Now that I’ve finally been to one, though, I can see how they do it.
The show is well organized, close enough to everything (like NYC) that it’s an easy drive, the hotel is perfectly laid out for the show and, most importantly, the staff are all very cool and friendly. If you’ve never been to a horror convention I really can’t tell you what an important element this is for a thriving, long-term show. The minute you start hiring bitchy trolls or those with attitudes of superiority to handle your crowds, there are going to be problems. The Monster Mania staff were all friendly and helpful and I don’t think I hear of a single fan-related incident all weekend. A good sign for continued success.
The most fun panel I hit all weekend, aside from Tyler Mane discussing being the new Michael Myers (very charismatic guy, he is) was the Reunion of the Dead, which featured stars from every single Dead film; our own Kyra from Night of the Living Dead, Leonard Lies, David Emgee, Scott Reiniger, Ken Foree and Gaelyn Ross from Dawn of the Dead, Joe Pilato and Gary Klarr from Day of the Dead and Eugene Clark from Land of the Dead. Clark was MC for most of it and was entertaining as hell, even if you have heard all the stories before. I’m pissed I missed his stand up routine in the hotel’s comedy club, but man there was just too much to do when the show was over.
Our setup was a bit smaller than usual, I discovered, but we made do with what we had. You’d be amazed at how popular a table full of FREE SHIT is after a few minutes of the doors opening. Nomad’s got the table manning down to such a science (thanks in no small part to the help of his lovely assistant, Cara) that everyone sees the Dread Central table and knows what they’ll be getting; hourly drawings of raffle numbers that will offer them the chance to get even cooler free stuff! For a table setup for a website that didn’t even have a laptop on it to show off the site with (I wasn’t sacrificing mine, that’s for sure!), we did damn good this weekend! Now if only we could find a way to sell stuff, too…
Some minor problems did go down, the show wasn’t flawless, but it was the kind of thing you see at shows a lot. Mainly the ATM breaking down on Saturday night and not being able to get fixed on Sunday, which was one of the biggest deterrents from people buying stuff for obvious reasons. That’s the kind of thing no one can expect or really plan for, but the staff handled it as well as they could. Besides, it’s not like you couldn’t drive 10 minutes to another ATM anyway!
Of course I would be remiss to not point out all the badass companies who lent us their swag for giveaway. They’re too numerous to name here so I’ll just let the graphic do the talking.
Thank you from all of us at Dread Central and we had better see you at Monster Mania 9!