Wednesday Wishlist: Halloween in the Park (Part XI)

Keeping with San Jose Blog tradition, in October we have a "wishlist" post for Halloween in the Park. The idea is to build on the momentum that Christmas in the Park brings to San Jose each year and create something of similar scale for the month of October with Halloween in the Park! A lot of the infrastructure such as wiring, lighting, and booths might even be able to be shared between the events. The goal would be to make Downtown San Jose the epicenter of October Halloween experiences.

Below you will find brainstorming ideas we have collected for this concept so far over the years. Please have a look and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

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The largest draw to Downtown San Jose for many years now has been Christmas in the Park. It has continued to grow year after year and brings in visitors from all over the Bay Area. It's economic impact is substantial and helps keep many Downtown businesses and restaurants alive.

What would you think about a similar event for Halloween? Picture Downtown lit up in orange and purple with elaborate Halloween displays assembled by local artists. Perhaps infrastructure could even be shared with Christmas in the Park (e.g. retail booths). A strong event in October would help maintain traffic between the summer months and Christmas in the Park. Here are the ideas we have so far:

• Animated Halloween Displays
• Created by local artists
• Analogous to the Christmas displays that attract many families during Christmas in the Park (almost half a million visitors)
• Family friendly so that everyone can enjoy it (PG/PG13, perhaps around the same level as Great America Halloween Haunt)
• Halloween Lighting
• Orange, purple, and green LED lighting on trees
• May be possible to use new programmable LED lighting that can go from Halloween colors to Christmas colors with the push of a button, allowing the lights to stay up for Christmas in the Park as well and reducing setup/take-down costs.
• Halloween Food
• Booths with candied apples, chocolates, candy, pumpkin seeds, etc.
• Food trucks
• Trick-or-treating station - a free piece of candy to anyone wearing a costume any day in October (could also be used to hand out promotional flyers for Downtown events/businesses/resources)
• Retail Booths selling Halloween items, for example:
• Artwork (paintings, glass pumpkins, etc.)
• Home decor/crafts like candles
• Light-up hats/necklaces/bracelets
• Costumes
• Zombie/Halloween make-up station 
• Halloween-themed Carnival Games
• Pirates of Emerson and Candlelighters (Fremont) do a good job of providing family-friendly games themed around Halloween
• A handful of children's rides could also be added to the Paseo and reused for Christmas in the Park
• Interactive Art
• Subzero/ZERO1-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Halloween-themed video game kiosks and/or arcades
• Pumpkins
• Instead of the sponsored Christmas trees in Christmas in the Park, how about decorated Pumpkins (can even be Styrofoam so there is no mess/decay)?
• Pumpkin carving station for families. 
• Pumpkin carving contest.
• Costumed Entertainers
• Walking around the area, not necessarily scaring people but adding to the ambiance and providing photo opportunities for families
• Haunts / Mazes
• Would be ideal if these were nearby, perhaps in vacant retails spaces, surface parking lots, the San Jose Convention Center tent, or at SJSU.
• Could partners with one of the established San Jose haunt providers such as Deadtime Dreams or The World's Largest Haunted House.
• Potential Events
• Zombie-O-Rama can be used to kick off Halloween in the Park (late Sep. / early Oct. time-frame)
• Zombie Crawl
• Dia De Los Muertos Events
• Halloween/Dia De Los Muertos Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball

Inspirations:

• Candle Lighters
• Pirates of Emerson
• The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze (photos below)

The new San Jose Light Tower is moving forward

San Jose is a city that has been in search of an internationally recognizable landmark for quite some time. Fortunately, a grassroots organization has come together with a mission to do just that. The San Jose Light Tower Corporation (SJLTC) is a nonprofit with the goal of building a world-class iconic structure that will represent our city for generations.

The project is broken down into four phases, and is surprisingly far along.



Phase 1 - Launch the Documentary: The Light Between Two Towers 

FUNDED. This exciting film by Thomas Wohlmut ties the historic San Jose Light Tower (built in 1881) to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It has been in the works for 8 years and will finally be complete in 2019. The film will be part of the promotional campaign for building a new tower that will represent the San Jose of today and tomorrow.

The Light Between Two Towers - Trailer from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.



Phase 2 - Site Selection 

FUNDED, IN PROGRESS. The Light Tower Corporation initially evaluated six different sites in Downtown San Jose. When seeking city council support earlier this year, they received unanimous approval from all 11 seats. Now, we have a final candidate and that is the Arena Green (photo below). This location would highlight San Jose's flagship park and would be easily accessible from the SAP Center and Diridon Station, which is destined to become the busiest transit hub on the West Coast. It would also sit in the middle of some 10+ million SQFT of new development that will be built over the coming decade or two.

