Halloween week has arrived and that means my society Loco Show Co have the fantastic task of putting on ‘Scarefest’ at the Student’s Union. As I’m chairperson this year, it was my job to organise the event. It was a huge task that took many hours, sleepless nights and stressful last minute messaging but we go there in the end and it was a huge success. Here’s a look at how we got on the night and everything that happened behind the scenes.
Scarefest is split into two events – there is halloween karaoke in the SU and we run scare walks in the Woodbury building across the road. £1 entry fee gets you into both and we also had a halloween games stand set up in the welcome area for any members that didn’t want to be near the scary stuff. We decided that our half of the profits would be donated to Starlight Children’s Foundation and (although we are still waiting to get an exact profit figure) we raised lots of money for a wonderful cause.
Each year the scare walks takes on a new theme that is relevant to whatever horror or scary film/trend is popular at the time. Last year we did an ‘IT’ theme and this year we decided to run with the theme American Horror Story that took inspiration from the hit TV show. We used ideas from all the different seasons and put them all together.
It was an absolutely crazy day for me! I had lectures and meetings 9:15-12:15, work 12:30 until 17:15 and Scarefest set up started at 17:30 followed by karaoke until 3am. I had two slices of pizza and half a sandwich all day and my body is now broken but it was so worth it! We spent 6pm – 9pm getting the building decorated and into costume and makeup.
Shout out to Fran who did this cool spider web on me so I wouldn’t be left out when running around organising everything and making sure everything ran smoothly. We also got the event covered by Team Worc TV so I did some interviews too.
As I said, we decided to take inspiration from all of the season of American Horror Story for the walk. Myself and some other committee members allocated people into one of the sections and then let them create their own characters and come up with ideas. I wanted it to be as collaborative and fun as possible. I can’t thank everyone that helped me organise everything and buy the props etc enough as a one man job might have killed me off. Here’s a little look at the kind of thing we had going on for the walks.
Abandoned Serial Killer’s House
Coven Witches
Cannibal Corner
The Asylum
Freakshow
Clown Cult
I was thrilled with the end result and the demand for the walks was insane compared to last year! There was an queue from the SU doors all the way into the Hangar. There were a few groups of students that ruined it due to bad conduct and being disrespectful to the actors but my fabulous loco lot didn’t let it get them down and powered through.
We also had a photo opportunity for the people on the walks to have at the end with a hidden scare awaiting. I am honestly so proud of my beautiful loco babies and this event just shows how we are in such good stead for the year ahead. We’ve still got our Halloween social to look forward too but so far this Halloween is shaping up to be the best yet!
#locolove
Meg xo
