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PlanetChristmas March 2008 Newsletter
It's About Time!
Welcome to your March 2008 edition of the PlanetChristmas newsletter! It is published regularly and covers relative topics for the Christmas decorating enthusiast.
Here's what you can read about in this March 2008 newsletter: __________
The Economy
What's up with our economy? Reading the news has become entirely too depressing. The price of everything is going up, credit is getting tight and Wall Street banks are closing their doors. If you're selling your house, price and demand are down. Should you drive a gas guzzler... well... paying for gas is getting painful.
The fundamental problem is uncertainty, and we all hate it. No one knows where the bottom of this recession is so we batten down the hatches to weather the storm, which just makes things even worse. I've talked with many PlanetChristmas vendors and they will readily admit business is down and they're not sure what to do.
Where is the bottom of this recession? I'm betting it's the day after a new United States president is determined. You'll have to admit you're probably holding back a little until you know what type of person will occupy the White House... nothing wrong with it, it's just human nature to want to know about the country's leadership. Unfortunately, we have another seven months to worry about things. This is going to be a rough ride.
But... there's good news for us in the PlanetChristmas community. Merchants, in order to stimulate people to buy, are going to be offering some pretty good sales we normally wouldn't see. This is a real opportunity to make lemonade out of these lemons. Keep your eyes open. There are going to be some great deals out there.
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Halloween and Christmas?
Then there was the rest of the show mainly dedicated to haunted houses. Say you need a five gallon bucket of dead cockroaches or a 55 gallon drum of fake blood... I know where to go. Say you want to purchase a 25' Angel of Death or maybe a standard off-the-shelf axe murderer... I can point you in the right direction. Need a low priced coffin or maybe an extra loud chainsaw that doesn't actually hurt? I'm here to help.
I became quite enamored with the behind the scenes technology of haunted houses. It's surprisingly similar whether you're a major theme park or a hobbyist haunter. Most items are called props or gags and are designed to suddenly move and scare your normal train of thought. Almost everything is run from pneumatic cylinders and a basic air compressor. Most props use one to four air cylinders to induce movement through simple mechanical leverage. Add some truly frightful coverings to these devices and you can create very scary creatures. Include a soundtrack and you have a package guaranteed to make your heart flutter.
What drives the air cylinders and sound effects of these haunted house props? In many cases they are simple four channel controllers. They're typically stand-alone and wired to some sort of trigger device aimed right at you. Once you trip the light beam or walk across a pressure mat, the prop suddenly comes to life for a short amount of time and then goes back to sleep.
Does any of this prop control sound vaguely familiar? It should. Many of us use very similar technology to flash our Christmas displays to the beat of the music. From a technology viewpoint, haunted houses appear to be about 7-10 years behind our over-the-top Christmas displays.
So why am I talking about haunted houses? If you already do a fancy Christmas display, you might have the infrastructure to also help someone build a pretty good haunted house. Much to my surprise, there's a lot of money to be made from running a haunted house. If you think about it, the more run-down something is, the better it makes a haunted house work. Nothing has to be perfect, but it does have to startle you, which is surprisingly easy in a dark environment.
Give some thought about going to the dark side. in a bazaar way, you can help the local haunter while at the same time getting geared up for Christmas.
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PLUS2009
Want an easy way to keep up with PLUS information? Go to the new website at www.PlusForUs.com. There's not much there just yet, but it will be the first place new information is shared with others. __________
PlanetChristmas Tip of the Month
Looks like LED Christmas light strings will actually be going up in price for 2008. From what I hear, it's because of the falling dollar, rising price of copper and infrastructure issues because of the timing Olympic games in China. Many of the manufactures are also switching to replaceable LED bulbs for 2008 (just like mini-lights) which also increases labor and manufacturing costs... though I can't remember when I had a burned out LED that needed replacing. Bottom line is if you see a sale on LED strings now, grab them quick.
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There's
good news and bad news in all of the doom and gloom. Just the fact our
policy makers are admitting there's a recession means steps can be taken to
lessen the pain. Many of us will be getting government rebate checks in a
couple of months. If you're buying a house, interest rates are down while
supply is up. If you've owned stock in oil companies... congratulations!
I
had the opportunity to attend the International Halloween, Costume and Party
Show (
The
Halloween costume business is doing quite well. Apparently deep in all of
us is an overwhelming desire for one night a year to dress up as a personality
we're really not. I had the opportunity to meet Elvira. She
autographs pictures with "Cruelly yours." Surely she doesn't dress that
way every day of the year. Bottom line is this is big business. I'll
admit to spending time around the Santa Claus suits, but they seemed so out of
place at this gathering.
I'm
seeing some activity for our bi-annual gathering, an event we call