By December 4th, the City Council will decide whether or not to approve the location. The odds are looking quite good so far.

Phase 3 - Idea Competition

FUNDED. This one is hot off the press. On Sunday the San Jose Light Tower Corporation held a fundraiser to launch this next stage, an international competition to find the best design concept for the tower. It does not have to look like the 1881 historic tower, in fact it may not look like a traditional tower at all. As a wild futuristic example, the tower could be made out of drones. We are in the innovation capital of the world, it should be creative and reach a bit into the future.

The goal of the fundraiser was to secure the remaining $300,000 required to launch the competition. It may have helped that four (!) San Jose mayors were in attendance, but the goal was nailed.

Phase 4 - Construction

TBD. After the design competition, we will have some idea of what will be included as part of the project and what the costs will be. The preferred location supports a structure up to 150 feet tall, but there may be ways to add virtual height such as with creative lighting or projections. As soon as any new details are available, we'll provide updates ASAP. If you are interested in contributing to this exciting project, you can donate over here.

A New Iconic Monument for San Jose from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Home Security Alarms Being Ignored In San Jose Area

Home alarm calls in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara are being ignored, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

In conjunction with October’s Crime Prevention Month, Deep Sentinel recently unveiled new findings that due to the high number of false alarms, tens of millions of Americans run the risk of having their alarm calls go unanswered.

Of the cities surveyed within the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, 50 percent have a no response or no guaranteed response to an alarm call. This leaves 77 percent of residents (1,287,293) in those surveyed cities at risk should an alarm be triggered.

Deep Sentinel’s announcement can be found below.

  

Tens of Millions Living in American Metros Not Fully Protected by Home Security Systems

Deep Sentinel ranks the top 20 metros showing the likelihood of home alarms going unanswered 

PLEASANTON, Calif. – October 11, 2018 – Deep Sentinel, a company delivering an unrivaled, next-generation approach to home security, today released results of a new study that focuses on the lack of response to home security alarms within key metro areas across the United States. Deep Sentinel surveyed major American cities and sampled a portion of surrounding metro areas on their alarm response policies and found that every day, tens of millions of people run the risk of having their alarm calls go unanswered.

Ranked by the number of residents potentially affected by a “no response” or “no guaranteed response” to an alarm call in the surveyed cities, the top 20 American metro areas at risk are:

1. New York-Newark-Jersey City

2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim

3. Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland

4. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward

5. San Diego-Carlsbad

6. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

7. Philadelphia-Wilmington

8. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood

9. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue

10. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara

11. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario

12. Sacramento-Roseville- Arden-Arcade

13. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn

14. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale

15. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis

16. Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise

17. Salt Lake City

18. Boston-Cambridge-Newton

19. Fresno

20. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater

Read the full study here to see data used to determine rankings.

Ranked at #1, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro highlights the severity of the problem. Deep Sentinel surveyed 19 cities in the metro area and found that 21 percent have a “no response” or “no guaranteed response” to an alarm call. This leaves nearly 9M people at risk of having an alarm call go unanswered.

To see the key findings of all 20 metro areas in the report, click here.

Law enforcement agencies are inundated with false alarm calls (up to 95 percent), draining resources from their respective cities. This has resulted in many cities and agencies across America adopting policies that they do not respond or they don't guarantee a response to alarms.

“Because the overwhelming majority of home security alarms are false, there is a ‘boy who cried wolf’ mentality surrounding these calls,” said David Selinger, CEO and co-founder, Deep Sentinel. “It’s unfortunate because many of these calls are legitimate, but can go unanswered, leaving people and their property at risk. Deep Sentinel is dedicated to putting an end to false alarms and ensuring that when an alarm is activated, it will be taken seriously.”

To read the entire study and to learn more about Deep Sentinel, visit www.deepsentinel.com.

About Deep Sentinel

Deep Sentinel delivers an unrivaled, next-generation approach to home security. LiveSentinel™ 24/7 video surveillance guards, armed with artificial intelligence, computer vision and wire-free cameras, confront intruders within seconds of them entering your property and notify law enforcement if necessary. Deep Sentinel’s intuitive and affordable home protection platform is the only system equipped with advanced technology to actually prevent burglaries, auto break-ins and package thefts before they occur.