Rex B. Hamilton reports on the 2008 TransWorld convention
March 29, 2008
Greetings, Fellow Haunters:
I had an enjoyable time at the International Halloween, Costume and Party Show last week. I was in Las Vegas from Sunday the 16th until Friday the 21st. This was my first visit to Lost Wages, a sprawling city that was seemingly plopped down into the middle of a vast, flat, treeless, desert valley.
When Fluffy and I touched down in Vegas, the weather wasn’t much better than the Cleveland variety we had said good riddance to four and a half hours earlier. Sunday was a chilly day and there were occasional sprinkles of rain. As the days went by, the weather in Vegas steadily improved. By the time we left for home early Friday evening, the skies were a panoply of deep blues and the temperatures edged into the upper seventies. Landing in Cleveland at midnight in a driving snowstorm brought the real world quickly back into focus.
The convention itself looked about the same, size-wise, as what we see in Chicago each year. The haunt section of vendors, which was in turn directly connected to the Dark Zone, was located in the furthest corner from the entrance doors. The trick to finding the haunt area was to always “stay to your right” as you walked through the building.
The show was on a single floor, contrasted to the two-floor affair in Chicago the past few seasons where all the haunt stuff was up the escalator. To my eye, it looked like the number of haunt vendors was somewhat less than in previous years. Hopefully, someone who tracks the number of vendors/booths from year to year will chime in here with hard data. The haunt vendors who were in Vegas last week were smiling and upbeat.
My wife has never attended a haunt convention, despite the fact that I’ve produced haunt conventions and attended many others. Maureen thoroughly enjoyed meeting vendors and producers on Sunday afternoon as we strolled about the convention floor.
On Sunday evening, the two of us took the Viva Haunt Vegas tour of local haunted attractions. We were on the fourth bus, which appeared to get lost on two occasions on our outbound trip. During those awkward moments we haunters sat quietly in our high-back seats and simply grinned at each other. The bus driver was calm and deliberate, and eventually got us to our destination.
At first, we stood in line for the left-hand of the two haunts that stood side by side. (I regret that I cannot remember the proper names of these shows.) But after just a couple of minutes I realized that the throughput for this larger-of-the-two-shows was around 150 to 200 people per hour. For an expected crowd of about 800, those haunts were going to require four hours or more to admit everyone. The weather was chilly and breezy; standing in line wasn’t what you wanted to do that evening.
So we jumped ship and dashed over to the waiting line for the small 3-D show. The throughput wasn’t any faster, but at least the line we joined was much shorter. We saw all three haunted houses and I commend the producer for opening up his attraction in March. No haunter, big or small, can easily crank up his show at the end of winter. Many haunters have the devil’s own time opening up their attractions in October even after months and months of warm weather.
There was plenty of Tex-Mex food for the guests and it was surprisingly tasty, given the packed area in which food and alcohol were dispensed. The hospitality tent, where haunters sat to eat and drink, was large, well-sealed off from the cold winds, well-lit and a happy place. I saw many groups of haunters enjoying each other’s company there.
Those of you who attended the tour have already figured out that they (meaning the tour producers) bit off a lot more than they could chew. Eight hundred people is a big number of bodies to thrust upon a production that has been “dark” for about five months. You could tell they weren’t ready for lines. For example, there were no cones/barrels/ropes/snow fence/whatever to corral the waiting customers outside each venue. I could cite many more things about the Vegas tour that had not been fully thought through. But making a comparison to an experienced TransWorld haunt is, I think, more instructive. To wit:
Over the years, I’ve become friends with the four guys who own DreamReapers in Chicago. I’ve never acted there - it’s all me and I can’t explain why. Instead, I hang out behind the scenes and gab it up with the monsters, staff and owners during the performance as they stream in and stream out of the make-up rooms and break area. For several seasons, Dreamreapers has opened up their show for a couple of nights to TransWorld attendees. Doing this drives these four guys crazy, it’s so much work. They don’t do a sit-down dinner - just concession stands outside on the sidewalk. Everybody is running around like a crazy fool until the doors close. (Just like you always see most nights in October at _any_ haunted attraction.)
On those lovely visits to Dreamreapers I have had the languorous luxury of standing around, drinking beer, and being able to giggle all I want to at the constant flurry around me. If these four convention pros get a little stressed by an off-season visit by hundreds of haunters, then imagine what the rest of us would find ourselves up against.
I say this: Hats off to any producer brave enough to invite the haunt community for a meal and a tour.
