NEWS: East Coast Haunters Convention Draws MASSIVE Crowds

0:07 Coming up your weekly roundup of news from around the haunt industry. Welcome to the show. I'm Philip on the HN Show. We bring you the haunt news, information, and education you need to prepare for Halloween. On Tuesdays, we bring you a roundup of news from haunts worldwide. Read more about these stories and so much more in our free weekly newsletter. Subscribe at the link in the show notes, and as always for the news roundup, I'm passing it off to Darryl. The second annual East Coast Haunters Convention took place this past weekend at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania. This year's event saw an expanded footprint, filling up the entire halay and adding a second haul for the Christmas Show co located event. Attendance also increased this year, with Saturday morning attendees arriving over an hour early to secure their spot in line, which wrapped all the way around the building. The Haunt tours were outstanding and all featured haunts with full actors and effects, an enormous feat for off season events. Attendees enjoyed freight Factory and Field of Screams.

1:12 Hershey Park announced a brand new Haunt coming to this year's event and gave all the tour attendees a souvenir that ties to the new Haunt theme. Eastern State Penitentiary offered a full Haunt of lights on tour of the machine shop and then allowed attendees to tour backstage areas and ask questions of the team. Brighton Asylum showcased all three of its award winning haunts. All of the links in our show notes to see our full walkthroughs. The exhibitor floor featured select vendors from trans World's Halloween and Attraction Show, with many of them shifting to more cash and carry options for this regional event. Little Spider Creations won the Best Booth award for their Evil Dead themed cabins surrounded with pumpkins and tombstones for sale. Iluma Bought won the Best New Product award for their AI projection mapping.

1:57 The pit area saw haunts from all over represented, many of which brought actors to engage with attendees. Lake Hickory Haunts, which is a six and a half hour drive away, and Woods of Terror also had a strong presence at the show. The slate was full of programming for the entire weekend, from Costume Contest to Haunt Olympics. The top three winners of the Haunt Olympics were Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary, Frightmare Farms, Haunted Screen Park, and Lincoln Mail Haunted House. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend full of haunts, networking, education, and spooky fun. Stay tuned to the Haunted Attraction Network for more videos of the frightful festivities. Wicked New England's inaugural Halfway to Halloween Festival is coming to Salem's historic Old Town Hall in Salem, Massachusetts, Saturday, May third, from eleven am to seven pm. The Hall will be failed with a curated vendor market featuring spooky, scary, macobb and Halloween themed merchandise for all to enjoy. From apparel to candles, jewelry decorations, artwork, pet accessories, bath goods, apothecary items and more. Every Halloween loving guest is sure to find something to take home. Photo ops will be presented by Barrett's Haunted Mansion in Abington, Massachusetts and Spooky World from Lichfield, New Hampshire, with monsters ready to pose and perhaps spook guests. Panel presentations will take place throughout the day on the Old Town Hall stage, sharing insight and a peak behind the curtain of New England, Haunts and other Helloween offering scheduled to take part, or which city walking Tours, Halloween New England and the Horror Squad

3:29 podcast and more. Tickets are on sale now for fifteen dollars each. Creepit reel Oc tickets are now on sale for their sixth annual Creepit reel Oc, taking place September twelfth through fourteenth at the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana, California. This year's Creepit real Oc is blending haunted beach vibes with sunset chills and skeleton thrills. The three days of spooky fun will feature over one hundred and thirty Halloween vendors, photo ops, live music, food and drinks, roaming monsters, and more. Whether you're a Halloween fanatic, a costume connoisseur, or just here for the booze, this is your end of summer flight Fest. Tickets start at fifteen dollars for single day admission, forty five dollars for a creep In Weekend pass and seventy five dollars for an all festival weekend past admission to both creep It reel Oc and creep It Real Festive. Children under ten are free. This May, the VHS Society is honoring all mothers, including Possessed one join them on Friday, May sixteenth for Mother of Evil, a VHS Evil Dead Movie Night. The event will take over the Attic at Sassafras Saloon, where there will be a screening of Evil Dead Rise. There will be blood Guts of photo op vendors, short horror films, and of course motherly love. Costumes are encouraged, especially those that reference any of the Evil Dead movies, Dead Heights or just a plane possessed by unspeakable evil look. Tickets are on sale now for seventeen eighty five each. Guests

5:01 must be twenty one or over to attend. There is a two drink minimum for both alcoholic or non alcoholic beverages. Booze Bites and Frights Street Food Cinema is celebrating halfway to Halloween with a two day horror screening event Booze Bites and Frights Half Oween, taking place at the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Craft will screen on Friday, May second, and Final Destination will screen on Saturday May third. Relive fan favorite horror films, satisfy your hunger at LA's Best food trucks, sip on themed cocktails, and play to win with creepy carnival games. Costumes are encouraged, so be ready to strike a spooky pose at creepy photo ops and be prepared to encounter some roaming gules.

5:45 Guided tours will take you through the dimly lit corridors, creaking staircases, and fascinating history of the ethereally captivating Victoria Mansions. Tickets are on sale now starting at thirty dollars plus fees for advanced tickets at the door, tickets will be forty two. Arizona Haunters will present a corpsing rotted up make and Take class and heat Sink's Labs and Mesa Arizona on Saturday, May seventeenth. Join the AZ Haunters Awards winners Sonia Johnson of Smuggler's Cove and Dustin Burgon of Burgin's Burial Ground, along with Just Jim Az to see how to make your Bones a gruesome corpse. Three different methods will be demonstrated during the workshop. This is a byob event. Bring your own bones, bring your own skeleton, prop and corpse it together with the class. Extra skeletons will be available for purchase cash only register today. Tickets are fifteen dollars per person. Some outcoming events from April through June twenty twenty five include Wicked New England and Salem, Massachusetts on May third, halfway to Halloween Expo in ann Arbor, Michigan on May tenth, Shutter Con in east Ridge, Tennessee from May tenth and eleventh, scare Con in Birmingham, England, May twentieth and twenty first, Monster Palooza and Pasadena, California, May thirty first and June first, and the Midwest Haunters Convention in Rosemont, Illinois, June sixth through eight.

7:07 And that's all for the news this week. Today's episode was produced by me Philip Hernandez, with reporting by Darryl Plunky, post production by David Swope. This Haunt News Update is a production of the Haunted Attraction Network, and you can sign up to our weekly newsletter at Hantattrationnetwork dot com Support for this episode comes from Gantum lighting and controls. Until next time, Haunters stay scary. This is a Haunted Attraction Network production