Starting over...

... well, sort of. Last Halloween was the final year of Haunt Stress, at least as far as I was concerned. My biggest stress was the elaborate light show with tons of homemade spotlights run from my computer using freeware that was buggy and often shut down unexpectedly. That and the hundreds of feet of wire that ran throughout my entire yard. Connections would fail and troubleshooting was extremely tedious and exhausting.

We ran the light show for 9 years and it was amazing when it worked. I spent hours sequencing lights to music and it was so satisfying to watch. But the show always glitched worse and worse throughout the night each year. That seemingly miles of wires everywhere made it impossible to walk around in without damaging something. We limped it along last Halloween, but I was so stressed and exhausted afterwards that I'd end up feeling pretty bummed out by the end of it all.

That isn't what the Halloween experience should be like. I do it to be a part of my community, to have fun, and to raise donations for the local humane society. This summer I contemplated really paring things down, to bare minimum. I also remembered my first desire for the haunt. All I wanted was spooky lighting that would fade in and out randomly to add to the atmosphere and highlight all the work I'd done with my props.

My goal was always to provide a creepy atmosphere, but it turned into a bombastic show over time. Sequencing light shows takes hours of work per song to get everything perfect. That equates to a track list of about 10 songs that repeat throughout the evening. Let me tell you, hearing Thriller and This is Halloween several times a night gets a bit tedious. Add to that all the stress over the technical details, and the whole business isn't much fun after a while.

Jump to my decision for this year. No more light show. I ended up purchasing some RGB smart spotlights that I can run with a remote or my phone. They even have a setting that goes with music that I suppose most folks that see the haunt wouldn't notice the difference from my original hard work anyway. So this year I ditched the hundred or so spotlights and mess of wires for the new technology.

Let me tell you, I am really pleased. Now I can focus on atmosphere. I reoriented the setup to focus on the walkway up to the front door. I had never been able to do that with bundles of wires running along it and into the front window where they connected to my PC. Set up time this year was cut drastically and now I can walk round in the haunt with my camera to take photographs without worrying about trampling wires. I am so relaxed and happy doing all the little things I never had the time to do in the past.

Here are a few photos from last night.




I'd like to thank Pumpkinrot for endless inspiration.

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