Midwest Haunters Convention, 2015 - Part Two

If you missed Part One of my Midwest Haunters Convention review, you can read it in all its glory right here!

When we left off, we had just gotten back to our hotel room Saturday afternoon and we were going to get ready for the highly anticipated Masquerade Ball. We had some time to spare, so we decided to have another visit with our old friend, Mamuwalde...

This time, we sat down to watch the 1973 blaxploitation horror sequel, Scream Blacula Scream, co-starring the always sassy Miss Pam Grier. Again, William Marshall owned every scene he was in and gave another stellar performance as the black prince, making this another solid film. And again, I digress...

As we watched the movie, we started getting our costumes and makeup ready for the evening's festivities. This time around, I went with a new character, Dr. Albertin Kyphosis, a mad alchemist with a twisted spine and a fractured psyche. I had worked on the costume for about 3 or 4 weeks, and went with a makeup that I created from reference photos that I had pulled two nights before. The entire thing was completed in about an hour and I was really happy with the way that everything came together. I will have a full blog entry next week, detailing everything with this costume and makeup...

Jim on the other hand, had his costume and makeup ready to go in all of about 10 minutes and it still turned out great!!

Once we were all ready, we made our way over to the Masquerade Ball. And as usual, the array of costumes and makeups was absolutely amazing. I had the camera snapping like crazy...

Now THAT is some Steampunk.

Brad Goodspeed from Haunters Hangout and The Butcher of Provincetown.

Stacey Rager and her family. And Jim...

Hector Turner from Halloween Haunt Calendar.

Duck Dynasty. And Jim...

A killer bat costume, complete with retractable wings.

The infamous Tater from Froggy's Fog as the even more infamous Granny. 

Don't get too close, she's a mean one...

Bart Butler from A Haunter's Life and The Dead Zone Haunted House. 

He stood about 8 feet tall.

As everyone made their way into the large ballroom, the evening's festivities began, including the always-popular Body Art Fashion Show. This year's makeups did not disappoint. I was able to squeeze my way up near the front to get a good vantage point to check out the show...

After the Body Art Fashion Show, I was able to shoot a couple of photos of the Scariest Costume Contest judging.

With everyone running around on stage and the dark lighting, I wasn't able to grab many usable photos, so I retired to the rest of the ballroom to grab shots of all of the partygoers...

(Somehow, she just kept showing up in my photos from the night...)

We had a lengthy discussion on the virtues of all things Ghost...

After a couple/few/some/many cold ones, we scoped out the dance floor, but called it an early evening. Fortunately, the party picked back up by the time we had made our way back to the hotel room and went to bed/passed out... D'oh.


On Sunday, we woke up refreshed/hung over and made our way back to the trade show floor for one last trip through the vendor displays. 

It was a standoff...

I picked up a few odds and ends and made my way over to the Haunters Hangout booth for their big raffle. I had picked up a few tickets, thinking I might have the slightest possibility to maybe take something home. I was surprised by the amount of prizes that had been donated...

It was great seeing hosts Deoblo, JWAL and Brad in the flesh, as well as a few of the show's featured guests.

As JWAL called out the winning ticket numbers for the prizes, I watched people going up to claim their winnings (some even winning two or three times). I laughed thinking that I could get anything with five measly tickets...

And then it happened. See the skull faces behind JWAL's head in the photo above? He called out the winning number. I had to triple-check that the numbers matched the ticket that I was holding. Oh damn, I won!

A really cool, custom foam skull face plaque from VFX Creative Studios. The plaque is about 18" tall and has a sturdy hook on the back for mounting. I was beside myself. I never win anything. But I did now, and I got the chance to go up, get a picture with the guys, and claim my prize.

It was the perfect ending to an incredible weekend, packed full of non-stop mayhem and fun. Each year, the Midwest Haunters Convention is the other highlight to my haunting season. It gets my haunt creativity flowing and is the starting point to the countdown to Halloween. So with the excitement and new ideas still rattling around in my somewhat fuzzy brain, it's time to get down to business and get back into the garage. I have a long list of things to do for 2015 and I have less than 150 days to do it. Are you ready for the big night?


Oh, and it's never too early to start planning ahead. It was just announced the the next edition of the Midwest Haunters Convention will be June 10-12, 2016 in Columbus. Who is going to meet us there!?