Philosophical and Social Issues

There are several issues that confound and perplex haunters, or provide fertile food for argument. We have collected some of them here, along with the arguments for and against. You are going to have to make up your own mind on these. We are merely providing food for thought.

We distinguish between:

Philosophical and Social Issues - "Should I buy one or build it from scratch?" [this page]
Concrete Design Issues - "I'm building one. What color should I paint it?"

Financial Tradeoffs
Other Issues
Related Pages

Financial Tradeoffs

Build it or buy it?

There are many bits and pieces of a haunt where one must choose: build it or buy it. One is often attracted by the low cost of a home-made unit, and in many cases there is a lower price on parts and materials for do-it-yourself projects. Take, for example, the creation of synchronized thunder and lightning effects - a subject dear to my heart.

Terror By Design offers a pre-built lightning box, complete with a CD full of instant lightning storm for $90. Just set the box on your stereo and plug a lamp into it.

Despite the easy availability of this complete solution, every once in a while, somebody posts a question to the Halloween mailing lists looking for a color organ schematic. Or maybe they search the web and find one. And that free schematic sure sounds better than $90 from the store.

But consider the hidden costs:

one or more shopping trips to find the parts
a case to put the thing in
knobs and switches
shopping for a CD with good thunder sounds

And when you have all the bits and pieces in one spot, there's the manual labor involved in building the thing. The part that I usually find the most cumbersome is the layout, cutting, and finishing required to transform a generic "project box" into a case that looks good with the complete unit in it. And if the complete gadget doesn't work, who is going to help you fix it? And it gets even worse if you don't have a schematic and have to design the gadget from scratch.

Let's say the parts retail for a total of $25. Doing the work and shopping takes 5 hours, and your time is worth a paltry $20/hour. Your "cheap" lightning cost $125 - well over the cost of the commercial solution.

Let's all be honest about this: for many projects, the time and effort that you spend increases the total cost to at or above the cost of a commercial unit.

This issue is certainly not limited to fake lightning. It also comes up under the subject of "make your own fog juice", "make skeleton hands from coathanger and masking tape", and "make your own latex masks".

Here are the tradeoffs as I see them...

Building it yourself:

educational
thrill of having done it yourself
some things you can't just go out and buy
hidden costs: R&D, shopping, labor, debugging
customized to your tastes

Buying ready-made:

complete cost known in advance
little or no labor required
engineering design work already done for you, usually at a professional level
warranty
chain of liability to manufacturer if something goes badly wrong

Note that kits fall between these two extremes. They tend to be cheaper than the full commercial unit; the R&D is done for you; and most, if not all, of the parts are provided.

The decision is yours.

Cheap versus quality tools.

My haunt-buddy David bought a set of drill bits at Harbor Freight. The set was very inexpensive and looked good. When he tried to use them, he found that several of the bits were warped: when properly placed in the chuck, the tip wobbled around. Was that inexpensive set of drill bits a good deal? Would he have been better off buying a quality set of drill bits that would be perfect out of the box and last for years - at four or ten times the price?

Maybe. There is no question that the quality of the merchandise was poor, but the price was very attractive.

What if David bought the set because it was the same price as a single drill bit of true quality? So he needed only 1/20 of the set, and only needed that to drill one special hole. If you think of it that way, the other bits in the set were tossed in for free. You could throw away the bad ones and still be ahead in the game.

Understand this: high quality costs more money. Period. In the long run, the cheap stuff won't last as long as the quality tools. And in some applications, they might not do as good a job.

But maybe the cheap stuff is still a deal if you know what you are getting into and consider the cheapies to be disposable.

The decision is yours.

Name Brand vs House Brand

[This issue is somewhat related to Cheap versus quality tools.]

In December 2003, reader Eric Nelson dropped me an e-mail saying

Campbell Housefeld manufactures Sears Craftsman and Home Depot Husky compressors (probably others as well). Many compressors made by a single manufacturer are simply "re-branded" for marketing purposes.

And I don't doubt him a bit! In fact, I already knew that Sears Kenmore washers and dryers were for a time made by White Westinghouse.

This makes a lot of sense. After all, Sears sells their own brand of refrigerators, wrenches, and basketballs. Would it really make sense for them to build a new factory every time they wanted to branch out into another product?

It is actually common for stores to contract with existing manufacturers to make products to be sold under the store's own label.

But here's something to watch out for. Sometimes rebranding is more than a different paint job on an existing product. When Sears contracts with Campbell Housefeld to make a batch of Craftsman compressors, Sears might say "and sell them cheaper to us because you can relax the following specifications..."

