The West's 2012 Rock 'n Haunted Castle Show is ON!

[Tracy West]

I have been building new props and working on new sequences for the better part of the last 7 months even though I was not sure I was going to get to have my Halloween light show this year.

After last years shut down by the police about 45 mins early on Halloween because I had a cranky neighbor call the cops because of the noise and the traffic, I was not sure I was going to get to pull off another show.

I have worked out plan with the local police and city council to have my show at least one more year.

I am going to have to monitor the noise levels and keep people from blocking drive ways and such and the police are going to monitor and direct traffic a couple of days before Halloween.

My show has grown bigger this year. I was able to obtain all of the yard and drive way this year. (Don't ask me what is cost me to talk my wife into giving up her garage and drive way for three weeks! )

Some of the new things added to my show this year was dmx rgb strips and dmx lighting throughout the yard and house, new pvc fence and two new columns for the driveway.

Still a lot to do and things have moved slower for me this year since my kido moved to San Antonio!

Here is a pic of the new completed columns and a couple of sections of fence that was just propped up to them. ( they will be more secured and straight when up) The rain started coming down just as I took this pic that is why it came out hazy!

[Torqumada286]

Looks really, really good.

Torqumada

[Reefrus]

Tracy

Glad to see you got things worked out with OPD. Wish I was still there to see it this year. Hope you post the vids.

[Orville]

Very Nice colums you made! Also glad to hear you got it worked out so you could at least have your display another year.

This will be my first year in our OWN home for a change, but my 3rd year of doing animated musical displays, so I've already chatted with my neighbors and even the park office management, whom are all really looking forward to seeing the display I'll be setting up for Halloween this year.

Although I don't know how they may feel about it if it brings in a lot of traffic, since the office management are wanting to advertise it. Which I'm hoping tney don't, because I'd really dislike it if my neighbors got upset because of traffic issues!

Our roads are barely wide enough in here as it is, and a lot of cars parking to watch the show could be a nuisance to the neighborhood, well, only if they parked on both sides of the road or blocked driveways.

We do have a security patrol, so if it did get out of hand, our security folks would step in to help with the traffic issues, and already told me tsaid they'd help with any traffic/noise{raidos too loud} issues if it did come to anything that.

But I really don't want that headache/nightmare if ya know what I mean!

Edited September 13, 2012 by Orville

[Tracy West]

Tracy

Glad to see you got things worked out with OPD. Wish I was still there to see it this year. Hope you post the vids.

The goal is to get all the props and lights up around Oct 13th and do video taping around the 16th / 17th and post them shortly after that.

Then I get to deal with whether or not YOUTUBE will keep them posted.

I will also post them on Vimeo just in case.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Tracy West

[digdeepfundraising]

looking forward to seeing your show it was you and Kevin that made me get into light o rama Halloween show

so are you going to let us know what songs your doing or do we have to wait

and are you using singing faces again

[Tracy West]

looking forward to seeing your show it was you and Kevin that made me get into light o rama Halloween show

so are you going to let us know what songs your doing or do we have to wait

and are you using singing faces again

Thank you! I am glad we were inspirations to get you into Halloween shows. Kevin was mine too!

Yes, I am back this year with my 4 singing faces. I got to use the whole yard and driveway this year so I have more props this year.

Have to wait and see.

That is the fun of Halloween!

[james morris]

Tracy I will start testing my sequences this weekend your crazy train will be one of the main one for the show. I have 134 sequences for halloween went a little crazy on the sequences cant stop making them so much fun must be sick

Edited September 14, 2012 by james morris

[Tracy West]

Tracy I will start testing my sequences this weekend your crazy train will be one of the main one for the show. I have 134 sequences for halloween went a little crazy on the sequences cant stop making them so much fun must be sick

134 Sequences? Dang James!

I have worked my tail off on 6 sequences and I am still 3 mins shy of finishing my last one.

Good luck on your testing!

