Tristen Tierney turned his love of Halloween, Christmas and all holidays from an obsessive hobby as a kid into a full-time career as a Disneyland resort enhancement team leader that allows him to pursue his passion 24/7/365.
“I still can’t believe it’s real,” said Tierney, a Disneyland Resort Enhancement Holiday Services Lead. “This is what I’ve been dreaming about.”
The Disneyland Resort Enhancement team has spent the past month adding pumpkins, bunting and fall colors to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in preparation for the kick off of Halloween Time on Friday, Sept. 1.
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The Disneyland Resort Enhancement team of about a dozen or so employees usually works from 4 a.m. to noon — but the night shift starts just after midnight whenever a holiday installation is underway.
“The cool part about this job is we design all the décor,” said Tierney, who bears a striking resemblance to Gaston from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” “Then we build the décor, we install it and we take it down.”
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On a recent morning at 3 a.m. under a Super Blue Moon, the Disneyland Resort Enhancement team installed carved pumpkins, orange and gold bunting and fall color foliage along Main Street U.S.A.
The graveyard shift started with a slow-moving caravan of cherry picker boom lifts traveling at 4 mph from behind Radiator Springs Racers and across the esplanade to Main Street U.S.A.
Resort enhancement team members in safety vests and hard hats worked behind white and orange striped barricades blocking Main Street USA. Workers wielding flashlights behind the curtained second-story windows helped colleagues aloft in cherry pickers install comical pumpkin displays along the building facades of Disneyland’s main thoroughfare.
Pop music from the Ramones, No Doubt and Pat Benatar played over the Main Street…
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