The decision is yours.

Hobby hacks versus professional grade.

This issue is similar to the choice of "cheap versus quality tools", but this one deals with materials, components, and the product, not the tools that make it. The distinction is important - after a cut is complete, you might not be able to tell that it was made with an expensive saw or a cheap one. But if you are machining a metal hook to hold a chandelier above the heads of your patrons, it makes a difference whether the material is aluminum or steel.

This issue also contains some of the elements of "build versus buy", because commercial products are often assumed to be built to a higher quality standard than stuff that you throw together in your basement.

As an example of this issue, let us examine an issue that was debated on Halloween-L during the first week of July, 2000 - the use of improvised air cylinders made from screen door closers, bicycle pumps, and PVC tubing.

During the course of the discussion, which became quite heated, numerous points were made.

Buying commercial air cylinders:

little or no labor required
engineering design work already done for you, at a professional level
warranty (depending on where you got it)
chain of liability to manufacturer if something goes badly wrong
materials and design exceed haunt requirements by a wide safety margin

Hacking up your own air cylinders:

requires labor and shopping around for materials
nobody can agree on a really good design, but everybody loves the way they did it. :-)
liability is all yours if something goes badly wrong
materials and design might meet haunt requirements, but with small or unknown safety margin
ill-constructed or abused homebuilt cylinders have been known to fail catastrophically

[A similar debate raged a few months later, over fog machines. The chief contenders were the home-made ones that drip glycerine over an inverted clothes iron; "free fog" oil crackers; and the commercial $49 glycol fogger from MCM electronics.]

The decision is yours.

Full-service stores.

There is a certain hardware store that is precious to me. If you are lucky, you have one near you. You know the kind - a little Mom and Pop operation, where they know their stock, take the time to make sure you are happy, and have a little bit of everything.

Then there are the giant home warehouse stores, like Home Depot. They sell in huge volume, and can pass along a great price. They have almost anything that you would want, but not a large assortment of brands and styles. I have stumbled on an occasional gem of a salesman there, but too many of them don't know their stock.

Special note for haunters - Much of what we do is improvised, taking bits and pieces of things intended for some other use and pressing them into service for haunting. It has to be that way, because our needs are specialized, the market small, and vendors scarce. How many stores do you know that can provide you with a complete low-lying fog system for your graveyard: fog machine, chiller, distribution manifold, and booster fans - ready to plug and go? Thus we use our imaginations and adapt things. A really good salesman can help you brainstorm things that could be adapted to get your job done.

So, do you go for the cheap warehouse store, or the Mom and Pop with higher prices, but excellent service? Nor is this issue limited to hardware stores. When you need music for your haunt, do you go to the big chain or smaller shop? If you want a strobe, should you get it at Wal-Mart, Spencer's, or Halloween Club?

The decision is yours.

Buying B-Stock and Used equipment.

You always pay a premium price when you buy something that is brand-new. Substantial savings can be had in purchasing less-than-new equipment. Such purchases can take many forms: auction, swap meet, classified ad, pawn, demo/showroom models, B-stock.

I first ran into the term "B-stock" when I was looking for some lighting equipment - gobo scanners, to be precise. The exact definition of B-stock varies from dealer to dealer. It can include demo/showroom models, samples, customer returns. B-stock often comes without manual or original box, but usually carries some kind of warranty. In the case of the gobo scanners, I bought them from a web site after carefully reading their description of what constituted B-stock. When they arrived, all four were disappointments, ranging from missing screws in vital places to huge dents. It's not that I minded a huge scratch, but the web site policy didn't mention that. I kept the scratchers and sent back the one with the huge dent - the company made good. I have dealt with the company since then, but always remind myself that their definition of B-stock includes lightly damaged equipment.

My second encounter with B-stock was a pair of DMX color changers that I bought on e-bay. After the auction closed, the vendor e-mailed me to tell me how nice the units were. He told me that they were actually new-in-box, but being sold as B-stock because the manufacturer didn't like new equipment sold at auction. The vendor said "I just opened the boxes long enough to test them". When the units arrived, one had a disturbing rattle, neither one would function. They were both easily fixed - there were loose parts inside. One could have possibly have shaken loose during transportation. The rattle in the other was an internal fuse that should have been held in place with a cover; any jolt sufficient to shock that internal fuse loose should have left big scars on the shipping container. I'm guessing that the vendor lied about having tested the units.

I sometimes joke that "B-stock" means "broken", and have become deeply suspicious of any company selling lighting and DJ equipment. I think of them as most people do used-car dealers. But I still buy B-stock off of web sites of a few dealers in lighting and DJ equipment. I still buy equipment on e-bay. I'm just very careful now - and you should be, too.

