Houston Halloween Expo Review

[xxxdirk]

Move Haunt & Costume BACK to Chicago in 2010 and have it in Feb or early March!!! Thats my vote!!! If it does happen, you will see me do my happy dance!!

[Darkangel]

Dirk,

No one wants to go back to Chicago except for you and a few others, thousands want it elsewhere. Not trying to be rude but based on the comments I've read the past year or two that seems to be what everyone is saying.

I do agree with you though the Halloween and costume should be together with the haunt, it's all so close ad the haunt section will be too small honestly. Even if the haunt section from last year was 3-4 times bigger, it's still pretty small overall...I say rejoin them I think most people think that's a good idea...


Darkangel

[xxxdirk]

Darkangel,

All I know is that they had a good thing going in Chicago. They had good attendence etc. Then they moved to Vegas and it flopped. Houson, from reports here, flopped. Vegas this year will flop again if the early reports are right. St Louis will be sucessful to the extent that many HAUNTERS will go, but I predict that TW will look at the cost of having a seperate show and say its not worth it. I had prediced on this board last year that Tworld was making a huge mistake by splitting up the venue and then deciding to move. Yes, weather in Chicago in March is not Vegas or Orlando, but it is reasonable. The average temp is almost 50. You park your car and walk into the tradeshow. You have the Crowne to hang out at if you want. As far as all the EXTRA things St Louis has to offer, Chicago never had all the extra things, because no one bothered to put anything together. If it does move back to Chicago, and I would be willing to BET it does, almost all of the things St Louis is offering can be done there:

-Thursday night get together at at steak place, done.
-Thursday night tour with lights on of Dreamreapers for $125, mmmm Ken, you want to do that? DONE!! LOL
-Friday night bus tour of a couple of great haunts within 1.5 hours of the Rosemone? Mr Tuxedo and a few other haunts are easily within that drive time.
-Saturday night lights off tour of Dreamreapers followed by party? Yeah I am sure Ken would throw a hell of a party.

As far as hotels, I am paying $102 for the Holiday Inn across the street in St Louis. Pretty sure, that there are hotels fairly close to the Rosemont at the same range. When I attended TW in years past I stayed at a hotel about 15 min away for $80 a night.

The one wild card is the cost of the booths that exhibitors have to pay and all the union crap. But if you are an exhibitor and have a choice between a dead show and not paying as much for a booth, compared to paying a bit more but having the show rock, I know what my choice would be.....

Anyway, again, if I were a betting man, my bet would be Chicago in 2010. The great and powerful evil genius Rondini has spoken!!! LOL

[Spookyfinder]

I'll bet too that TW moves back to Chicago... but not the HAUNT SHOW!!! I mean, we need our own professional show! It'd be a dream come true if MHC could pull the vendors that TW has and be a VENDOR show... that's the ideal situation.

If the HAUNT SHOW moves again, it better not be anywhere NORTH! I've always thought it'd be cool to move TW to Atlanta... then we could get a Netherworld tour! Or how about Kansas City? Or right here in Lexington or Louisville?

Just my .666 cents. -Tyler

[oakhillshaunterTHEFEAR]

I've been known by many as a Nostra Damus kinda guy.

Heres my prediction......

TRANSWORLD 20-10 WILL BE IN O-A-K H-I-L-L-S.

NOSTRA DAMUS THIS TIME!!!!

[damon carson]

Not to be bias since I live in Missouri but why not bring the whole thing to St. Louis. We already have the haunt show. The convention center there already said they can hold it. St. Louis is a more central location and the weather is better. Just my thought on the whole thing. Dont get me wrong I like Chicago but driving 4 or 5 hours in bad weather really sucked at times.
Damon

[Blank]

Any pictures of new Bump in the night Killer Klowns?

[drfrightner]

Ron (Dirk)

Rosemont SUCKS... I really don't care what you or anyone else thinks, although its your opinion, and you are totally entitled to it but ROSEMONT SUCKS!!! The hotels are OUTRAGOUS, you pay a toll to enter the street, NO PLACES TO EAT, BORING, COLD AS HELL, very very very rude union people, and as for you saying hooked up with the retail, most of those so called retail vendors won't give you a catalog, complain about you being there, and 90+% of everyone is someone you'd never buy anything from.