-------
Monday the 17th was my big day at TransWorld Vegas. In the early morning I zipped down the elevator to the Venetian food court and loaded up on breakfast. I wasn’t sure when I would eat again that day.
Back in the room around 8 AM, I started gluing my face into place. I tried to emulate the zombie character that I played in the movie “The Dead Matter” last summer for Precinct 13 studios. I’m told the flick should see the light of day this October. But instead of ratty old zombie clothes, I decided to spiff up my look with my Yacht Club Ghoul outfit. Hey, it’s Vegas, baby. You have to have the style.
As a guest at the Venetian hotel, I had to walk through the hotel’s casino in order to get from my room to the Sands Convention Center. At no time was I accosted by any hotel employee for wearing costumer/make-up in a casino. However, I made sure not to linger around any of the gaming tables.
I pulled my annual shift at the IAHA booth from 12:30 till 2:30 that afternoon with Deanna Roberts-Morton and Brett Molitor. I jested with a number of haunters that passed by that I was the “sex appeal” for IAHA that day. In hindsight, I really didn’t do much except pose for pictures and startle the occasional unsuspecting guest. The other folks sitting at the table did most of the heavy work of signing up new members and answering questions.
The IAHA Live Auction began at 3:30 and I was there to watch the IAHA stub its big toe on a fundamental technical issue. The sound system appeared to be a small, single speaker with a single clip-on microphone. The two auctioneers, Chuck Williams and Rich Hanf, attempted to share this small mike and work through the sound limitations. After about five minutes of this, they abandoned their electronic efforts and worked on voice power alone.
I stood at the back of the crowd, so as to give others a chance to clearly hear what was being auctioned off. All around us where the bangs, blasts, crashes and air horns from the vendor booths. On two occasions, the crowd was urged to hike their chairs closer to the front of the venue, so that they could hear better. Rich and Chuck worked hard that day
Good fortune smiled upon me because I was auctioned off to Terror on the Fox in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I have never visited this haunt put on by Bad Boys Scenic Design, so I have a special treat waiting for me come October.
The IAHA banquet and annual meeting began at 5:30 PM. Actually it really began around 6:10 PM, due to delays getting the room ready for action. For whatever reason, the two bars weren’t ready to start pouring drinks at 5:30. At that time, there were no staff personnel in the room. I overheard some muttering from the staff and some IAHA directors about scheduling mixups, but nothing specific.
March 29, 2008
Greetings, Fellow Haunters:
I had an enjoyable time at the International Halloween, Costume and Party Show last week. I was in Las Vegas from Sunday the 16th until Friday the 21st. This was my first visit to Lost Wages, a sprawling city that was seemingly plopped down into the middle of a vast, flat, treeless, desert valley.
When Fluffy and I touched down in Vegas, the weather wasn’t much better than the Cleveland variety we had said good riddance to four and a half hours earlier. Sunday was a chilly day and there were occasional sprinkles of rain. As the days went by, the weather in Vegas steadily improved. By the time we left for home early Friday evening, the skies were a panoply of deep blues and the temperatures edged into the upper seventies. Landing in Cleveland at midnight in a driving snowstorm brought the real world quickly back into focus.
The convention itself looked about the same, size-wise, as what we see in Chicago each year. The haunt section of vendors, which was in turn directly connected to the Dark Zone, was located in the furthest corner from the entrance doors. The trick to finding the haunt area was to always “stay to your right” as you walked through the building.
The show was on a single floor, contrasted to the two-floor affair in Chicago the past few seasons where all the haunt stuff was up the escalator. To my eye, it looked like the number of haunt vendors was somewhat less than in previous years. Hopefully, someone who tracks the number of vendors/booths from year to year will chime in here with hard data. The haunt vendors who were in Vegas last week were smiling and upbeat.
My wife has never attended a haunt convention, despite the fact that I’ve produced haunt conventions and attended many others. Maureen thoroughly enjoyed meeting vendors and producers on Sunday afternoon as we strolled about the convention floor.
On Sunday evening, the two of us took the Viva Haunt Vegas tour of local haunted attractions. We were on the fourth bus, which appeared to get lost on two occasions on our outbound trip. During those awkward moments we haunters sat quietly in our high-back seats and simply grinned at each other. The bus driver was calm and deliberate, and eventually got us to our destination.
At first, we stood in line for the left-hand of the two haunts that stood side by side. (I regret that I cannot remember the proper names of these shows.) But after just a couple of minutes I realized that the throughput for this larger-of-the-two-shows was around 150 to 200 people per hour. For an expected crowd of about 800, those haunts were going to require four hours or more to admit everyone. The weather was chilly and breezy; standing in line wasn’t what you wanted to do that evening.
