What happened was I was working out bugs on a dark ride we installed. The ride opened on Saturday with a media party that happened on Friday. I wanted also to go to Chiller show but didn't make that either.
Just got back and wanted to tell everyone what a great show they put on! The seminars were packed, I got to see old friends like Ricky and Karen from Castle Blood and John Burton. I also got to mingle with many other haunters and vendors and attendees.
The boys from Bad Boys were there showing their support for the show and the haunted dance party/ball (complete with open bar) was a great time for all.
I paid for the booth and entire trip in 42 minutes of opening! This was a home-haunter crowd and they were gracious and eager for new information! I want to say thank you to the fine folks who ran the show..you did an outstanding job! I will enjoy watching your show grow each year..don't miss this one folks..I had a blast and made some money at the same time..Isn't that what is supposed to be like? LOL!
The Seminars worked out very well....so well that it caused us a problem.
We had gotten a large room for the seminars, which held 75 seats.....we figured....no problem
Boy were we wrong....
So many of the seminars quickly became standing room only! Every time Tattoo opened his mouth, more people squeezed in......John Burton, Ricky Dick, and John Denley all had the same problem....so many of the original founders of the industry.
We had all the seats filled, all the standing spaces filled, and I had to turn away about 20 people for some of the seminars....we are going to have to get a much bigger room next year for that...we were floored by the response to the seminars.
The only glitch we had was the Larry seminar.....prior to the seminar the room was jammed packed with people (all holding HauntWorld magazines) waiting for Larry. His lecture was one of the most anticipated lectures of the day and quite a few people were talking about it. Unfortunetly, Larry had a last minute large media engagement and although Larry tried to make it in time, he could not. We held out for as long as we could, but then just had another speaker fill in. Many were dissapointed, but everyone understood and also knows that Larry is very busy. Hopefully we can offer the chance to have him speak again in the future...he always has a large eager crowd!
I got a chance to listen to the entire Voice from Hell Seminar.....Dick Terhune is a really great guy with some really cool knowledge...I recommend him sometime...
I'm sorry I let you down, and all the people who came to see me. I really did try to make it... you only get to work on mega dark ride projects once every so often. It just so happened the media day was Friday and DAFE showed up, and then on Saturday we stayed at the park the entire day until around midnight or so...
Had to make lists of everything that was wrong, and today we're arranging for people to fix everything. Did not GET ANY sleep the night before because we worked on the dark ride until like 4am for the following days big opening.
EVERYONE was worn out... the whole crew flew back on Friday but myself, Jim, and Kip from Pale Night and our video guy. He actually helped do some stuff around 3am. LOL
The following day we had to take a bunch of people to the airport, and pick up some people as well. I finally did get out of Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon. We headed up to the Philly area but would have NEVER made it. We eneded up in Washington DC, then Baltimore and caught a flight home. I just got home today and missed my flight because I went to the wrong gate.
It was all one big nightmare! LOL
I do however PROMISE to attend the EHC in 2009 with bells on.
Thanks for the apology, and I do think everyone there understood. We had brought out a printout of the Kennywood story and explained to everyone that there was a major media event that you had to be at.
People were thankful for the magazines and every last one went out to all the patrons of the event. We all appreciated those magazines.
Make sure you just add me to your cell though....856-981-6239...if you run into a problem again in the future, just throw me a call. A heads up would have been great so in the future we can reschedule or remove it from the seminar list. It was the only seminar glitch, so overall everything else went well.
I'll tell ya, it's a shame you missed the bus tour...you missed one hell of an event...Fright Factory and Eastern State Pen put on quite a show for us!
Mike great pics...send me some of your tradeshow and pics of people for the next magazine. We'd also love to have a full write up from you guys...we're going to print a big story.
Additionally I do feel really bad... I know a lot of these types events draw out people who buy our magazines, videos and follow our site. Those people usually love to say hello and ask questions about videos and stuff. Its always fun to answer questions about our passion projects.
I really felt I let you down. On the bright side I'm glad I was able to get all of those people several different issues of FREE Hauntworld magazines even if they're the older ones.
We will continue to support the EHC and will be PROMOTING this show all year long in hopes for a 10 times bigger turn out in 2009.
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