If you want to talk whats best to co-locate with it would be IAAPA PLAIN AND SIMPLE AS THAT... a Halloween retail and attractions do not jive.

Amusement show and Halloween does... too bad IAAPA is in November otherwise we wouldn't even be discussing this.

Why you love Rosemont I'll never understand.

Why don't you cool your engines until after you experience something new?

As for your so called claim Vegas FLOPPED... you are dead wrong there because it wasn't a flop at all. It was successful for everyone the problem is it added a termendous amount of cost to vendors because of travel.

One last thing you keep harping on which is totally wrong... you talk about lack of haunt tours. Hmmm... there is MORE haunt tours going on in St. Louis than ever before in Chicago so what are you talking about? There are more haunted events, tours, and gatherings than ANY Rosemont show EVER. Lastly nothing against Dreamreapers but what you are suggesting is go back to Chicago and be stuck on one haunt tour year after year, when in another post you say the opposite that you want more haunt tours.

Based on what you are saying we should move the show to Detroit or Philadelphia where there are tons of haunts not ROSEMONT. Seriously make up your mind is the city, haunt tours, haunted events what you are saying what are you suggesting because you seem to be all over the board.

Again just cool your jets and see how this all plays out then make a judgement... you haven't even given this one a chance!

Larry

[xxxdirk]

Larry, buddy, RE READ my post! I said that YES, St Louis is offering more to do and more haunts to visit, but I also said that the EXACT same thing COULD be done in Chicago. I am paying $65 to do the Coumbia tour and that tour is about a 2 hour trip. I know there are a lot of good haunts within 2 hours of the Rosemont. Yes I like the Rosemont, and it has a great place in mine and many other haunts. I do hope that St Louis is a success, but WHEN TW moves back to CHICAGO, I am sure people will love it and have tours all over the place.

[graystone]

I said it 1000 times!!

Put the Halloween and Haunt Show back together its a win win for everyone!!!!!!! I think after the Haunt Show they will sit down and say boy did we f**k up! XXXDirk! Amen Brother! Shane and its Halloween & Haunt Show for 2010!

[Spookyfinder]

IDK... I still say this hauntshow will be a HUGE success!!! Maybe the retail shows can get back together, but the hauntshow needs to STAY apart from those shows! -Tyler

[Grimley]

I agree with Larry there is NOTHING good about Chicago and I will talk to every TW person I come across and tell them so. I'm all for joining the show back together as long as its in the South. I don't care where.

PS There are no new BITN Killer Klowns this year.

[xxxdirk]

LOL, Shane I just had this image of you in a blue Babtist Choir robe saying TESTIFY BROTHER!!!! LOL, well, I do want to make it clear that I am going to St Louis, and plan on buying stuff. I am also going to the Fri & Saturday tours and look VERY much forward to meeting all of you and most of all I want the convention to be a success!

[drfrightner]

Put haunt show together with an AMUSEMENT SHOW and then you'd hit a homerun because you are an ATTRACTION... DUH! LOL

Halloween retail and Halloween Attractions have little to nothing in common. Retail is just that RETAIL and ATTRACTIONS are just that ATTRACTIONS. One group sells batman costumes while the other sells tickets for a PRODUCTION no different than opening a Six Flags or producing a broadway play.

TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT ANIMALS!

TOTALLY!

We need to grow an attraction show with MORE vendors including RETAIL vendors who WANT to sell to haunts if they want our business make them come to us!

Larry

[Darkangel]

Ron,

You say Transworld IS moving back to Chicago, how can you be so certain? Do you have insider info or is it wishful thinking? To all these people complaining about not being able to simply load up your cars and drive in, you won't get much sympathy from the rest of us who has been flying in for years. It's time YOU all fly in and maybe we drive for a few years. The south should be the future location!

As for joining the Hauntshow with IAAPA or an amusement show it sounds like fun but not many people will not get anything from it. Those amusement vendors are used to dealing with amusement parks who have bug bucks and big budgets and can afford the $30,000 facades and sculptures and technolog they all sell at...Most if any of us cannot afford the things they sell at. We want to pay $5k for a Scarefactory animation, not $40k on a Lifeformations one, $5k-$10k for a full facade not $35k for a facade component....We're just not in that league yet as a whole...It would be far more fun, but we'd be gawkers not buyers in most cases...

Darkangel