So we jumped ship and dashed over to the waiting line for the small 3-D show. The throughput wasn’t any faster, but at least the line we joined was much shorter. We saw all three haunted houses and I commend the producer for opening up his attraction in March. No haunter, big or small, can easily crank up his show at the end of winter. Many haunters have the devil’s own time opening up their attractions in October even after months and months of warm weather.
There was plenty of Tex-Mex food for the guests and it was surprisingly tasty, given the packed area in which food and alcohol were dispensed. The hospitality tent, where haunters sat to eat and drink, was large, well-sealed off from the cold winds, well-lit and a happy place. I saw many groups of haunters enjoying each other’s company there.
Those of you who attended the tour have already figured out that they (meaning the tour producers) bit off a lot more than they could chew. Eight hundred people is a big number of bodies to thrust upon a production that has been “dark” for about five months. You could tell they weren’t ready for lines. For example, there were no cones/barrels/ropes/snow fence/whatever to corral the waiting customers outside each venue. I could cite many more things about the Vegas tour that had not been fully thought through. But making a comparison to an experienced TransWorld haunt is, I think, more instructive. To wit:
Over the years, I’ve become friends with the four guys who own DreamReapers in Chicago. I’ve never acted there - it’s all me and I can’t explain why. Instead, I hang out behind the scenes and gab it up with the monsters, staff and owners during the performance as they stream in and stream out of the make-up rooms and break area. For several seasons, Dreamreapers has opened up their show for a couple of nights to TransWorld attendees. Doing this drives these four guys crazy, it’s so much work. They don’t do a sit-down dinner - just concession stands outside on the sidewalk. Everybody is running around like a crazy fool until the doors close. (Just like you always see most nights in October at _any_ haunted attraction.)
On those lovely visits to Dreamreapers I have had the languorous luxury of standing around, drinking beer, and being able to giggle all I want to at the constant flurry around me. If these four convention pros get a little stressed by an off-season visit by hundreds of haunters, then imagine what the rest of us would find ourselves up against.
I say this: Hats off to any producer brave enough to invite the haunt community for a meal and a tour.
-------
Monday the 17th was my big day at TransWorld Vegas. In the early morning I zipped down the elevator to the Venetian food court and loaded up on breakfast. I wasn’t sure when I would eat again that day.
Back in the room around 8 AM, I started gluing my face into place. I tried to emulate the zombie character that I played in the movie “The Dead Matter” last summer for Precinct 13 studios. I’m told the flick should see the light of day this October. But instead of ratty old zombie clothes, I decided to spiff up my look with my Yacht Club Ghoul outfit. Hey, it’s Vegas, baby. You have to have the style.
As a guest at the Venetian hotel, I had to walk through the hotel’s casino in order to get from my room to the Sands Convention Center. At no time was I accosted by any hotel employee for wearing costumer/make-up in a casino. However, I made sure not to linger around any of the gaming tables.
I pulled my annual shift at the IAHA booth from 12:30 till 2:30 that afternoon with Deanna Roberts-Morton and Brett Molitor. I jested with a number of haunters that passed by that I was the “sex appeal” for IAHA that day. In hindsight, I really didn’t do much except pose for pictures and startle the occasional unsuspecting guest. The other folks sitting at the table did most of the heavy work of signing up new members and answering questions.
The IAHA Live Auction began at 3:30 and I was there to watch the IAHA stub its big toe on a fundamental technical issue. The sound system appeared to be a small, single speaker with a single clip-on microphone. The two auctioneers, Chuck Williams and Rich Hanf, attempted to share this small mike and work through the sound limitations. After about five minutes of this, they abandoned their electronic efforts and worked on voice power alone.
I stood at the back of the crowd, so as to give others a chance to clearly hear what was being auctioned off. All around us where the bangs, blasts, crashes and air horns from the vendor booths. On two occasions, the crowd was urged to hike their chairs closer to the front of the venue, so that they could hear better. Rich and Chuck worked hard that day
Good fortune smiled upon me because I was auctioned off to Terror on the Fox in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I have never visited this haunt put on by Bad Boys Scenic Design, so I have a special treat waiting for me come October.
The IAHA banquet and annual meeting began at 5:30 PM. Actually it really began around 6:10 PM, due to delays getting the room ready for action. For whatever reason, the two bars weren’t ready to start pouring drinks at 5:30. At that time, there were no staff personnel in the room. I overheard some muttering from the staff and some IAHA directors about scheduling mixups, but nothing specific.
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