{"id":30159,"date":"2021-10-21T20:29:55","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30159"},"modified":"2021-10-21T20:29:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:29:57","slug":"follow-harry-potters-footsteps-with-carlyle-crescent-haunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/follow-harry-potters-footsteps-with-carlyle-crescent-haunt\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow Harry Potter\u2019s footsteps with Carlyle Crescent haunt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve ever wanted to walk in Harry Potter\u2019s footsteps, you don\u2019t have to look for Platform 9 \u00be — just head over to Carlyle Crescent for the Diana family\u2019s annual Halloween Extravaganza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To say Paul and Su Diana and their children are Halloween enthusiasts might be something of an understatement \u2013 and they\u2019re not letting a global pandemic get in the way of their fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gone is the walk-through haunted house and currently under construction are streetscapes so familiar to Harry Potter fans, which will transform their driveway and lawn into a COVID-safe open-air experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe love Halloween and we didn\u2019t want to stop things because of COVID,\u201d says Su. \u201cWe know how important it is for the community to still come out and still have things to do. We changed our walk-through, wanting to keep things nice and open and have people be able to flow through, walk on the driveway and see everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year was our first year doing Harry Potter, which we all loved. We had amazing feedback from families. Everyone loves Harry Potter \u2013 parents and kids \u2013 and we heard so many times where parent and kids said, \u2018Thanks for doing this. We just read the books to our family a few weeks ago,\u2019 so people were really excited about the Harry Potter theme, but this year we wanted to expand on it and build up sone new things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some new things this year include storefronts familiar to fans of both the books and the movies. The building of each piece is a family affair, with Paul estimating that they put approximately 100 hours a year in just to get it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have Aragog the spider, I am trying to do a Hagrid skeleton because he was pretty big, the Goblet of Fire with smoke shooting out of it \u2013 there are a lot of different parts of the movie we try to incorporate into this,\u201d says Paul. \u201cAt nighttime you will see more of a projection mapping onto the house, which is a Harry Potter theme, with some snapshots of the actual movie and other stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The projections are another new addition this year, which will provide attendees with an almost immersive experience outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt helps keep everything outside and in the open so you don\u2019t have to walk through a tight space or anything like that,\u201d says Su.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But are they converts to the open-air concept, or will a walk-through haunted house be a return to normal once the pandemic is behind us? That\u2019s the million-dollar question for the Diana family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am a convert of the open-air concept,\u201d says Paul to a chuckle from Su. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of time with the walk-through, but I like the open air because everyone can see [the effects] on at the same time. There are no restrictions on how many people can go in and there\u2019s a lot of stuff when you\u2019re doing the actual walk-through and to store the props.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI might throw up a tent one year when things are okay, but we\u2019re going with the flow and last year everyone was super-respectful of the space,\u201d adds Su, not prepared to commit to a fully open-air future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Diana family will welcome visitors to their open-air experience at 40 Carlyle Crescent in Aurora\u2019s southwest on evenings from October 29 \u2013 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no charge for admission but donations to the Aurora Food Pantry are encouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been asking the community to donate to the Food Pantry and we have been successful in previous years in bringing at least a couple of trucks,\u201d says Su. \u201cWe are definitely asking for that support from our community and thankfully the community always comes out and brings a lot of good things for the Food Pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it is all about the comments we get from the community and the excitement we see with the kids. Some of the kids in previous years got really super-scared, but they were okay, had fun and wanted to come back. For me, it is how can I create an experience for the community so they can just come around the corner and see something? The Food Pantry drive is very near and dear to our hearts, but this is our creative outlet. By November 1, we\u2019re already at Spirit Halloween thinking of themes. We\u2019re always trying to plan out something cool to do for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever wanted to walk in Harry Potter\u2019s footsteps, you don\u2019t have to look for Platform 9 \u00be — just head over to Carlyle Crescent for the Diana family\u2019s annual Halloween Extravaganza. To say Paul and Su Diana and their children are Halloween enthusiasts might be something of an understatement \u2013 and they\u2019re not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/2021-10-21-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7Qr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 13:37:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}