November 14, 2011
We will be attending the 17th annual
Transworld Halloween & Attractions Show in St. Louis, MO in March 2012! This
will be our first time attending this exciting industry event! We will be meeting many of our fellow
Chicago Haunt Builder members
there. We can't wait!
October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween, everybody! We had an estimated 300-400 trick-o-treaters come by this year, with countless adults
joining in the fun as well! Special thanks to all of our live actors that helped out this year: Mike Bayer, Taryn Boltz, and Jim Gonzales!
October 27, 2011
We will have several LIVE actors this Saturday (10/29) and again on Halloween (10/31). Hope to see you!
I also want to give a shout out to Mike Baker for his extensive help in getting the haunt set up this year.
Without his help on at least 2 long evenings, I would have not been able to open on time! Mike is also one of our live actors. So if
you see a viking roaming the haunt, that's Mike. Tell him "Thanks!"
I also want to thank my brother-in-law, Chris Murray, for once again lending a hand with the heavy stuff (witch shed
and mausoleum). Without his help, I would have a broken back and no display! :)
October 22, 2011
I was able to repair the animated coffin today by using a washer and some Loctite (tm) on the threads of
the motor shaft. For those of you who don't know, we use a wiper motor in the coffin and the nut that holds the
crank arm became lose and wouldn't hold tight because the threads have been stripped slightly.
October 17, 2011
We had an electrical short this evening due to water getting into one of the LED spotlights. It actually
melted a hole in the glass of the bulb and blew two fuses in our lighting controller. Fortunately everything was
back up and running later tonight.
2010
October 31, 2010
Happy Halloween, everybody! Don't forget that we have 4 live actors in our display this evening, starting around dusk. We are expecting a BIG crowd tonight!
October 30, 2010
Saturday was a big night for us! We had 80 or more people stop by to see our display!
October 28, 2010
We are back in operation and all damage has been repaired!
October 18, 2010
I just wanted to let everybody know that yes, we are operational as of October 16! Stop by and see the display!
October 9-10, 2010
Thanks to Dave Boltz who came over to lend a helpful hand on Saturday with various setup projects. We got most of the wiring laid out, "Ray Charles" was installed and activated, the lightning floods were positioned, and most of the LED spotlight bulbs were installed with the new light baffles. Dave also helped cut and prepare the brass tubing for all the pin-spots that will be used in the graveyard. On Sunday I built a ginormous 7' coffin that is large enough to conceal just about any size actor. Hmmm, I wonder what we're going to use that for? The headless woman got a new bloody stump and was positioned in the yard. She still needs some detailing. We also finished the painting on all the new tombstones.
This will be a busy week as we make final prepartations for our "go-live" date which is Saturday, October 16.
October 5, 2010
Dury Lane Cemetery is mentioned in the October 2010 Chicago edition of Angie's List Magazine! See the online version here:
Home haunters scare up Halloween fun
October 3, 2010
My brother-in-law, Chris, came over today to lend a very helpful hand in getting the major set pieces moved into the yard. Thanks for the help, Chris!
October 1, 2010
I took a day off from work to finally get the mausoleum finished and painted. Click on the picture below to see the latest pictures!
September 13, 2010
This weekend we worked again on the
mausoleum. It was decided that nails are just not strong enough to hold the individual wall pieces
together if they are going to be moved around, so I rebuilt the entire structure with 3" screws. Now the walls are a lot stronger. The studs
are 16" on center -- I guess I could hang drywall on this thing if I really wanted to!
September 6, 2010
Happy Labor Day everybody! We're in full swing now with our 2010 Halloween prop building. Today we started building the framing
for what will become a new mausoleum to house our FCG (flying crank ghost). In past years we ran our ghost inside the house in
front of the large picture window, but this year the ghost is moving outside to take a more prominent position in the yard.
August 29, 2010
We finished up the carving and sanding of our tombstones and finished the pinnacle of our new 2'
monument. We're looking forward to seeing how
everything comes out after they are painted!
October 26, 2009
Adam from
HauntedIllinois.com came out on Saturday, October 24th and did a review of our display which was published on their site! They took some great pictures! Check out the review here:
HauntedIllinois.com's
2009 Drury Lane Cemetery Review
October 13, 2009
We've been busy the past week. We built a new clown, installed the thunder & lightning effects that we built last year, continued working on the lighting, finished the
digital servo mechanics inside the witch, recorded the witch's voice in our sound studio (okay, so we don't really have a sound studio) courtesty of our friend Monika (you should
have been an actress!), built a moving spider, started decorating the witch shed, and more. Check out the new pictures we added to the
Witch and the
Setup pages.