A wicKED opinion on yard haunt lighting.

I have spent a lot of time, money, and effort in lighting over the years at the Wicked Woods. I have had many questions about what kind of lighting, color, and placement. I figured I would just go over some basic experiences I've had with lighting. I will list some pros and cons for each.

When I first started, I was using incandescent "party" bulbs and incandescent colored flood lights. This is a basic bulb that has a colored paint over them. There are several problems with this:

1.  Heat! They get very hot! So you have to watch about materials getting close to them. I have had many a creepy cloth, foam head, or wooden coffin lid smoke and even catch fire because the wind whipped the light too close. 
2. Washed out color. You never get a true color with incandescent. Green looks almost minty. Red looks orange. Blue looks sorta greenish. They all have a bright white overtone to them.
3. They fade, crack, and peel so easy! What little color you get from them wont last. It will get worse as you use them. Constantly heating them up and cooling them off causes cracks, and peeling as well. 
4. Delicate! I have broken so many lights just putting them in the haunt...I don't even want to talk about it! If you go with this kind of light, be prepared to replace them due to breakage, color peel, and just plain old burning out!
5. "Black Light" bulbs just plain suck! 

There are a couple of good things about them such as:

1. They are cheap. Very cheap comparatively speaking!
2. They are available all over.

Green incandescent party bulbs.

Green incandescent flood lights. They just don't do the job and look sort of "minty"

A standard "green" floodlight and a standard "red"floodlight failing miserably.

I dealt with these kind of bulbs for a few years and then last year decided to upgrade.

2011 was the year I switched over to florescent and, over all, was pleased. They have a few downsides such as :

1. They cost a good deal more. Sometimes 5X or more what you would pay for a regular party bulb.
2. They are not as delicate as incandescent bulbs, but still require to be handled with care
3. The spiral bulbs sometimes will not fit in lamps that held standard light bulbs. The lamp fixture that holds the shades sometimes touch the bulb making it impossible to screw it in. 
4. Not as easy to find as standard bulbs.

The plus side to these bulbs far outweigh the negative such as:

1. They last a lot longer.... I mean a lot longer! Sometimes you pay 5x the price of a regular bulb, but you will get at least 5x the service.
2. Color is much MUCH better. Very vivid and almost true.
3. Light radius is HUGE and they are bright (sometimes too bright)
4. Much cooler to the touch. No worries about burning prop hair with these.
5. They use a mere fraction of the power that standard bulbs d0.
6. The "Black Lights" are hands down the best for UV reaction. 

Fluorescent bulbs gave me some beautiful eerie scenes but notice behind the tombstone that they are sometimes too bright.

It only took a few spiral bulbs to paint the whole haunt in color.

I really enjoyed using all florescent bulbs in my haunt last year, but sometimes the colors were just too bright, or not the true color I was looking for, which brings us to 2012!

I did a major overhaul with the lights and went with LED spotlights. So far, I am pleased with the change but they all have ups and downs. Some of the downs are:

1.  PRICE. Be prepared to pay out for quality lights
2. Availability. I tried to order some of these last year. I put the order in July and got them in November. You will mostly be ordering these online or paying out the wazzoo at Spirit Halloween.
3. The black light is almost as bad as iridescent bulbs. It is not really a black uv light but more of a very creepy purple! 

The upside of these guys is huge:

1. Durable. Good luck TRYING to break them
2. Coolest running lights hands down.
3. Longest lasting lights.
4. Lowest power consumption.
5. The truest, most vivid colors hands down.
6. The spot lights are great at washing a scene in color without lighting up the whole place.

Notice the vivid color while not lighting up the entire area.

The LED spotlights are great at highlighting props and leaving pockets of dark in between.

This is an example of the "black light" LED It is really just a purple light.

I use a good combo of both florescent and LED bulbs in the haunt. The incandescent bulbs are now dead and buried.

A florescent black light underneath and a blue LED spotlight from above.

So in a nutshell, if you are serious about your lighting, get rid of the standard bulbs. For the most vivid and containable lights, go for LED. For lighting large areas go florescent  If you need a "black light" do yourself a favor and just get the long tube florescent ones. They are absolutely the best... and I know a thing or two about UV reactive stuff :

I hope this little tour on lighting has helped you in some way. It is nowhere near as concise as I would have liked it to be, but time is on short supply anymore for old wicKED!