Here are some tips:

When buying mail-order, electronic auction, or on the web, get a complete description of the condition of the equipment.
Get the name of anybody you talk to on the phone. Be friendly and call them by name. Later on, you might need to say "I spoke to Bill on Thursday and he assured me that the fog machine works."
Anything that is said over the phone might be later denied. Get details in writing, at least in the form of e-mail with the name of the employee on it.
Read and understand the return policy of the seller. Pay special attention to "restocking charges".
Make sure that you have the right to return the stuff if it doesn't look and perform as described. Some companies may be reluctant to send you back your money, but will happily exchange a unit.
Keep the original packaging, undamaged, until you are certain the unit is acceptable.
As soon as you get the thing, try it out! If it doesn't work, send it back immediately, complying with every aspect of the seller's merchandise return policy.

Pain threshold - time saved versus dollars paid

A lot of these deep philosophical issues can be answered by considering the pain threshold; time saved versus dollars paid.

In the summer of 2002, I was looking for a new audio mixer. I had advertisements from Radio Shack, SLD Lighting, and Sam Ash. Each company had a nice mixer, normally $150, on sale for $99. I knew the parameters of all the machines; they were all approximately equivalent. All I had to do was visit Radio Shack (10 minutes away), then drive to Sam Ash (20 minutes away) and see which one looked nicer. Suddenly, I realized that the extra comparison shopping was going to cost me nearly an hour. Better just to buy the one at the Shack; specs being similar. Perhaps the knobs on the Sam Ash machine would have looked nicer to me, but I saved an hour out of my life, and got something that worked fine.

Should you cast your own Gargoyles, or just buy them from Distortions Unlimited? It costs more to buy them, but how many days will it take to sculpt the original, cast a mold, and cast the latex?

Buy it now, or wait for a sale?

How many times have you seen something that you would love to buy, but it costs a little more than you want to pay? Perhaps it's a great prop, ready-to-haunt. Or maybe a Christmas decoration that you think can be turned into a great Halloween prop. And you're sure that, if you wait just a little while, it will go on sale.

Should you buy it now, or wait until the sale?

Personally, I find this a hard choice to make.

Some items do indeed go on sale later for less money. And if you can buy it for half price later, that's money saved for other Halloween projects.
In fact, some items are guaranteed to go on sale later - like seasonal merchandise after the season.
The commercial life cycle suggest that seemingly unique items will inspire competition and eventual lower prices.

But

But sometimes seasonal merchandise sells out, and isn't available for post-season shopping.
Sometimes competition never appears, and the prices stay high.
Or the manufacturer just stops making them.

So, you are gambling. If you win, you get a better price. If you lose, the price stays the same, or goes up, or the merchandise disappears.

My current system is that, if I know that I really want the item, and the price isn't too painful, and the item is selling well - I buy one. If the sale materializes later, I can buy another!

Should you buy the thing that's on sale?

So, there's this nifty thing on sale. It might be a plastic skeleton for 50% off the day after Halloween. Should you buy it?

Perhaps the sale price will drop even lower later. This is a disguised form of "Buy it now, or wait for a sale?"
Perhaps you will never really figure out what to do with the thing.
That skeleton will take up space for a year, perhaps getting damaged in storage, and cost money now - to save money for next year.
Or the manufacturer just stops making it, and if you don't get it now, it's gone.

I think that the answer to this one depends on your powers of observation and planning.

There are some items that are in constant demand by the public, will always be available at one price or another, and are sometimes predictable on sale. My favorite example is brass pneumatic quick-connect couplers at Harbor Freight. The set of five is predictably on sale in about every other flyer. So I have one spare package on hand that I bought on sale. If I have an immediate need, it can probably be satisfied from that small stash. And if I ever have a big need, I can predict it far enough in advance that I can wait until the next sale.

Please consider preparation of post-season buys for next year.

Should you buy "grab bag" kits?

Most vendors of electronic parts offer bundles of assorted parts. Depending on the vendor, they might be called "grab bags", "value packs", or in the case of the late and lamented Poly-Paks "Barrel Kits". Some outfits will sell carbon composition resistors or disc capacitors "by the pound" or "by the scoop".

Should you buy these things?

