similar to what we put on your facade (fading lights).

One thing I plan on doing is building a giant creature, not quite as big as one of Haunted Overloads, but probably around 16-24'. I am building it onto a trailer that you can get for $200 from Harbor Freight. The weeks leading up to the haunt and every night we are open or I am there I will wheel it out to the front of the parking lot (which is highly visible from the freeway). When I leave for the night I will pull it into our building. When I get more time I am going to build one that is a scissor that can be 8' or so closed on the trailer, and then 30' or so feet high when extended outside the building.

[Mike Goff]

I like the idea of making the facades, attract alot of attention. It kind of makes you want to go inside and check it out. This is an area that I too, need to devote some attention too.

I have always kicked around the idea of putting a chainlink maze in a green house, fogging the hell out of it, and synchronizing a bunch of strobes. That would definately attract attention from the road.

I like any kind of lighting as long as it fits the theme.

A decked out hearse, with illuminated graphics, would get my attention. I'm in the process of hooking up a DSL show controller to our hearse that will activate the headlights, and various effects lighting (maybe even an air ride suspension in the near future) to the beat of the music. Illuminated graphics will come later.

Great topic, can't wait to see where it goes!

[Darkangel]

The lights on trees sound really cool. How would this be achieved? Is lights changing colors be more effective than just lighting them? I would love to learn more about this idea it could also be useful on scenes or facades, anywhere really.

DA

[soultrkr]

The boss parks the Hearse out by the road and has a large lighted sign on top of it and we have one of those flailing ghosts from like frontyard was talking about .

does this need to be something that is taken down or can it stay up.

[Allen H]

I get old fencing from companies who install new fencing, the 6 to 8 ft tall privacy kind. I then use a jig saw to cut jack o lantern faces. Lit from behind they look pretty cool. I have some by my pumpkin patch right now but I plan on adding them all over SCREAMS cause they look awesome and reek of Halloween.

[Jim Warfield]

I took a junk 1950 Hudson, painted it black and white like a Police car, made red and blue lights on the roof that are three foot tall, you could see these flashing at night from a long ways away!
It was on my property, it's zoned "Business". I had no outdoor sound system though this would be very disturbing in a town of retired elderly people.
I made the red and blue lights by heating and bending pieces of plexiglass into a "U" shape, turned the "U" upside down and built the base from sheet metal.
Of course I had some employees who were told to remove their phoney badges when in my parking lot(City Property) and one got asked to not keep putting "stuff" on his old Chevy because they thought someone might think it was a real Police car. (If you were blind, senile and sort of ...stupid?)

[unihaunter]

Lights for trees

We use a version of these mounted in the roof peaks shooting into the tops of the trees.It makes the limbs appear to move because of the changing beams of color moving.The ones we have dont have this strobeing effect built in they are a few seasons old and still work great.Very long throw very bright.Makes the eves look pretty cool to with the beams of color shooting out.Got a good deal on ebay buying a few at one time 125..00 each

[nzanesmith]

Go Big!!!

I have a buddy that owns a bounce house company and they have a product called movie under the stars its a 24' screen and projector and stereo setup that i have been toying with the idea of having either a movie or video games or both for either free or a small charge. Kinda hard to miss a 2 story tall movie playing. Just have to check the legality of the idea before i get to attached to it...
Nick

[Darkangel]

Inihaunter,

Very cool, thanks for posting that video. So are these ok for outdoor use then? And, did you have them strobing on the trees fast and it still looked really cool?

Thanks,
DA

[Raycliff Manor]

These suggestions are awesome! I'm really enjoying this discussion! I'm also corresponding with Bill at Dark Tech Effects, www.darktecheffects.com to further explore the lighting ideas. Those of you who lack in the technical knowledge of doing the DMX stuff yourselves might be interested in this as well.

After going crazy with spending last year though, we're on a very strict budget this year so I'm really investigating ways to maximize the impact of our investment. We're all about sweat equity this year!

Anyone have a source for the inflatable dancing characters?

Allen, how do you back-light the fences, this sounds awesome! I'd love to see pix if you have any!

Unihaunter, thanks for that link! I'm going to look into it!

Nick, if your friend can provide a source, please let us know!

Thanks again for all the awesome paricipation!!!

Kel

[Raycliff Manor]

Gadget, thanks for your reply too! You are very familiar with our property, after having done so much work on site for us, and I'm really excited to hear your ideas for our location. I love the prop on the trailer idea and the scissor lift idea. The scissor lift is probably not in our budget this year though.

Bill (Dark Tech Effects),

Do you have access to the lights like the Dual Gem Pulse and do you sell them? This is definitely somthing I'm interested in!

Thanks again all!

Kel