Well, I made it back alive and "crud free" from my first trip to St. Louis and the Transworld Halloween & Attractions Show. The Halloween tradeshow was everything I had heard it was, plus way more. I'm completely and utterly drained, but I couldn't be any happier. I arrived Thursday night, ready to hit the show bright and early the following morning. A huge thanks to Dave Shonk of Closed Casket Studios for allowing me the chance to tag along and work his booth for the show. Hopefully my adept skill at passing out flyers didn't go unnoticed!
Upon arriving at the show Friday morning, I was blown away at the size of the tradeshow floor and the number of popular, big-name vendors and the amount of incredible props on display in their booths. My only comparison would be the Midwest Haunters Convention times 20. The aisles of vendors stretched on and on. I had a quick chance to tour the entire show floor before returning for flyer duty.
After the show, we opted to hit up the City Museum. An artful, amazing building full of insane passageways, tunnels, steps, ladders and slides. It wasn't so much a museum as a giant playland for kids and adults. After a few hours of climbing, burrowing and sliding, we called it a night. Do yourself a favor and check out the images to see how wonderfully crazy this place really is!
The following morning, I made time to get a full tour of the tradeshow floor with my camera, as it was my last day at the show. I took pictures at every step and in every direction. There was so much to see and admire! I didn't buy anything, but I did get a lot of ideas for this year's haunt display. After taking the last photo, I headed back to the booth to finish my flyer duty. It was cool to see some old friends as well as making some new ones, as they passed through the booth. And it was nice to meet some of the big names in the haunter community, all of whom couldn't have been nicer. Even in the setting of the biggest tradeshow of the year, it still felt like a big group of people hanging out, and that is part of what makes the haunter community so much fun.
After the show's end on Saturday, we opted to drag our tired bodies over to check out Phobius Haunted House. They had opened for Saturday night only, specifically for the Transworld tradeshow. It was a bit of a drive, but it was well worth it. Lush scenery and detail in each room, a great array of actors and an incredible use of lighting and fog throughout that ended in a truly disorienting room bathed in dull light and dense fog. This haunt is HIGHLY recommended and is another that I get to check off the Haunt Bucket List.
On Sunday, I got up early and hit the long, dusty trail back to the Cemetery, my head buzzing with the events of the previous few days, completely energized to start planning the yard display for this Halloween.
Transworld was an amazing experience and I can't wait to suck up to Dave again next year for another chance to take it all in again!
Now sit back and enjoy a huge collection of photos from Transworld, 2017...
I'm back for another hangout!! This Thursday, March 30, come hang out with me and a few other insanely talented haunters and hosts on the next episode of Haunters Hangout, as we discuss all things Halloween and haunting! Tune in at 9pm on the Haunters Hangout YouTube Channel, and post your serious/not-so-serious haunt questions to the Hangout Facebook page.
It's the perfect cure for your post-Transworld blues! Shenanigans and mayhem are sure to ensue, so tune in, have some fun and even win some seriously cool prizes!! See everyone this Thursday night!
I've always said that when viewed through the lens of a haunter/Halloween fanatic, my home town of Akron, Ohio is a pretty cool place to be. I have one of the oldest running haunts in the country, the famed Haunted Schoolhouse and Laboratory, a mere 10 minutes down the road. I have one of the longest haunts in the country, Canton's Factory of Terror, a mere 40 minutes down the road. And I have literally dozens of other haunted attractions in all directions around me. And don't forget the quick 2 hour jaunt to the Midwest Haunters Convention in Columbus each June...
But even closer than all of those cool locations is a sweet little prop shop that is an unbelievably quick 5 minute hop from the Cemetery: Dave Shonk's Closed Casket Studios. I actually met Dave when he was a wee lad getting in trouble with his local fire marshal. Since then, he has continually upped his home haunt game, eventually went pro for a bit, and has since started his own mask & prop shop. I've been to his basement shop a few times before, but I recently had the chance to hang out a bit, share a few beers and stories, and check out his new pieces for 2017. It definitely looks like I'll be adding a few more of his prop heads to the display this year!
But wait, there's more!
And as an added bonus, it looks like I'm headed to Transworld's Halloween & Attraction Show this week with the Closed Casket Studios crew! I'm beyond stoked for this opportunity, as I've never been to this show before. Be sure to come visit us at booth 406. I'll be the guy with the camera around his neck, shooting everything in sight! Stop by, say hi and buy something killer from Dave! See everyone in St. Louis!
And if you can't make it to the show, stop by next week when I'll share all (most of?) my stories and photos.
This is a really cool video of Pär Boström's Cities Last Broadcast doing a 30 minute live set at Phobos Festival VIII in Wuppertal, Germany. I'm quite familiar with the audio, but it's nice to have the added video elements to accompany the dark ambient audio tracks.
Oddly relaxing, and I would love to one day take in a live set of this or his main project, Kammarheit...
I had some free time this past weekend and was able to whip up another image in my continuing Highbury Cemetery Graphic Series. It's great to sit down, listen to some haunt-inspiring music and then just let the creativity flow. Grab an image of one of my Halloween props (which so far have all been skull and corpse heads) and then just put together a spontaneous art piece. No specific purpose other than to exercise some creativity...
This time around, I listened to USURPER's killer dark ambient track, Death Dimension, from the release The Disappointment's Room. It had a minimal, dark and very foreboding sense of dread that really influenced this particular piece...
Be sure to check out the first and second images in the series, as well as read the art's intent here.
A cold, weathered hand pierces the rust-laden earth of a late autumn night. Reanimated decay becomes the evening's guide. Masked faces bask in the fiery glow of a jack-o-lantern's illumination. A lifeless finger points the direction toward the next porch-lit house. For this is the night of ghouls and goblins and tricks and treats. This is the night of Hallowe'en...
