Haunted Night - Halloween, haunted houses, costumes, corn mazes, pumpkins, Vancouver B.C., Seattle, Portland, Boise, Billings

Greetings, Fellow Haunters:

I was in Columbus, the capital of our fair state, from Thursday through Sunday this past weekend for the 2009 edition of the Midwest Haunters Convention. The show took place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center at 400 North High Street in exhibition hall C. From what I’ve been told, the 2010 show will also take place in the exact, same location.

Allow me to push out a few bullet points:

1) To my eye, this year’s MHC introduced a fair number of new vendors to the haunting public.
2) I did not attend the grand Costume Ball on Saturday night, but my spies tell me that it was a well-received affair.
3) The Friday night party was held at a large bar called the Frog Bear and Wild Boar, just a block away from the hotel/convention center.

Greetings, Fellow Haunters:

The 9th annual Great Lakes Fright Fest (GLFF) happened this past weekend at Totem Pole Park - a tidy, compact campground, in Petersburg, Michigan. Once again, I happily enjoyed myself. The show was a pleasant success. Here are some bullet points:

• The number of cans of human food donated: 1,477
• The number of cans of pet food donated: 473
• The number of pounds of dry dog food donated: 1,000 (new record)
• The total number of attendees: more than 400 (new record)
• I celebrated the beginning of my 35th season of haunted-house acting. (Who cares? I do.)
• The haunted house ran from about 9:30 PM till around 12:15 AM
• As of this writing I don’t know what the customer count at the haunt was, but my guess is 325
• Next year’s Great Lakes Fright Fest will be a challenge, but we will all get through it safely.

Since our Tombstone workshop was such a big hit last year we have decided to hold it again this year and this time we are planning 2 dates for people to choose from. We are also going to hold a 2 day Mud Man workshop where you and a partner can make one of the monks that we have in our driveway. Here is the schedule for workshops this year.

Tombstone Workshops

Saturday July 25th
Session 1 9am-1pm
Session 2 2pm-6pm

Saturday August 22nd
Session 1 9am-1pm
Session 2 2pm-6pm

$40 per person for 1 session. Space is limited to 12 people per session. Once registered you must submit your simple epitaph 1 week prior to the workshop.

Greetings Fellow Haunters:

The TransWorld show in St. Louis last weekend was my first visit to the Gateway City in darn close to 40 years. It was a fun show with lots to see and do. For me personally, it was a time to feel proud and as well as a time to feel exonerated. I’ll talk about these further down the page.

More than a hundred years ago St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the country, something we attendees noticed in the many old, large, warehouse-type buildings that lie about the city. Prop-making companies and haunted attractions have plenty of places to set up shop.

The drive from Cleveland to St. Looie was a 10-hour journey through the flatlands of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It was mile after mile of gazing upon manicured farmland, gathering strength in the warm sunshine to produce another bounty of corn and soybeans this summer.

My traveling companion, Jeff "Scared Stiff" Glatzer and I shared a room on the 16th floor of the Renaissance Grand and Suites Hotel. When we looked out our window, we could plainly see the entrance to the America’s Center. It is a nice-looking convention facility that had plenty of room for the haunt industry along with a large convention of energetic teenagers who are associated with the D.A.R.E. program.