Halloween 2018

We love Halloween! Every year we’ve noticed more and more demand for interactive and innovative ways to engage with the public at events during this season. We particularly enjoy coming up with event solutions that are suitable for a family friendly audience, with just the right amounts of “fright” amongst the fun. This year has been completely jam packed for the BNL team, here’s just a little taster of what we’ve been up to!

The “Rushfear” Festival

The Rushfear Festival was extended to become a three-day series of events this year, and we were delighted to be working closely with Rushmere Shopping Centre to make sure that there was a varied line-up of activities to keep everyone entertained this Halloween. Starting on Thursday, we set up staging, backdrop, props and PA to support musical and children’s entertainment including a Halloween Spectacular set from The Swingtime Starlets, interactive storytelling with Jack and Sally from “A Nightmare before Christmas”, circus performers, DJ, and song and dance from local performance groups. This was in anticipation of the lantern parade towards the fireworks display and the centre was bursting with a bigger crowd than ever before.  Throughout the festival we also led interactive games, custom-scripted puppet shows, Arts and Crafts and even took over the Rushmere social accounts and produced a highlights video- check it out.

Carnfunnock Country Park

Carnfunnock Country Park was our next destination. This is the second year that we have worked on this project. Last year we decorated and added lighting and sound solutions to a Big Top tent and this year was a completely new challenge. BNL Productions designed a “Dragon Egg Hunt” walking tour around the park for the public to enjoy throughout the day. Our staff managed a queueing system that allowed the public to join a tour guide and be led through the park to meet weird and wonderful characters, each with a mission for the children to complete before finding the dragon’s eggs. We managing the queuing systems, props and decorations, actors, costumes, sets, scripting and event management services on the event day. We were delighted to work alongside Premiere Circus and In Your Space Circus to provide a range of performers for the public to interact with and meet throughout the trail. This was part of an overall event led by the Council and it was important that the theme and activities complimented everything else taking place at this event, it was a real pleasure to be a part of and we really enjoyed watching so many families join in the fun!

Spooktacular

It’s hard to believe that we have been event managing the Halloween Spooktacular in Portadown People’s Park for five consecutive years now! This event has always been really popular and we have thoroughly enjoyed working alongside the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council to bring Spooktacular Tours to Portadown every Halloween. We are involved in the entire event management process, from event management plans, risk assessments, liaison with blue lights services, securing food and drink traders, security, first aid, Arts and Crafts, actors, scripting …and so much more.  This event involves a two-day set up and we have over ten staff on site setting up the day before- with staging, sound, lighting installations and pyrotechnics. We cast over 30 actors that lead groups through this interactive experience. From fairies appearing magically from underneath bridges, to gnomes being blasted by  CO2 guns and Zombies playing a rock concert, this event aims to bring you the unexpected and we stretch ourselves to surprise those attending. Every year we try to bring something new to the event and make sure that it is fresh and different for those attending- we try different approaches and then every year we are able to use this hindsight to discover what was successful, what could be improved and what can we change to make the event bigger and better each year.  We realise the importance of evaluating each project we are involved with to make sure that we are able to constantly diversify and adapt our services to best suit each client and their target audience. The combination of expertise amongst our team means that we can deliver a fully-rounded Event Management experience, taking the hassle away from our clients as they put their trust in us as experienced event delivery agents. Make sure and have a look at the highlights of this event by following this link.

Diamond Centre, Coleraine

We love partnering up with other companies, and Friendly Faces are a great local company that we often work alongside, complimenting each other’s services. This Halloween, we sent four actors along to the Diamond Centre in Coleraine as part of an Addam’s Family themed event. We sent Uncle Fester, Wednesday and the loved-up Morticia and Game Addams to interact with the public at this shopping destination. Going that extra step above and beyond, our performers sang and danced all day long…bet you never thought you would see a break-dancing Gomez?!

Ballymena Ecos Centre

A brand new event for us to be involved with this Halloween was the Ballymena Ecos Centre’s event delivered by the Mid and East Antrim Council. We decorated an interactive space that was used to host storytelling, a fancy dress competition and magic performances. We designed a space that would allow photo opportunities and an immersive experience for those attending and really enjoyed working with the Council to bring their vision into a reality for this event.

It was a very busy Halloween to say the least, with this being just a few of our highlights. If you have an idea, or want to have a chat to get some ideas together, then there has never been a better time to get in touch. We book up very quickly during seasons like Halloween so make sure and pop us a wee email as soon as you can, we recommend you get in touch with rebekah@bnlproductions.co.uk

Now, we have just enough time to pack up the skeletons and dragons and hang up our Wizard’s cloaks before the naughty elves and snowflakes come out in preparation for Christmas!

Summary of services provided:
• Storyboarding and Scripting
• Theatrical Direction
• Camera operation and Visual editing
• Event management
• Event co-ordination
• Site management
• Prop management
• Live Production

This project shows how our diverse and creative flair can be used with various production techniques as well as how style and approach can be moulded to suit specific products and clients.