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Tonight’s the night—the 2024 Spooktacular!  My students have been working hard on their solos, and it should be a fun night.

I have done a concert around Halloween for years, and started calling it the “TJC Spooktacular” in 2019.  At that point, it was pretty much a solo show, with my buddy John hopping on to accompany me on a few tunes (or for me to accompany him).

During The Age of The Virus, I couldn’t find a venue that was booking live music, largely due to concerns about big groups of people in a confined space.  So I conceived of turning my front lawn into a seating area and my porch into a stage.  Thus, the Spooktacular in its modern iteration was born.

That first front porch Spooktacular in 2020 was not a recital for my private music students, but was instead a more self-indulgent concert:  John and I missed playing live music.  I also paid a couple of groups to perform as openers:  one of my students and his punk band—their first live gig—and two of my open mic music friends (one of whom, Sarah, I did a gig with back in August for her birthday).

Then I began to transition towards the Spooktacular being a recital for my students.  That helped to attract more people to the event, but also shifted the tone away from “raucous-but-mild-Halloween party” to “family-friendly Halloween party.”  The original Spooktacular was never bacchanalian, but the current recital version is much more focused on family fun.  The costume contest also seems to be a big hit among the little ones, too.