Halloween 2014 in Pictures

A week plus change after the event this is post is overdue, with images from the night still pouring in. Another year, another great evening in Cork City's Savoy courtesy of the crew behind the Freakscene club night, without whom there would be very little photographic evidence of our costume endeavours each year. This was the second year in which our costumes were featured on the poster for the event, which gave us a kick:

After a rather punctuated two months or so of construction, we finalised the costumes at roughly 9pm on Halloween night. It was a bit later than I'd hoped and what we had aimed for; by the time the 31st came around, we seemed to be cruising. In saying that, though, it wasn't a rushed or stressful day by any means (I still shudder thinking back to 2012). We were pretty much finished the characters before dinner, the rest of the evening dedicated to finishing the balcony. The support system (using our trusty braces for the third year running) took surprisingly long to attach. 

Upon executing those final touches, we lined up for some photos before heading out:

Leading up to the event we thought we might get away with taking one car for the first time since Halloween 2009, but the balcony was ultimately too wide to let it happen. As such, there was a third pair of hands on the scene to capture more images of us en route to our destination. Negotiating our way through the car park has become a trademark part of the evening; even more fun this year as we had to move as a single unit inside the balcony.

After walking through the city (with many stops along the way to pose for photos) we arrived at the sizeable queue outside the club. Let it never be said that I can't stand out in a crowd:

The above image, along with all of the following, were taken by Freakscene's David Hegarty, to whom I am again grateful for allowing me to share his great work here.

As usual, my friend Mark was on hand with a fantastic costume of his own, again tending to the industrial side of pop culture with his Brotherhood of Steel outfit from the Fallout series:

Continuing with the monochrome theme, here is us once we had negotiated all those stairs and finally made it into the club:

Now for a splash of colour:

Once again we found ourselves on the stage at the end of the night, subjected to the audience clap-o-meter:

And I'm delighted to say that for the fourth year running we scooped the prize. Victory fist-pump!

Here are a few others, including a group shot with Mark's Paladin, one with this year's contest judge, and a costume full of relatively recent nostalgia:

And finally, a shot of us as the night wound to a close:

This year was all the better for its falling on a Friday, meaning not having work to look forward to the day after for the first time in five years. Even better, we managed to get the costumes back on the night in a single car, not having to be as delicate with the balcony at the end of the night as we were at the beginning. As it turns out, we probably would have been fine; it held up surprisingly well after being Tetris'd into the just-about-accommodating Panda which brought us home.

As terrific as the Freakscene outing always is, it is the icing on the cake; my fondest memories are of slaving away at the construction of the costume, occasionally frustrating but always fun. Those memories will be recounted in a forthcoming post, in which I will outline the steps of the building process.