I actually spent less than I'd planned. I brought $500 and ended up spending about $40. I was hoping for more vendors. But the seminars were pretty cool.
I wish I'd known more people here. I would've introduced myself. If you saw a chubby dude wearing an "I (heart) Zombies" t-shirt, that was me.
I'll paste my post from another forum here, just to give a wrap up of my experience at the event:
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Saturday was the big day. Around 8:45 a.m. we set out for Frazer, PA.
We were less than two miles from the house when the GPS died. Kaput. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Dead as a doornail. Well, shit. We still had the driving directions from their website as a backup, so we proceeded with those.
On the way there, we drove through Bryn Mawr. We've never been to that area before, but it looks nicer than almost anything else around here. Lots of unique little shops and exotic European car dealerships (which Lina drooled over) and stuff like that. We'll have to go there just for the shopping one day.
As we were nearing our destination (as well as nearing the time of the first seminar, timing it perfectly), we hit a bit of a snag. It became clear that we were not in the right area at all. A consultation of the map showed that the website's driving directions were wrong. It had put us 13 miles in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. *sigh*
After cursing out the GPS and the website both, we turned around and made our way. We'd miss the first seminar. Figures.
Once we got there, we noticed several hearses and other vehicles in the parking lot like this one.
That's the only pic I took at the convention, though I should've taken more. I wonder what the "normal" guests of the hotel thought, with all these zombies and bloody people running around in May.
The hot foam seminar was already underway (and packed beyond the room's capacity), so we just hit the vendor tables. I was actually disappointed by the lack of vendors. There were maybe a dozen different vendors there, but I had expected more. Still, there was plenty of eye candy to be found. The Creepy Collection booth was the best one, with its incredibly gory displays of corpses being put through meat grinders, impaled, fried in frying pans, etc. They even had a couple nude female corpses wrapped in plastic, very reminiscent of Laura Palmer. Jeremy Dalessandro from Creepy Collection gave the most entertaining seminar of the day as well.
We made it in for the second seminar, which was centered on scaring people on a budget. Pretty interesting, but then something very cool happened. Someone in the audience asked a question, and his voice stood out to me like crazy. Then it hit me - he sounded like one of the hosts of the Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast. I mentioned it to Lina, and she concurred. Then I remembered that one of the hosts was away doing something big for Halloween last year, and I knew it had to be him. Had to be either Jay or Bob Novella.
After the lecture, I approached him.
me: Excuse me.
him: Yes?
me: Is your name Jay, by chance?
him: No, but I have a brother named Jay...
me: Ah, then you're Bob!
him: Yes...
me: Aha! I thought so! I recognized your voice from the SGU podcast when you spoke.
him: Haha! No way! I can't believe someone recognized me by voice alone. People do get Jay and I confused a lot on the audio, so that makes sense. That's so cool. But yes, it's me.
We got to talking about Halloween and haunts and such, and maligning the "paranormal research" group at the festivities. I tried to convince him to do a skeptical report from their seminar, as he was planning on just skipping it. His wheels started turning when I mentioned it to him, so maybe he'll at least do a blog post about their lecture. He was nice, and it was just very cool to unexpectedly meet someone that you have that kind of admiration for.
(As an aside, his brother Steve has a pilot for a skeptical TV show that might be picked up soon. W00t.)
Later in the day we talked to the rep for the Museum Of Myths & Monsters (I hope I'm getting that right). They had some displays there - incredible life-sized museum-quality stuff. The one of Cerberus was particularly impressive. Anyway, he said they also have a 13-foot Cyclops and other stuff for when they open up. They aim to have pieces of all mythological creatures in exact detail. Where are they going to open? As it turns out, like five minutes from my house! I couldn't believe they're going to have something like that in Woodbury. We'll see how it does. The opening isn't slated until 2010.
We did make a few purchases. Some stuff was dirt cheap (Lina picked up three crazy bat/spider bras for $1 total). Other stuff was definitely discounted, but a bit out of our budgetary range. We're getting to the point now where we're pressed for space to put all of our displays, so new stuff has to be either small, functional or something we really love. There was a lifesize fiberglass corspe statue thingy for $250 that I would've loved to have, but at this point I can't justify spending that much on another prop that big unless I reaaaaallly love it. Where would we put it? We already have another lifesize animatronic prop shipping in July.
On the way home, we stopped at Senora's Mexican Restaurant for dinner. A little overpriced for what it was, but it wasn't bad. The jalapeno queso poppers were the best thing.
There's more going on today, but I think we'll skip it. There is one seminar we'd like to see, but...I think we're done. We got stuff to do today.
All in all, we had a good time. I wish we'd caught that seminar, but oh well. Shit happens. The GPS is now plugged into the wall in the house and seems to be working here. Maybe it's just the cord for the car or something, I don't know. Further research is needed. But here's some pics of our finds. Oh, and my Sangarlo's shirt. Not Halloweeny, yet delicious :-)
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