Midsummer Scream Ushers In Halloween Season

Speaker 1: 00:00 It is 92 days till Halloween. And we know this because KPBS arts reporter Beth OCHA, Mondo is counting down to her favorite holiday. One sign that Halloween season is in full swing is the arrival of midsummer scream, a Halloween and hot haunt convention in Long Beach. Beth speaks with event organizers, David Markland and Claire Dunlap about what to expect from a convention devoted to thrills and chills. Speaker 2: 00:30 David, you are about to have the fourth midsummer scream convention. Just before we start talking about your show, I want to ask you what you think about this petition that has started that would like to move Halloween to the last Saturday of the month. Are you in favor of this? Speaker 3: 00:48 No. No. I mean the, the fun of Halloween is, you know, I remember sometimes it'd be on a school day, sometimes it'd be on a weekend. Yeah. It sort of kept or used a little interesting mix things up a bit. How Aileen, you know, I, I don't think it's the kind of holiday you try to sanitize. It's the one taboo holiday out there and trying to like make it safer. Um, it's already a safe holiday. You know, it has a perception of being unsafe, but it's moving it to a weekend to make it more convenient. No, let's uh, let's keep it October 31st. Speaker 2: 01:17 All right. I happen to agree with you on that. I think it should be left as it is now midsummer screen for some people kind of announces like we are now getting serious about entering the Halloween season. So for people who may not be familiar with your convention, what can you find there? Speaker 3: 01:33 It's an event made for people who love Halloween, whatever that may mean. We have a dozen haunted houses set up for people who want to get, you know, get a little scared pretty early. We have all of the major theme parks from around southern California coming and doing a presentation about what they have planned for this year. Like Halloween horror nights we believe is gonna reveal what one of the themes of their mazes are and a lot of different talks on different topics around a whore. We have one on a going to talk about mental illness and whore. Two people talking about creating different TV shows for people who like Halloween or spooky things that range from just being a little eerie to full on bloody horror horror type stuff. Plus we have, you know, 350 vendors selling decor tee shirts, props, promoting their own projects all across this giant show floor. Speaker 2: 02:23 And it seems like Halloween has taken off in the past, maybe like five to 10 years in terms of people really wanting to do home haunts or decorating their house to a higher degree than it used to be, say 10 years ago. Have you seen that as a change that's been happening? Speaker 3: 02:42 Yeah, that seems to have definitely spiked over the past 10 years with, um, I think it may be partly the advent of Youtube and people being able to share skills plus getting excited to see what people are doing across the country and just getting excited with the whole idea. I think that's probably one of the biggest impacts on the holiday. Speaker 2: 02:59 And what Speaker 3: 03:00 led you to want to create a Halloween convention and think that it was something that could actually be popular and grow? Um, it's my favorite holiday and, um, you know, I was at, at the time I started doing this or you had a blog called creepy la and I was just talking all about Halloween or spooky things happening in the La area and it seemed, and it was also producing events at the same time. And so it seemed to lend itself as a good theme for doing an event. And there's nothing else really like it where people could go just to meet and mix and mingle, um, around a common, uh, loving interest in this massive event or massive holiday called Halloween. Speaker 2: 03:42 Now, Claire, you were in on this at ground zero and have been with the Convention for four years. David mentioned that there are hundreds of vendors there, so can you give people a feel for like what kind of things they can find there? What's the kind of diversity or expansive of Halloween items you can get? Speaker 3: 04:01 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have anything from doggy clothes to baby clothes to adult clothing, all hollering Halloween inspired. We, there's also a plethora of different artists that come and give their different variations where you can buy prints, for example, original prints, all Halloween inspired, some horror inspired. We'll have mask vendors, people that where you can go and purchase masks. There are also handbags, jewelry, everything that you can think of that you would possibly want to purchase. You can most likely purchase with a Halloween theme at mid summer scream through our vendors. There's also, you know, people that are selling props, things that you can decorate your home with. I mean truly everything. We're also going to have a tattoo vendor this year. So if you want to get a Halloween inspired tattoo, there's really, really, I mean, everything you can think of, it's pretty bad test. Speaker 2: 05:00 Well, I have to say I'm a home hunter and uh, I have been depending on midsummer screen for I think the past three years to find some big prop items. I did a Cathol lose haunted house where I found a vendor who had absolutely fabulous tentacles. So, um, cool. So do you see that there are a lot more people that are kind of coming there to kind of up their game on haunted houses or just decorating their homes? Speaker 3: 05:31 Absolutely. I think there's definitely a draw for people who are looking to get more involved in the Halloween aspect, but we also have in terms of whether that be decorating their home or decorating their bodies really. So we have people looking for costumes, we have people looking for home decor a, the thing about our audience is very often it's not just for Halloween. People live Halloween as a lifestyle, you know, as we all do to a certain degree, you know, I mean obviously one of the things that David and I have in common is our love for Halloween and the holiday. And by the way, I need to put my 2 cents in on that moving today. It must stay on the 31st none of this, none of this trying to move it if they want to move Halloween and tell them to try to move Christmas to you. That's what I say. Speaker 2: 06:22 And you mentioned that there are panels. What kind of topics do you feel that you need to cover in this? And Are you there to help the person who wants to create the great costume or create a better haunted house or no legal issues about opening your home? Speaker 3: 06:40 Yeah. Hey, you know, it varies. It varies from year to year what type of content we have in regards to panels and classrooms. So this year we do have, we have a psychologist talking on the psychology of fear type thing, which is an interesting, I think on some level everybody enjoys being scared as long as it's there being scared in a safe environment, you know, we all have a side of ourselves that is that dark side and Halloween and horror are ways that we can express and experience those things while staying. Speaker 2: 07:16 Great. So when you first started this, did you have any sense of how popular it would become? Cause you have expanded each year, haven't you? Speaker 3: 07:26 We have, I mean a, the first year of midsummer screen we had 8,000 people throughout the weekend. And I think this year we're expecting 30,000 people. And, uh, to answer, no, I had no idea. Like I, I knew there was an audience for it and that's why we did it. But every year, uh, seeing it grow is always, um, a nice surprise. You know, one thing you know, we make an effort to do is to try to find the people who are not just directly involved in necessarily horror, but maybe they have an interest in makeup effects or maybe they are DIY people who are excited that they can use those DIY type skills to do something different and neat to people who like, you know, heavy metal who typically may not think that at work convention or a Halloween Convention would be their thing. But we try to find a way to bring all these people in and to build this general community around Halloween. Speaker 2: 08:16 That was Beth Armando speaking with the midsummer scream organizers. David, Mark Lynn and Claire Dunlap. The Halloween convention takes place this Saturday and Sunday at the Long Beach Convention Center.