[james morris]

ran a test this weekend set up the display in the spare room everything ran just fine have a few adjustments on a couple sequences

[CLD Kevin]

Your so lucky to do another show. Its starting to hit me no show. By this time I would be doing some testing. I also take vacation the weeks I set up but officially cancelled them to be used later in the year. :-(

[Tracy West]

Your so lucky to do another show. Its starting to hit me no show. By this time I would be doing some testing. I also take vacation the weeks I set up but officially cancelled them to be used later in the year. :-(

Kevin, I hate that for you. I know how upset you must feel.

I was upset when I had my show stopped on Halloween due to neighbors complaining about the noise and traffic.

This maybe my last show too, depending on how well I can control the people who come and watch the show. I have to make sure people don't blast the music from their cars and not block driveways and the such.

I am also not running a show on Halloween but just have static lights that night.

As much as I liked all the media attention, I feel it was the cause of all my problems on Halloween. They showed up the last two days before Halloween and plugged my show.... Then everybody wanted to come see it on the last day. It was just too crazy that last night.

I am hoping to get the media out of the way earlier this year so maybe people will evenly come and see the show and not bottle up just on Halloween like last year.

[Tracy West]

A whle back I started making some tombstones out of basic styrofoam but put them on the back burner due to bigger projects.

I got started back on them this weekend and I have to say I am having a blast working on these! They are going to turn out really cool!

I bought a hand held wood burner and it makes detail work so much easier than trying to use an exacto knife to cut them out!

I have 3 of these large tombstones to do and then paint but I think I should be able to knock these out in just a few days!

[Tracy West]

Run!!! It's Godzilla!!!

It has been 2 years since I fired up old Godzilla. I was worried that he was riddled with moth holes but he only had the one small rip from two years ago.

I patched him up and blew him up for the afternoon.

I love the look on people's faces as they pass by the house and look up at this 15 foot monster!

It is getting closer to build up. I am getting excited!

[miaskiewicz christian]

Your so lucky to do another show. Its starting to hit me no show. By this time I would be doing some testing. I also take vacation the weeks I set up but officially cancelled them to be used later in the year. :-(

It's a pity you can't do a show this year but now you are officially a legend and many singing pumpkins will be on houses this year following your tracks.

Hope your company works good.

Have a nice day.

Christian

[Torqumada286]

Kevin, anything in your neighborhood's rules about a rolling display? They might be able to say what you can put on your house, but not your car or pickup truck, if it's not in the HOA agreement. Just a thought out of my addled brain after sequencing all day.

Torqumada

[Tracy West]

This year everything seems to be taking me longer to build or program!

I don't know why but it just has!

Finally finished my last sequence! YEA!! ( with only 15 days til build up)

I still have to finish those huge tombstones that I started and countless other little projects!

Hopefully I can knock out a lot of these little projects this weekend and get ready to build up on Oct 11th.

[Tracy West]

I finally got my tombstones finished... well nearly finished!

I still have to go and put some moss on them and after looking at my pics, I am going to have to go and touch up some places too!

I made 3 different tombstones to go with the many of the store bought ones I have. I just wanted to have more individualized ones.

But overall I think they came out pretty good.

Now on to my small pre production punch list! (Which is still alot! )

Edited October 1, 2012 by Tracy West

[boborino]

Your so lucky to do another show. Its starting to hit me no show. By this time I would be doing some testing. I also take vacation the weeks I set up but officially cancelled them to be used later in the year. :-(

Kevin,

You were such a help and inspiriation a couple of years ago when I started my halloween pumpkin faces. I hate that there are all the haters out there that kill the fun for everyone else. I suppose the moral here is, shoot for mediocre and try not to get noticed too much. Small shows can go on, but the really great ones get shut down... we live in a very odd world!!

Do they still let you do the Christmas show?

[Tracy West]

Started with the build up today getting my RGB lights up on the roof.

Frustrated though, I now am having problem getting my LOR to communicate with my dmx controllers. I have had no problem for months with getting them to work and now when I am getting closer to show time... nada...

I don't know what step I am forgetting. I have my LOR controller on and it shows the dmx conection is open. My network perferances show the dongle and universe. What am I missing?

On a lighter note... My wife as been telling me for months that I have had my head stuck up a pumpkin's a** with all my Halloween projects. I really don't know what she means by that!

I had a pic but I could not get it to load. 3.42K is way too small. Oh well.