Updated October 2026
Before the pumpkins go orange...
Halloween at the Entrance, the Window and the Street
One way to use Oddtoe...
The Halloween Package
For retail, entertainment, venue and brand marketing teams
Use Case: Halloween Window Displays & Activations
Oddtoe is an experiential design and generative-AI animation studio based in Melbourne, creating projection, installation, and animated work for events, venues, and galleries. This is a use case: how a brand, a venue or an attraction uses Oddtoe for a Halloween window display, entrance or installation, from the first drawing to the photograph people post. The worked example is one walk-in monster for a venue entrance, lit from the inside. The same steps apply to a window prop, a pop-up, a street, a costume or a projection on a building.
On the first night, imagine one enormous creature at the entrance, lit from the inside, with a queue of people waiting to photograph it. Oddtoe designs that, and you see it drawn on your own site before anything is made. The closest built work is a kids’ show piece: Oddtoe carved a 2.1-metre baobab for Babbling with Baobabs, a kids’ show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and ran live projection over it at Signal, the City of Melbourne’s arts space. A Halloween entrance is the same kind of project: a venue with its own rules, and people who came for something else.
Steal one of these
6 IDEAS FOR YOUR NEXT HALLOWEEN
Six projects a marketing team has in October. Each one mixes things Oddtoe makes: inflatables, built props, mascots, installations, projection and animation. Roll over a circle and pick the one your brand could pull off.
Want one of these for your entrance, window or street? Send the date and the site. Most of them start with a drawing of the place.
Let's look at three steps in the process...
Three Drawings from the Sketchbook
Oddtoe handles the first three stages of a Halloween piece: what the creature is, how it is drawn into your entrance or window, and how it is fixed, lit and approved by the people who run the site.
Ideation
What is the one thing at the entrance that makes a person stop and take a photo? A giant monster you can walk into, an eyeball in the window, a character peering over the roof. The idea, and what it has to do with your brand, gets worked out here, before anyone orders cobwebs.
Drawn into the Building
The creature is drawn in the space at the size it will be, with the doors, the queue line and people for scale. That drawing is what your venue manager approves, so it shows where it stands, how big it is and what holds it down. Once it is drawn at full size, you can see how big it really is.
Air, Power & Anchoring
Working out what the piece plugs into and what keeps it where it is. Where the fan gets its power, how it is anchored on a footpath or a car park, and what happens when the wind picks up. Rules differ by site, council and weather, so Oddtoe works through them with your team before anything is built.
What the marketing team counts afterwards...
What It Does to Your Numbers
One enormous creature at the entrance, lit from the first evening, and a queue of people who came for the scare. Out come the phones.
Afterwards the marketing team has a report to write, and it should be an easy one. Everything a Halloween campaign is for can be counted: tickets, photos and sales.
I like the tracking in place before the creature goes up. Oddtoe shares a founder with the Datalabs Agency, a data visualisation studio, so a dashboard that shows whether it worked can be part of the project.
Retail, venues, attractions, and brands
Who Commissions Work Like This?
Retailers, venues, attractions, festivals and brands with a Halloween to get through. The person who rings is usually in marketing, events or brand, and the project already has a date, a site and a budget line.
Retail marketing teams want the window and the in-store moment, and a photograph people share.
Venue and attraction managers want the entrance piece, up before the first night.
Festival and event teams want the walk-in creature and the photo moment that fills the feed.
Brand and campaign teams want a Halloween character that lives across the window, the screen and the social feed.
Councils and precinct groups want one object that brings people to the street, and a reason to stay. Agencies producing a Halloween campaign for a client are welcome too: see experiential marketing.
Drag the handle, or the drawing, to build it...
FROM FLAT DRAWING TO LIT CREATURE
The bit that is not a service
Why Oddtoe Likes Halloween
Halloween is the one brief where a brand is allowed to be a bit silly. I trained as a cartoonist, so the first thing I do is draw the creature that will sit in the window, on the screen and on the box.
I also make my own installation work, and an audience that came for a scare is the audience I like best.
The practical upside for you is that the person drawing the creature cares whether it works. I want the entrance to look right on the first night for the same reason your marketing team does.
It also helps that Halloween has a hard date. 31 October does not move, so we plan back from it.
Anchored, powered, and lit from the first night...
Designed to be Installed »
Down on the first of November, out again next year...
« Built to Come Down Again
Creatures, drawings, and the footage afterwards
What Does a Halloween Piece Actually Get?
The creature, the drawings it was approved from, the animation if it is projected, and the photos and video from the run. All of it is yours to keep, crate included.
• The creature — in this example one walk-in monster for an entrance
• The drawings — panel patterns your venue can file
• The animation — if projected, yours to run again
• Photos and video from the run
People tend to forget about the drawings. Your venue will ask for them the next time the piece goes up. They are part of the project, so they arrive finished.
It can be whatever the brief needs: a giant inflatable character, a built prop for the window, a costume, a walk-in installation, or a facade animated for the week. They are designed together, so what runs on the screen is the same thing that stands at the door.
Everything in the box
What the Package Covers
Ideation
We work out what the entrance needs to look like before we work out what to build. Bring the date, the site, and a plan of the entrance or the window.
Visualisation
The creature drawn on your site at the size it will be, with people for scale. Your venue manager signs off on a picture of the thing at the door.
Feasibility
Size, anchoring, power for the fan, wind and who has to say yes. Set up in daylight, and the date, which does not move.
Fabrication
Designed in Melbourne, built by the right maker for the piece, here or near you. Finished to photograph well after dark, and made to come down on the first of November and go back up next year.
Project Management
I run the project myself: visual progress reports, a plan against your date, and a run sheet for set-up day worked out with your venue and security teams.
Six
ideas to steal
One
creature, one photograph
Months
ahead of the season
Full
drawings and artwork
Dusk
to close, every night
Years
of reuse
A precedent, in a City of Melbourne venue
Why One Artist Designs All of It
A Halloween piece has to work three ways: as a character that reads from across the street, as a structure that stands up outdoors, and as something you can put up again. See installation art, prop design and inflatable art.
Oddtoe carved a 2.1-metre baobab for Babbling with Baobabs, a kids’ show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and ran live projection over it at Signal, the City of Melbourne’s arts space.
That project had what a Halloween entrance has: a venue with its own rules, lighting checked in daylight and run in the dark, and an audience who had come for something else.
For an inflatable, a costume or a prop, the design is done here and a specialist maker builds from the drawings. The crowd is the same: people who came for the scare, stopped by the creature. You see the finished creature on paper before you commit.
Where the Halloween budget actually goes
Stock Decorations, a Hire Package, or Something Drawn?
A Halloween budget usually has one line for the thing that makes the site different. Here is what that line buys three different ways.
| Stock inflatables | A hire package | A commissioned creature | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Bought again each year | A hire fee each season | One build, spread over several Halloweens |
| What people photograph | A design they have seen on other sites | The display, if it is not the same as next door | The creature, with your brand on it |
| Whose idea it is | A catalogue’s | The hire company’s | Drawn for your site and your brand |
| Approvals | Rarely an issue | Handled by the hire company | Drawn and agreed with your venue before the build |
| What you own afterwards | The inflatable | Nothing | The creature, the drawings and the footage |
Questions about
Halloween activations?
Interested in seeing more…
built work?
A 2.1-metre carved baobab, lit and projection-mapped, built for Oddtoe's children's show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
A church renovation with a sense of humor.
Sculpture design case study of Oddtoe's limited edition, "Roman General with Pinkeye".
Tell me the date and the site.
Got a Halloween coming up?
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