Gearing Up for Day 3 of West Coast Haunters Convention

Ed Roberts and his wonderful team here at the Oregon School for the Deaf will be wrapping up their first annual West Coast Haunters Convention today. It's been a great couple days so far with some informative haunt seminars, a number of interesting vendor booths, and of course Friday night's amazing haunt tour at Milburn's Haunted Manor (still can't get over the overhead zip line scares!).

For me personally, it was Saturday night that I was truly looking forward too. I gave two haunt seminars, "113 Ways to Slash your Haunt Marketing Budget", and with those out of the way it was time to relax and take advantage of what I truly enjoy about events like this - the socializing. There wasn't anything formally organized this year (I've heard there's a sponsor in place for a costume ball next year). Haunters love their party time though so lack of a plan wasn't about to stop us. I've heard a number of people hit the casino while others went bowling. For Destry and I, we kept it simple kicking things off in the bar at our hotel, the Keizer Rennaissance Inn, with the owners of a couple other Puget Sound haunts, Black Lake Asylum and the Kitsap County Haunted Fairgrounds. As the pale ales flowed, I eventually turned around to notice Nick Collins, Dana Martin, and others had pulled up a table behind me. We joined their table and were thrilled to watch as, one by one, more familiar faces joined the crowd. In came Leonard Pickel and his wife, Jeanne to join our crew. Ed Roberts and friends pulled up a nearby table. Furby made a grand appearance in her cape and theatrical contact lenses. And finally, the Wolfe Brothers arrived in full costume as a Skeletor-type character and The Fly (who had one fly hand to which Destry struck laughs commenting that The Fly was flashing gang signs). Pictures were taken and the party was in full gear when all of a sudden the unthinkable happened - the bar closed!

As I mentioned before, you can't keep haunters from their partyin' so after briefly moving the party to a conference room to finish our drinks we struck up a plan to saunter across the parking lot to a sports bar. We grabbed a big group of tables in back and the party was off and rolling once again. As I look back on the night, I can't help but be thankful for the wonderful conversations that took place...and the fact that I didn't partake of the Jaegerbombs which is just so unlike me. My head thanks me today though as I prepare to wrap things up at Day 3 of the West Coast Haunters Convention. There are a few final seminars that I look forward to listening in on, and then at noon I'll be emptying the back of my truck for the big garage sale. Please, please, Lord, let me sell all my crap...uh...I mean...high quality haunt goods. And please, please let me fight the urge to simply replace my crap with more crap. It's just so hard to resist though sometimes!

All in all it's been a great first year at the West Coast Haunters Convention. A mighty thank you goes out to Ed Roberts and his crew at the Oregon School for the Deaf. We will definitely be returning next year and hope you will too!