While most of the country was seemingly at San Diego Comic Con, the folks of the spooky kind converged on the Long Beach Convention Center for the annual official arrival of Halloween with is great, big black cat mascot and a few thousand of their brethren.
This year, I got to go only on Sunday due to… life, but I was there bright and early, ready to go in whenever they’d let us. I brought a trustee assistant, and one extra joined us, for a bit of shenanigans. While the boys were mostly networking, I was looking at new vendors and artists’ work, planning a visit to the Hall of Shadows.
We started the day in the main hall, the vendor’s room where all kinds of wares are on sale and where you can meet everyone from Derek Mears to Ken Foree to Karen Strassman. Meeting Karen for the first was great, seeing Ken for the 100th time was great as well. And so were everyone else we spoke to that day of course as the spooky bunch is a welcoming bunch.
This year, the Hall of Shadows was spookier than last, being darker, more crowded, and so much foggier, so excuse the lack of photos from the Hall, what was taken is impossible to decipher what was happening. As someone with PTSD and strobe-light caused migraines, the Hall of Shadows is limited at best, so my friends with me let me know it was cool and a lot of fun. The Lionsgate haunt looked fantastic from the outside but had to be skipped due to the longest line I’ve ever seen at Midsummer Scream.
Back in the vendor’s room, a bit of shopping was done. We checked out the new issues of Fangoria, got coffee from Horror Vibes Coffee, I got a package from the Bone Yard and got to meet the Boneses, we checked out straitjackets from Sanatorium Emporium who have some of the cutest straitjackets (yes, the cutest), etc. Outside of the vendors’ room, there was plenty to do, but my exhausted self needed a break, so I ended up dragging the comedians to see the Mexican exhibit with all the Day of the Dead goodness that was there in 2023 as well. We did end up skipping the panels due to very long wait lines as well as the cat rescue that brought kittens which would have been amazing, but limitations are life when you are mobility-limited. A highlight of the day that must be noted was seeing the Los Angeles Ghostbusters who were gathering money for charity and showing off their cars and gear. Lovely crew as usual.
For this horror nerd, this may be the last year attending Midsummer Scream as the health is not cooperating and being around this many people is a bit dangerous as I’m more than likely to catch something. It’s fun still, but it’s definitely getting quite big, Proof of this is how the weekend passes and Saturday tickets sold out before the event, so if you are planning on going in 2025, get them tickets as soon as you can. As for me, I’ll see how I feel in July and will decide then if I want to and can go.
