HAuNTcon in Houston 2014

Our first ever Hauntcon in Houston 2014 turned out to be a good trip, we made some new friends and caught up with a few old ones. It was a trip that included threats of bad weather with ice on the roads, a knight complete with horsey sounds, a local television interview and one unruly fold out cot at the hotel.

We left our Fairview Heights, Illinois studio early in the morning on Friday before the trade show. As our GPS was routing us a different direction than I had traveled  to Houston before we called ahead to the hotel to make sure everything was good down there. Turned out that some bad weather had hit the southern area we were traveling to, and there was ice on the roads, and people traveling from Alabama, Florida etc. were stuck on bridges trying to get to the show. Luckily we were routed around it, because we heard some horror stories of 7 hour drives taking 14. 

Hauntcon in Houston 2014, as with most trade shows or conventions, we met a lot of new people and customers. Everyone we met was great, its the Haunt industry, how could they not be. The guys at Flatline Radio, Tristin and Dustin, were terrific. I did some on air interviews with them with the Minion Actor Sound System™ with me dressed as a Knight complete with Monty Python Sounds, and the Puppets, and if you give me a microphone I’m going to say something weird, funny or crazy.

The couple at Closed Casket Creations were right across from us, and we had fun talking about their lack of severed left arms (all they had with them were right arms). We met so many great people, I can’t even begin to list them all. We talked with Tom Devlin of Face off and 1313FX.com, he had his 1 year old daughter at the show, which was awesome how well she did at a trade show. Several former Face Off contestants were there, Roy Wooley was cool as I used the Minion to see if I could get him to say “Octopus” which he did. Ed and Marsha Edmunds of Distortions and the Travel Channel’s Making Monsters , are always great to see and chat with, not to mention they had some great props with them as well. We also talked with our friends at Ghoulish Productions, Manuel and Diego, who were over at the Halloween and Party Expo that was going on at the same time in another part of the convention center. Just a lot of terrific people in our industry, which makes for a great trip no matter where it is.

We had Sally and Psy-cho the Clown with us, as well as the Scarecrow and we brought the prototype of our New Victim Puppet.

 Then while Pat and I were talking with Ed at the Distortions booth, we look over and Mike is being interviewed by a local Houston news station (video here) about Hauntcon in Houston 2014.

We were quite a loud booth, with our puppets and the new Minion Actor Sound System™, we kind of felt bad that we were right next to the workshop area at the show. RJ Haddy of Face off and Rad fx, was about to begin a class, and he noticed we were a loud bunch and mentioned he needed to use a Minion to teach his class, so I let him borrow one.

Only since I mentioned it already, we had a small complication with our hotel reservation, and a roll out cot had to be utilized to fit our crew. The cot was apparently comfortable, but had a tendency to collapse at one end or the other, or both, if you moved wrong while sitting on it. So just imagine a grown man, Mike (who is in the Television Interview), gingerly climbing onto the cot and then turning around and holding up both hands for someone to hand him his blanket so he wouldn’t collapse the cot. It looked like a small child begging for his “Banky” I laughed out loud and still laugh when I think about it. It may not have been as funny as I remember, but that’s what happens after working a trade show all day, I get a little loopy.

Thanks to everyone that came out and talked to us at Hauntcon in Houston 2014. It was a great experience, and we’ll see many of you again at the Transworld Hauntshow in March. Maybe we’ll see you at Hauntcon in New Orleans in 2015.