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The Scarlet Letter Archive |
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Halloween 2001 at Westport Plaza and the Central West End |
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| On the weekend before
Halloween 2001, I had the opportunity to follow up my previous article
on what generally wins at costume contests. My goal was to compare what
people came up with to my observations on what I believed the judges
picked at these things. There are all sorts of events that take place
each year, here in St. Louis, but three of the most popular are the one
in the Central West End, the progressive one at Westport Plaza, and the
one down on Laclede's Landing. Each have big sponsors, several nearby
bars, and pretty decent prizes for the winners. Trying to make all three
was not very feasible, so I chose the ones closest to home - the CWE and
Westport. Since the contestants in the CWE all had to be registered by
10 PM, I only had to wait until that time to make sure I'd seen them
all. By the time I got to Westport Plaza, all the likely entrants would
be hanging around for one of the final contests of the evening, at 11
PM. My observations on what wins were pretty much borne out in both
contests: That which the audience/judges can relate to better stands a
better chance.
I was impressed by the majority of costumes I saw at the Central West End. Sure, there were the usual numbers of rubber masks and cheap storebought costumes worn by the audience. Many competition costumes though, while constructed inexpensively, were clever and effective in their representations. Interestingly, there was a somewhat older crowd at this one, which perhaps kept down the number of crude sexual sight gags. Muppets popped up in at least 2 entries I saw. Someone made clever use of dryer lint and small toys to come as a tornado (I've heard of a similar idea with a hurricane). Guys in drag were farily common, with two groups standouts. The first group was a "hag drag" trio in beehive wigs. Really, really frightening. The second group was much larger, with really spectacular showgirl-type costumes. This elaborate group had apparently won in the past with other entries, including something about Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds". Oh, and there were a trio of bartending Elvis impersonators at the beer stand. I wasn't able to stay and watch the judging, but I'm fairly confident that the large group of showgirl costumers won the top prize, because they got a lot of attention from the crowd as they milled about waiting for the contest to start. Many people were taking their pictures and asking questions about their costumes. |
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| The contestants at Westport
Plaza were mostly younger and creative in a different manner. There were
fewer media-related costumes and more original ideas. There were
"Bathing Beauties" in little bath shower costumes (balloons
for bubbles), a Carl the Groundskeeper (from "Caddyshack"), a
kleenex box and big nose Iagaina, with balloon props - figure it out
yourself) and an impressive gladiator costume made entirely from
cardboard and aluminum foil. A couple of regulars to the contests were a
guy walking around with a motorcycle attached to his body (with sound
effects, lights and a rider on the back) and a skeletal figure pushing a
shopping cart with body parts in it. In this second one, the guy sat in
the card with his head pokingout the top and he used his disguised feet
(the figure's) to push himself backwards.
The winners at the one contest I observed: A guy who adapted a Three Stooges trio mask into 3 of the members of the rock group Kiss, the Kleenex and Nose duo, and First place went to a woman who was the "spittin' image" of Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies show. Word has it she's won at the plaza before. So, at Westport Plaza it seemed that original concepts were rewarded, although the judges or audience didn't always pay close attention to who won contests previously. So there you have it. Three of the most important elements in your Halloween contest costume are that it is familiar to the audience and judges, it's fun, and you appear to be having fun. I have to pass along this little tip: If you're going to an outdoor evening venue and you want to take pictures of subjects no more than 15' away, try 1600 ASA film. With only the small fill flash on my Pentax camera and street lights for illumination, I got exceptional results. I was exceptionally pleased with quality and sharpness of the photos |
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