First, be aware of the origins of these parts. It can come from many different sources:

a company made ten thousand, but only sold half of those; they are discontinuing the line and want to dispose of parts that are otherwise good; the supposedly good parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company made ten thousand thingies, and then found a way to make the part perform 75% better; they are discontinuing the line and want to dispose of parts that are otherwise good; the good but obsolete parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company made ten thousand parts and sold them to another company who built things out of them; the builder had some problems and sent back some of the parts, claiming they were bad; the probably bad parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company made ten thousand parts and sold them to another company who built things out of them; the builder had some problems and sent back all of the parts, claiming that too high a percentage were bad; the mixed lot of good and bad parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company made ten thousand parts and sold them to another company who built things out of them; the builder has designed a new model product and wants to dispose of parts that are otherwise good; the supposedly good parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company made ten thousand parts on a contract to the government; the government cancelled the contract, leaving the company with tons of high-quality bits, so specialized that nobody else wants them; the excellent parts were sold for cheap to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House
a company bought ten thousand parts to build into their product, but the automated manufacturing machine occasionally jams, bending a couple of parts; whenever the machine jams, they clean out the bent part, and whatever other parts are in the hopper, and dump it in a barrel; once a month, the company sells the contents of the barrel, which contains some mangled parts and many good ones, to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House as "floor sweepings"
a company goes out of business, and somebody buys a pile of stuff at the bankruptcy auction; nobody knows whether the parts are good, bad, or what - they might even have nonstandard "house numbers"; a load of the stuff is eventually sold to Your-Favorite-Surplus-House

So, should you buy this kind of stuff?

It turns out to be a trade-off similar to "Pain threshold - time saved versus dollars paid". What you are getting is a good, sometimes exceptional, deal on stuff that may contain duds. What you lose is the time and frustration spent in checking out the parts to see which ones work and which ones don't.

For a company to stay in business, it seldom makes sense for them to buy such deals. They have to buy from a reputable vendor, who not only is willing to replace all defective parts, but almost never sends them bad parts to begin with.

When I was a kid, I had very little pocket money, and liked to play with electronics. A single LED from Monsanto would cost several dollars from the nearby electronics store. But I could buy 100 of them from Poly-Paks for the same price. All I had to do was spend an hour with a battery and resistor, sorting them into bags of "good", "dim", and "dead".

For the hobbiest, especially one on a tight budget, availability of dirt cheap parts of questionable quality can make the difference between experimenting with new technology or just pining away.

If you do decide to take this route, make sure that you buy from a vendor who is honest about the level of quality - or lack thereof.

Buying cheap: find the industry where it's commonplace

Just about any product that you can imagine has numerous possible uses, often in very different fields. In some areas, the product will be considered rare, new, or exotic - with a correspondingly high price and low availability. In another area, the same or similar product may be a staple that is easily available for cheap.

It is often possible to drastically reduce the cost of an item by finding the industry that uses it in huge quantities, and getting it there.

Here are some examples to give you the idea:

If you wanted to make fireworks out of black powder, you would need potassium nitrate.

You could get it at your local chemical supply house. It would probably be of high-purity, in small containers, and cost a lot.

You could get it from a specialized supplier of fireworks chemicals. Since they know that the intended use does not require such high purity, the material would be a little less pure, but acceptable for the purpose of fireworks manufacture. Since potassium nitrate is used a lot in fireworks, the containers would be larger, and the price would be lower.

Or you could find a brand of fertilizer that is 98% potassium nitrate. Since it is used in huge quantities, it comes in a 20-pound bag, for not much money. The only lingering question is if this alternate source is of sufficient quality for the purpose you intend.

Perhaps you want to make a special makup effect. You need some alginate to make a casting.

You might go to a special-effects supply company.

You might find some at your local arts and crafts store.

You might go to a dental supply house. Dental alginate is exceptionally pure, because it's going to go in your mouth - that adds to the cost. But the industry uses it in vast quantities - which lowers the cost.

You need some 12 Volt lamps for an upcoming electronic project.
When I was a kid, I would go down to Bergman's Hardware Store, where they had a good supply of low voltage lamps, intended as replacements for flashlight bulbs. Selection was moderate, but nobody else carried lamps like that, so his prices were stiff.
Big chain hardware stores like Home Depot have replaced corner shops like Bergman's Hardware Store. They stock a smaller selection - only what sells well. Their price is a little lower.
Nowadays, you can go to specialized stores that sell nothing but lamps and lighting. They probably have a wide assortment, but charge a bit more.
Or you can wait until Christmas approaches, when large quantities of low-voltage lamps are available for very little money.

Other Issues

China, Inc.

