There’s a new trend going on that will put a smile on some trick-or-treaters faces this Halloween. Parents of children suffering from food allergies often cringe at the upcoming age old tradition of trick-or-treating. Those parents are welcoming the teal-colored pumpkins that are popping up on porches everywhere. Those pumpkins are a symbol that the household is offering a non-food alternative for the little ghosts and goblins that come to their door.
The Teal Pumpkin Project was launched by Food Allergy Research & Education to create a safer, more enjoyable Halloween for all children. Offering items like toys, pencils, bracelets, stickers or crayons is a wonderful alternative for kids with restricted diets or food allergies.
We love this new trend! So, we came up with two creative Teal Pumpkin Projects that only Rosco customers could achieve. Be the talk of your block – add theatrical flair to your teal pumpkin so that it stands out from the rest of pumpkins on the block using one of these to two techniques.
Gut the pumpkin (if you’re making a Jack-o-Lantern), and make sure to clean and dry the surface. Apply 1 coat of Rosco Tough Prime and let it dry for 1-2 hours and then apply a second coat.
Apply one coat of Rosco Vivid FX 5260 Aquamarine and let dry for 1-2 hours. The orange of the pumpkin will want to bleed through, so we recommend at least two coats for decent coverage. For a really opaque look, give your pumpkin three coats of the Vivid FX. This will really make the color pop!
If you’re carving a jack-o-lantern, think about using a little Vivid FX 6252 Sunset Orange from the Vivid FX Sampler Kit to enhance the cut out parts of your jack-o-lantern.
Your UV pumpkins are now ready to adorn your front porch! The day-glo nature of the Vivid FX will already make your teal pumpkin stand out from the rest.
If you want to REALLY make the pumpkin pop on Halloween night – you need to bathe it in black light. UV fixtures like the Rosco Miro Cube UV will excite the UV pigments in the Vivid FX paint and make your teal pumpkins glow. This will not only impress your neighbors, but it’s a guaranteed way to get more trick-or-treaters to your door for those non-food items you’ve got for them.
One advantage entertainment technicians have over most of the general population is that we have easy access to ellipsoidals (like the ETC Source 4) and other gobo projectors.
One thing that struck us is how similar the Food Allergy Research & Education logo is to gobo #78105 Happy Pumpkin.
This inspired us to share this quick & easy way to project a teal pumpkin onto your house. Simply insert this pattern into whatever gobo projector you’ve got and add a sheet of Roscolux 375 Cerulean Blue to the front.
What an eye-catching way to let the kiddos know you’ve got non-food related goodies to hand out! But, if you REALLY want to grab their attention – give this a spin.
Put your pumpkin pattern into a gobo rotator! In this case, we’ve installed it inside the RevoPRO, which offered us a number of pre-programmed rotation choices. We set the RevoPRO into manual mode and chose program #1 – Swing 181°.
HA! Take THAT Pinterest-Perfect-Patty next door – this is WAY better than your bedazzled princess pumpkin! (Okay – actually, that’s pretty sweet) Be prepared for the “WHOAH’s” “COOL’s” and “AWESOME’s” the kids that visit your house will exclaim when they see a spinning pumpkin on your house!
Make Halloween a fun & safe event for all of the kids in your neighborhood this year. Pick up some non-food items when you’re at the store shopping for Halloween candy. If you’ve got questions, visit the Teal Pumpkin Project on the F.A.R.E. website.
Joel Svendsen October 27, 2015 Questions?
Marketing Director: Joel's Rosco career began in Rosco's Hollywood office in 1999 – first in sales covering the Western US and the Los Angeles Film & Television market, and then as Product Manager for Rosco's Film & Television Products. Joel's knowledge about Rosco's products and how they're used in each of our different marketplaces makes him well suited for bringing the stories in Spectrum to life.