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Hauntingly Cool Halloween Setups

How to Create the Ultimate Halloween Setup Using AV

Spooky season has arrived. It’s time to bust out the pumpkins, ghouls and goblins. But how can you make your Halloween setup hauntingly cool? By using audiovisual equipment, obviously!

In the spirit of spooky season, we asked #AVTweeps to share their best tips for the ultimate Halloween scenes. Here’s what they had to say…

Chuck Espinoza, CTS-D, CTS-I, Senior Staff Instructor, AVIXA

The application of good AV can help “resurrect” your dead Halloween decorations … without the incantations! Here are two YouTube tutorials that I think will be helpful.

Markus Zeppenfeld, Product Manager, Christie

To create the most realistic, immersive Halloween experience, I’d start with our new Inspire Series of projectors. The DWU960-iS features 8100 lumens and up to 20,000 hours of virtually maintenance-free operation, to projection map a house with bright, creepy visuals.

And to deliver the ultimate projection mapping experience, I’d use Christie Pandoras Box Version 8 with its built-in warping capabilities to perfectly match the content to every feature of the house. Pandoras Box’s timeline will also allow me to program synchronized video and audio assets. Those could be little faces on pumpkins starting to talk or shadows projected to the windows with spooky sounds, which could come from remote speakers in or around the house. If those support Dante audio, it just requires a network connection and you are all set. I also recommend using triggers from little sensors in the front yard to track people who are passing by to make it an interactive experience. Together, this will create the scariest house on the block!

Christy Weeks, Senior Brand Manager, HYPERVSN

Create spooktacular holographic displays that are not old-hat. Halloween is a great time of year for brands and retail stores to engage with their audiences, boost their sales and increase brand loyalty. However, with the commercial clutter everywhere, it is really important to create something that stands out and catches the audience’s attention. Using a single holographic display like HYPERVSN Solo, or including a hologram into your window display, can be a great way to stun your customers. Alternatively, if you are looking to make an even bigger spooky splash, use the holographic HYPERVSN Wall to create an entire holographic shop window display or 3D billboard. A floating pumpkin, a wafting ghost, a flying witch, nothing could be more perfect for this seasonal content than adding a 3D holographic element. Say goodbye to witch hats and hello haunted holograms.

Joseph Conover, Strategic Manager, Themed Entertainment Solutions, Panasonic

The secret to bringing a Halloween set-up to life, no matter the backdrop or architectural space, is high-quality AV technology, specifically projector technology. When choosing a projector to integrate into your Halloween-themed exhibit, it’s important to select a solution that is capable of sharp and bright 4K visuals, incorporates projection mapping and edge blending capabilities, and is compact in design for flexible installation. These features create a seamless and interactive experience and allow guests to be fully immersed into the suspenseful and spooky nighttime scenes.

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David Title, Partner, Bravo Media

To celebrate Halloween at Bravo Media, we took advantage of a transparent Planar OLED display to create a uniquely spooky welcome message to folks visiting the studio. The transparency really heightens the surprise factor!

Bryan Meszaros, CEO & Founder, OpenEye Global

Sometimes, what is often forgotten about is the visual narrative to the experience and how you bring the audience into it. You have the perfect opportunity to transcend the lines of the space with projection, lighting and various other effects to draw people in. I love those experiences that make you curious enough to move in closer and those that use lighting (and other visual effects) to trick your mind into believing it’s something else. I don’t think it’s necessarily having multiple “gags”, but that one or two enough visual tricks to leave your audience asking for more.

Scott Schoeneberger, Managing Partner, BLUEWATER

BLUEWATER used various AV equipment to create this spooky environment for Glenlore Trails Haunted Forest.

BLUEWATER used various AV equipment to create this spooky environment for Glenlore Trails Haunted Forest.

Halloween is entirely about atmosphere! Case in point — a forest late at night isn’t necessarily creepy feeling. It could feel very comforting. But if a low line fog roles in, and the creatures of the night are rather rambunctious, you now are igniting other senses. The dampened visibility, the feeling of the fog and the added sounds all drastically change the feeling about the same woods. With that said, you can’t control mother nature, but you can drop in audio visual elements to drastically enhance the immersion of a setup.

Some tips, in no particular order:

  1. Timing is important. If you’re controlling lighting, think about what the speed does to the story.
  2. Lighting can make something small feel much, much larger — or like a much more connected experience.
  3. Fog is your friend. You can control its output relatively easily with simple triggers, which are good to reduce fog consumption, and to make more impact.
  4. Projection can go such a long way in elevating the Halloween factor. Even small pico projectors can be used to create really wild effects and visualizations.
  5. Don’t forget about story. Pretty lights only go so far!

With all these tips and tricks, we’re sure you’ll have the best Halloween yet. Don’t forget to share your best Halloween setups with us on Twitter. Mention @rAVePUBS and we’ll be sure to retweet!

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