David has a theory about a place he calls "The Factory". Let's say you want to buy a rake. You find three or four kinds, all being priced near $20. This goes on for years, until a new brand of rake shows up. It's $10, and not quite as good as the $20 version, but still an irresistable deal. Soon, there are three other brands of $10 rake, virtually indistinguishable from the first $10 rake. Perhaps only the box is different. The three cheap rakes silently battle for shelf space, and prices drop a bit. The $20 rake doesn't stand a chance and starts disappearing from most stores. After a year or two, the $10 rake suddenly vanishes. And the few places still selling the old $20 rake now charge $30 for it. And then you notice that there's a new shovel that sells for $10.

With tongue in cheek, David suggests that there is some huge factory that tools up for the production of one item a year. During that year, they blow out all the competition. Then they go on to a new product.

David's theory certainly matches my observations. Usually, the factory is "China, Inc.".

And they now realize that there is a virtually untapped Halloween market out there.

Some of the stuff will be of reasonable quality. Some will be shabby. But count on: low price, mass quantities, and eventual disappearance.

Here are some products that were formerly specialized, but became cheap and easy to find:

1999 - black lights make a comeback
2000 - $10 strobe lights
2001 - $35 silk flames, $40 glycol foggers
2004 - $20 glycol foggers

This phenomena is related to:

Cheap versus quality tools.
Seen it before!
Commercial Life Cycle

Seen it before!

Ron Tye tells a story about one of his neatest effects for Halloween 2000. He bought a "Talking Through Boris" animated skull and mounted a miniature video camera in the nasal cavity. This gave him the ability to see the kids and interact with them through the skull [what we at Wolfstone call "shrubbing"].

On Halloween night, nobody was much impressed with his costly work. One teen girl loudly told her friend how another friend "has one just like that", and went on to babble about Boris.

It really takes the air out of a scare when the little beasts have "seen that before!"

I suspect that this problem takes on two distinct forms. Ron's problem was that the skull was recognizable as Boris, despite the clever use of other enhancing technology. Perhaps if he were to visibly customize the skull some more, or craft up an unexpected setting that would make the commercial product less recognizable, he would have fared better.

The larger problem, and one that is much more disheartening, is when the scare is completely built from scratch, with blood, sweat, and tears - perhaps even unique - only to be confused with a cheap mass-produced effect from China, Inc. I just wait until they start making Flying Crank Ghosts! [Historical note: The first mass-produced FCGs subsequently appeared in 2002.]

Well, cheap mass-produced props and effects aren't going away. We need to adapt ourselves to their presence, and take advantage of them.

Here are some ideas:

The mass-market stuff tends not to be too scary. Perhaps they want to keep a light note. Perhaps they are afraid of frightening off customers. For the nonce, we own real horror. Well, Distortions and us. :-)
Mass-produced products have a definite life cycle. In 1997, Douglas Firs were a hot new item for Christmas; expensive. In 1999, Douglas Firs were cheap. In 2000, they were hard to find. So, if you buy some decent mass-market stuff now, and deploy them in three years, nobody will recognize them!
Start with the commercial stuff, and "spook it up" a little. Let the mass-market buys do the hard work for you, like molding plastic and creating electronics. Then customize it to suit your tastes.

Commercial Life Cycle

I don't have formal training as an economist, but it is obvious that products have a life cycle. This is painfully evident in the situation that David calls "The Factory" (China, Inc.).

The life cycle seems to go like this:

Product first appears
Just one or two manufacturers. Innovation at high prices.
Copycats
Several manufacturers jump on the band wagon, making carbon copies. Prices drop.
Wholesale copying chaos
Everybody's making this thing.
Manufacturers try to make it cheaper so they can sell it for less:
- Quality drops as manufacturers cut corners.
- Specifications drop, such as foggers going from 700W to 400W.
- Size drops, so the article requires less material to make and is cheaper to ship.
Prices drop as competitors cut each others throats.
Commodity
Everybody's making this thing. Most versions are small, cheap, and flimsey.
Prices hit a low when there isn't any profit left.
Differentiation
Since the product is now a commodity, manufacturers try to get your business by making their product different and/or better than the competition:
- New bells and whistles are added, like timers and wireless remotes on fog machines.
- Expect minor cosmetic changes, like colored/transparent cases with a "high-tech" look.
- Gimmicks appear, like the interchangable "faces" that snap on the front of a Gemmy fogger.
Prices stay about the same: there already isn't much profit there.
Vanishment
Extreme competition has driven prices so low that there isn't enough profit. Most manufacturers drop the product and make something else. The product may disappear entirely, or one or two companies may continue making it.
Prices go up.

The lesson: If you can buy at precisely the right time in the life-cycle, you get an excellent array of choices, with low prices. If you buy early, you pay too much. If you buy late, you may pay too much, or be unable to find the item.

You might be interested in related pages:

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