7 Tricks to Level up Your Halloween Events

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7 Tricks to Level up Your Halloween Events

Posted on: 28th September 2022

The nights are growing longer, day’s turning colder and… the shops are full of Christmas decorations. While some people are already planning for the winter season, we’re busy looking forward to Halloween. Whatever your opinion is on fake blood, costumes and delicious tooth rotting sugar, you can’t deny that Halloween is a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles. 

By far the most important thing about any Halloween event is creating the right atmosphere. From immersive theatre to pop up events and temporary installations, here’s some horrifyingly satisfying effects you can use to wow this Halloween. 

 

Ghoulish Gobos and Projections

Add some animation to your productions with moving gobo patterns and laser projected graphics on hard surfaces and even semi-transparent materials for a 3D hologram effect. Choose from a huge range of existing gobo designs, create your own or try a moving head fixture with multiple built-in gobos and prisms for stunning layered effects.

 

Awe Inspiring Atmospherics

Special effects machines like fog, haze and smoke machines are an extremely effective and affordable tool for creating an instant air of mystery. As well as giving any space a distinctive look and feel (and smell), atmospherics are great for creating unique visuals such as rivers of smoke, bubbling cauldrons, jump scare geyser effects and the dazzling mid-air effects mentioned below. 

Looking for something a little different? Why not try adding a powerful stage fan or confetti cannon to surprise your victims, or introduce a bubble machine for a strangely sinister mid-air effect?

 

Marvellous Mid-Air Effects

Atmospherics like smoke and haze provide the perfect canvas for projecting beam effects, gobos and lasers for unique mid-air light shows. Combine gobos and moving heads to cookie cut shapes through the air or scan through the smoke with a laser for mesmerising floating watery visuals.

 

Decorating with Light

A choice selection of uplighters, floods and accent lighting can transform an ordinary events space into an enchanted wonderland. Or you know, horrific hellhole, depending on the look you’re going for. LED PARs, strips and battens are perfect for flooding large areas with colour, while profiles provide precision spot lighting, and battery-operated lights give you the freedom to put accent lighting wherever it’s needed.

 

Spinetingling Sound

While silence can be scary, we’d argue that blood curdling screams, chainsaws and undead moans are probably worse… Keep the audience on their toes with some carefully placed sound reinforcement, complete with mixers, amps and source equipment. Throw in some low frequency subs too for an ominous rumbling effect that’ll leave them shaken up. Alternatively, if you’re working with live performers, give them the freedom to move about on street and stage with a wireless microphone.

 

Stunning Strobe Lighting

Lightning strikes and flickering lights are a staple of horror movies and thrillers. Bring some of that Hollywood magic to your productions with a range of affordable LED strobes, moving heads and ellipsoidals which, when used with a lighting controller, can create a wide range of strobe effects like lightning flashes, police lights or a high-speed stop motion horror movie look (one of our customers did this for a fright night event and it was intense!). 

 

Light up the Dark

Ultraviolet lights are a fun and unusual way of lighting up specific areas of a scene with UV paints, photoluminescent tape and reflective materials. This makes them great for creating unusual effects for Halloween events and themed escape rooms. Also, with more and more LED lighting including UV channels (for improving skin tones) you can take advantage of having a UV light in your arsenal which can still be used for many more applications.

 

BONUS: Taking Control

Every list needs a bonus tip, so here it is! With most modern lights you can set them and they will remember their settings the next time you turn them on. However, investing in a controller for your lighting and special effects will massively elevate the quality of your productions. After all, a lighting desk is not just for Halloween and even an entry-level professional lighting desk offers a huge range of creative tools you can carry into your future events.

 

We hope this list has inspired you to level up your Halloween productions; if it has, why not share your events with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and let us know what equipment you’ve used. Happy Halloween!

From immersive theatre to pop up events and temporary installations
Halloween Lighting
Light Shows
Smoke Machine in Theatre
Ultraviolet Light Effects