Another Halloween is in the books! Halloween has become a big deal in my life, not because I especially enjoy the holiday, but because it's the largest event I coordinate each year at work. This was our 8th annual Halloween Extravaganza, and it was the biggest one yet! Everything went about the same as usual--tons of candy was donated (we really need to consider weighing it next year), we had over 30 themed trick or treat booths, and we had more than enough volunteers to make it happen. Check out this room full of candy! Each of those bags has about 10 individual bags of candy in it--we get hundreds donated by our amazing students each year.
My kids are less and less interested in the holiday, but they continue to come to my event each year, with it now being a bit of a forced tradition. It is fun to look back through the pictures of them each year at our event. It's hard to believe we've been doing this event for 8 years.
My staff outdid themselves with their costumes this year! Cara goes all out with her costume every year, and has been involved in the event since 2013. She was an awesome Cinderella last year, and this year she was Belle. Kyle decided he'd be the Beast to her Beauty. They looked great!
And here is Gabby and Luis, who were part of a crew of Mario Kart characters, which is what our Student Government did. They make an awesome Mario and Luigi!
Here is the Mario Kart crew, this time Ariana (Peach) and Austin (Donkey Kong) joined them. I love the balloons! They even had lights around their boxes so they stood out in the dark. By the end of the night, they were doing races around the circle and it was hilarious!
This is the booth that our Garden Club came up with. It's Audrey the giant, man-eating, plant from Little Shop of Horrors. They went all out on this one! What a creative idea for a booth, and perfect for their club. Guests could toss bean bags into Audrey's mouth to win candy.
I always try to get a good picture that demonstrates how large our crowd is, but it never really conveys the sheer size of the event. This center walkway gets so bottlenecked each year. I need to remember not to put so many booths in this area (which is hard because several want to be here for the lighting and the prominence), and definitely need to move the popcorn booth somewhere else.
Ava and Lacy were superheroes again this year--this time they're Spider Girl and Wonder Woman.
Quinne picked up a pair of these awesome mermaid tights at the Spirit store, and she wore them to trapeze one of those nights before Halloween. They looked so cool, and all of us girls decided to get a pair so we can be matching flying fish. I decided to use that as my costume this year, and transformed into a mermaid for the night. Dave always manages to come up with some sort of costume--this year he was a Diamondback baseball player. I appreciate that he puts in the effort to come up with something each year, even though he's stuck getting the kids ready too.
We always have a couple of fishing booths for kids--this one was cute. Our students come up with some great ideas each year. I love seeing the effort they put into their booth.
This was the first Halloween in 4 years that I didn't have Ashley there to help keep me calm and to do all the things that I forget. I really miss her! Luckily though, she was still there for the party! She too was wearing her mermaid tights, but she went a different direction with it. She went a little darker--she was a fish caught in a trash-filled net (which also happens to be a piece of our old trapeze net)! I can always count on her to step up the level of creativity!
There have been years where all of the cousins are at our event, but the numbers have dwindled a bit. This year, it was just the Dairman girls and Braden along with my kids. The older they get, the less likely they are to be here. I wonder how long until my kids don't even come? When that day arrives, I think I'll put them to work running one of the booths instead. Tyler talked about doing that this year, but we didn't get it together. Maybe next year we can get him and his cousins to run a fun activity instead?
One of the great things about this event is that entire families come dressed in costume. These are some friends of mine who have had great themed costumes since their little one arrived. This year, they are Tinkerbell, Peter Pan and his Shadow. Charles played the part of Shadow very well!
Here's another awesome themed family, and a family that has been around since the beginning. I have a photo of Dylan and Stephanie from the very first Halloween we did (he worked for me at the time). I also have one a few laters when, now married, were there with their first born. This year, their family of four was there dressed as Jurassic Park. They looked awesome!
Here's another shot of the crowded center walkway. The crowd was definitely larger this year, and every time I went over to our entrance area to check the number, I was blown away. The event doesn't technically start until 5:30 pm, but we always have families beginning to arrive at 5. At 5:50 this year, we already had over 300 people through the door.
This girl was a cotton candy rock star! She swirled the sticky stuff for 3 hours straight, and was covered from her ladybug antenna, her eyelashes, and all down her front. She was so stinking cute!
It's so fun to see former students (and staff) come back year after year, creating their own traditions for their families. Dylan was one of my favorites, and it's always great to see him on Halloween night. He has definitely seen this event grow over the years, and would probably agree with me that none of us ever imagined this event would become what it has.
My partner in the planning and facilitation of this event for all these years is Puvana, a communication faculty member who was one of the two people who originally came up with the vision for our Halloween Extravaganza all those years ago--despite my insistence that no one would come, and we'd never get enough candy. I was clearly mistaken, and I owned that after the first year.
And now for the big reveal on the estimate of attendance.....we had over 2500 people on our campus! This is significantly more than our average from all of the past 5 years or so. We tend to get around 1500, but this number blew us away. Now, it's definitely not an exact science to counting the guests. There are multiple ways people can enter campus (although most come in on the west side parking lots), but the student who was counting insisted that she was not over clicking. Pretty amazing!
After all of those guests, all of that trash, and tables spread all around campus--this is what it looked like at 7:45 am when I arrived the next day. I'm always blown away at how great of a job our maintenance crew does to get the campus put back together after such a huge event. Here you can see Junior picking up every last scrap of trash. You'd never know that only 12 hours before, this place was a huge Halloween party!
Our office area was another story, however. This is what I came back to the next morning...as I do every year. We get everything upstairs (curses to whomever put Student Life on the second floor!) and then deal with it the next day. Clean up usually takes the entire next morning, but we eventually get it all back together, and I don't have to think about Halloween again until summer.
Another great Halloween is in the books!
My staff outdid themselves with their costumes this year! Cara goes all out with her costume every year, and has been involved in the event since 2013. She was an awesome Cinderella last year, and this year she was Belle. Kyle decided he'd be the Beast to her Beauty. They looked great!
