Update – November 25 2015
Some great news – after weeks of trying, our logistics gnomes have finally managed to rescue our most valuable tents ! They are now stored away safe and dry. (See The Fog story below). That’s our ‘Grand Medieval Rounds’. A couple of others are still in intensive care.
Plus Mary Brady (thank you) has sent us in some lovely photos she took at The Real Halloween. Here they are:
Here’s some news from The Real Halloween 2015. If you came, we hope you really enjoyed it.
WHAT PEOPLE SAID:
Here are some comments we’ve already seen:
Amazing time at The Fairyland trust Real Halloween at Holt Hall. Lantern parade was gorgeous and the attention to detail was everywhere – Katy C
Thank you for a truly magical day at Real Halloween on Friday. Our daughter Ruby was absolutely delighted to win first prize in the Veg-O-Lantern competition! -Becki J
We had a great time at Real Halloween ! Some fantastic conversation s with children just capturing their imaginations. Well done to all the team for your hard work. See you next year. – Linda B
Had a really good day out at Holt Hall today lots of fun our little Lyla loved the Witch Training, very amusing for Mum and Dad too!! – Daniel M
Thank you for another fab event!!!! We are all looking forward to May already!! Massive thanks to all the people that put together such a brilliant event xxx – Claire L
Another excellent event again today – Jackie S
Magical! 3rd year in a row for us at the Real Halloween. Thank you to all the staff who are always enthusiastic, entertaining, helpful & magical! Every year we find something new! Looking forward to Spring! – Hayley Strivens
Fabulous day once again. Many thanks the Lush family X – Gavin Neil Lush
We had such a great time. ‘Was our first fairyland trust event and my daughter loved it! I felt a tad under-dressed so will be digging out my wings and glitter for the next event!
Thank you on a great magical event – Christina N
Do you have something to say ? What would really help us is if you tell a friend about The Real Halloween, as despite it being so appreciated, we really struggle to get enough visitors to cover all the costs. Despite being shorter (due to short days) than the Fairy Fair it involves just as much work if not more, so more visitors would really help. So please tell a friend, and tell us why … “I would recommend The Real Halloween because …”
PICTURES
Have you seen our photos ? Look at our gallery (click to make bigger). Also a video of the Parade on the first night, here.
Have you got pictures to share ? If it’s video, please post it at Youtube or Vimeo and send us the link. If they are stills, please email us the files.
Here are some of the photos that visitors have already sent. Thank you ! (Special thanks to Amber, FineFolk, Christina and Mandina).
THE FOG
You may have noticed that fog descended shortly after The Real Halloween finished. And what fog it was. Our canvases had been slowly drying out after rain earlier in the week, and the forecast was for a dry sunny couple of days. This was really good news, as to pack canvas away wet means that it ends up with black mould all over it, potentially making our ‘medieval’ tents unusable (at a cost of over £3000 each).
So imagine the dismay of our logistics crew when they awoke early on Sunday morning to find the tents soaking absolutely wet. Plus the fog was due to last for days and our contract with Norfolk County Council specifies that we have to get off site within two days, so they couldn’t be left up to dry out naturally. Disaster !
After a lot of quick head scratching (as our stores are too small to hang up anything large to dry in), and several kind offers of help, they put the (now extremely heavy) tents in a trailer and transported them to a barn in South Norfolk. There they had to install a rope and pulley system, and start the slow process of (hopefully) drying them out.
The tonne of wet tent effect
The crew are still trying to dry out the kit, not helped by damp air and little wind. (If anyone has a large clean heated space which we could use to hang up large tents to dry in future, please do get in touch !) Hopefully the tents can be salvaged.
The income from our events can’t cover this sort of eventuality so we are really grateful to everyone who is a Supporter because without your regular contributions year-round, we wouldn’t be able to do such essential work and there would be no Real Halloween or Fairy Fair. So many thanks. (You can join the Fairyland Trust as a Supporter here)
AND FINALLY
Thanks to all the crew and volunteers who worked so hard to create and put on the event, from volunteers in the cafe to the Rubbish Fairies and Workshop Leaders. The whole purpose is to introduce children to nature, and we reached over a thousand children through the two days, plus assorted adults of course. So they learned about native trees in Magic Wands, about the ways to identify magical corvids in Wizard Training, and some wild potion herbs in Witch Training, and much more besides. We were also really pleased with our new Broomsticks Workshop which flew along.
Adding more magic in Witches Broomsticks
Any questions ? Just ask
PS we have some lost property including a purse with some pocket money in it. If it might be yours, email us with a description.
