Dracula Prop Progress

We started doing the wardrobe for Dracula sitting on his throne last night and it proved to be a rather daunting task. The sitting PVC pipe mannequin refused to cooperate and we had to lock down several of the pipe joint fittings with screws. We ended up having to use our medium sized black "monk's robe", which was intended for one of 5' tall skeleton props, on Dracula. The large sized one looked like a tent on the sitting mannequin and was covering up the entire seating area on the throne. Then we realized after adding a white collar to the mannequin that the head was indeed sitting too low on the mannequin and had to install a taller 1/2" neck pipe. Then we tried adding our fancy red lined black satin "magician's cape" and the fabric was just too heavy on the mannequin and was next to impossible to reposition on it without messing up the rest of the costume. Luckily we had still had an old red costume cape from the late 90's that's very lightweight polyester. We then realized we needed to cover up the skull hand rests on the throne with the cape because tucked along the sides of the seat the cape didn't have a natural flowing appearance and looked horrible. So after over 2 hours of fighting with the mannequin we were finally finished. We still need to add an extension of fabric to the leg section so the robe just touches the ground, but we had to do the same thing with the demon prop sitting on the throne last Halloween. So Dracula is pretty much ready to go, but last night's wardrobe fitting for the sitting Dracula mannequin is precisely why we do all of this stuff early. Since we only put out the haunt for 2 or 3 days at most for Halloween depending on the weather, we don't get a lot of time to solve problems like a haunt that's up for a few weeks in October does. We've been in situations in the past where we made last minute runs to the hardware store or Jo-Ann Fabrics on Halloween morning in hopes of solving an issue with a prop or mannequin. The more things we figure out now, the easier the haunt setup is on Halloween! And because we're gluttons for punishment, we're adding a 5th mannequin to this year's haunt. We'll post an update on that one when the ordered materials hopefully arrive and aren't out of stock/back ordered. We've been reading about a lot of shortages affecting Halloween decorations, even Halloween candy this year, so we may not be able to pull off the 5th mannequin.