And of course, I have FANS! The kids who come year after year, and say "Wow, you always do the coolest stuff..." Or "Wow, this is even better than last year..." Or tell me which of my Halloweens their favorites are. And of course the adults who cruise past to check it out, too. One guy in a lab coat I tried to recruit as an instructor: "We keep losing them in explos...I mean, they keep moving on!" I'm just disappointed that, due to circumstances beyond our control (like people getting sick), I didn't have quite as big a cast as I had hoped. But it actually worked pretty well with fewer people, because there was so much mad science everywhere, and someone might have tripped over a power cord, or gotten zapped by the Van der Graf generator, or something.
I would have thought we had more kids, but when I added up the pretzels, the minibags of goldfish crackers, the Reese's assortment, the 18 Act II Popcorn Balls, the Willie Wonka sour treats, and the Hershey S'mores bars, and subtract the small amount that was left...I'd say about 150-160. Toward the end of the evening, I was worried I'd run out of treats, though. Didn't happen, but I was starting to rummage for backup, just in case.
All in all, I think it went pretty well. We also didn't have the obnoxious kids this year, who liked to throw candy, a definite plus. The kids were actually pretty nice, polite, and well-behaved. And impressed with electricity. ;-)