TransWorld’s National Haunt & Attractions Show St. Louis, Missouri March 2010
The haunted house industry FINALLY has its own haunted house show and it will be held in the America Center in St. Louis, Missouri on March 2010. Prepare for three jam packed days of over 100,000 square feet of haunted house products, amusement products, seminars, education, and haunt tours through one of America's best haunted houses "The Darkness'. Learn more about this event at http://www.HauntShow.com
IAAPA Attractions Expo
The IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) show is the biggest amusement show on the entire planet held every year in November. The show is over 750,000 square feet and offer over 1000 vendors. On average there are about 100 haunt related vendors to choose from. Additionally IAAPA has been producing haunted house seminars each year at their event.
Held each year in September and usually in Las Vegas, the Fun Expo is the biggest family fun center tradeshow. The tradeshow features tons of seminars for the attraction industry. Several haunted house vendors have been displaying at this show and in addition Fun Expo has produced haunted house seminars.
MHC is held in Columbus, Ohio each July. Learn from many other haunted house owners, actors and more. MHC has been very aggressive with seminars for haunt owners and now offers a full tradeshow with vendors and more.
This is held in Los Angeles in June. Make-up artists, vendors, manufacturers and enthusiasts convene for the make-up world’s biggest gathering to discuss, display, discover and collect the best the industry has to offer.
This is the biggest horror convention on the planet. If you own a haunted house you can go here and meet celebrities who would come to your haunted house, find interesting horror stuff and more.
This event takes place in May in Mechanicsburg, PA. The annual Gathering of Haunters offers seminars useful to those in the haunted house industry, vendors selling unique haunted house props that are not available to the general public, and people within the haunted house industry who share various tips and tricks.
FABAIC is the annual Face and Body Art International Convention which takes place in May/June in Orlando, Florida. Painters from around the world gather together to experience the largest face and body painting convention in the US. a
Horrorfind will take place in August 2007 in Baltimore, MD. There are some haunted house seminars, but mostly meet tons of horror celebrities & find interesting horror toys.
HauntCon travels each year to a different city so that attendees can visit haunted houses around the country. Hauntcon is held each year in the month of April.
Ironstock is one of the largest gatherings of its kind recording record numbers of more than 500 haunters. Ironstock has several free seminars and workshops held each summer in Tell City, Indiana.
When I first started looking into the Haunted House business in 1998 it was a much simpler time. We didn’t have the vastness of the internet to find information.After a long hard search, there was but one choice, the Transworld Halloween and Party Show. It really wasn’t a Haunted House show per se, but a retail show that had a small section dedicated to Haunted House related products. The good thing was they had a pre-show seminar series that dealt with the business aspects of haunts!
We attended for an eye opening experience! Seasoned Haunters shared information on how to successfully create a haunt. There were even some vendors that actually had Haunt related props! I was in “Halloween Heaven”. While the show was enormous, I learned quickly that the focus of the show was for retailers. There were some interesting costumes and props available, if you wanted to buy a dozen with a three dozen minimum. But even that didn’t deter the faithful from attending, and attend we did! The Haunt Section began to grow quickly. More attendees created more vendors.But since the focus of the TW show is retail, the Haunters always felt they were treated like the “red headed step child”. So others decided to tap into that market and perhaps cater to this foundling industry.
Fast forward ten years…. Now we have more choices than ever and easier access to find them; TW, IAAPA, Fun Expo, Midwest Haunters, HauntCon, National Haunters Convention, Ironstock and the list grows…. . So where do you go to experience that “Halloween Heaven” I had experienced so long ago? Some will claim that they are THE convention or show for the industry. Is one better than another? Which should you attend? How do we sort through the confusion to unearth the facts? Foremost it is YOUR focus and needs that should dictate the show or shows you attend.
While most all are referred to as conventions, there are actually differences. In reality there are two basic types, trade shows and conventions. A trade show is an industry gathering whose purpose is to put products and services in front of prospective clients. A convention is a gathering of individuals to discuss or engage in a common interest. Over time the line between them has blurred. Trade shows saw a need to provide additional content and sometimes entertainment to entice their attendees. Vendors looked at the conventions and saw an opportunity to present their products to these like minded individuals. So which is best for you?
You must decide, “…what is my purpose?” Is it business, personal growth, or just entertainment?Are you the owner, manager, an actor, a promoter, a technician? Relatively speaking, those with business related functions will attend trade shows; fan and personal related functions attend conventions. The trade shows focus on business aspects, ways to develop and grow your business. They draw from the owner/operators. Conventions tend to entertain more. They will draw more peripheral people. Individuals who work for haunts or hobbyists with more of a fan interest in the business. It’s easy to tell the difference, in a group, the enthusiast asks what new scare you use, the owner/operator asks what new promotion or advertising you use. The trade show motivates you to build the business; the convention motivates you to enjoy the business.
Following this article is a HauntWorld Event Calendar. It contains info and links to the major shows. If we look at what is available for the Haunt industry and use our basic classifications we see that: TransWorld Vegas, TransWorld St. Louis, IAAPA, and Fun Expo are trade shows. Midwest Haunters, HauntCon, National Haunters, Ironstock and the remainder are conventions.
We see that the major vendors usually attend the trade shows and start up or smaller vendors attend the conventions. Trade shows cost thousands of dollars per booth, conventions cost hundreds of dollars. Trade show sales are in the thousands per transaction which justify the costs, conventions in the hundreds. This may explain why the major vendors focus on the trade shows. A convention may highlight a new company, but can they survive till next year? If they do, chances are they end up at the trade shows.
Let’s highlight some of the shows and what they have to offer.
Trade Shows:
TransWorld Halloween and Party ShowVegas: Halloween retail. Great for your gift shops, costume shops, high end make up, and a great place to find unique products.
TransWorld Haunted Attraction Tradeshow St. Louis: biggest selection of Halloween props, animations, and high tech equipment. Special tours, top notch education, highest turn out of haunt owners and operators. Venders typically work all winter to develop new product exclusively for this show. This year is the first time TW has separated the Haunters from the Party Show. Haunt tours are offered however they are not the focus rather bringing buyers and sellers together.
IAAPA: Biggest amusement show in the world. Products cover the gambit from haunters to major amusement parks.IAAPA show offers suppliers for products you may not find anywhere else on the planet and vendors from nearly every nation around the World.Business related education including some haunted house seminars are offered. Show moves to Las Vegas in 2009.
Fun Expo: A smaller version of IAAPA. Focus is towards the smaller family fun centers or small amusement business owner. Wide variety of products, services and suppliers that can be utilized by haunt owners to expand their businesses such as concession suppliers, insurance companies, theming supplies to high tech equipment. Business oriented education is offered. Haunt vendors are starting to attend this show as they reach out to FEC industry.
Conventions:
Midwest Haunters, HauntCon, National Haunters Convention: These shows focus on the attendees with activities such as parties, haunt tours, hearse rallies, make up wars, actor training and a vast array of seminars. Midwest is the oldest and biggest with probably the second highest amount of haunt vendors after Transworld. MHC has more actor activities than any other convention in addition to the biggest lineup of haunt tours. HauntCon is the only convention that changes locations so you have a different variety of haunts to tour each year.Hauntcon also offers a great deal of affordable education programs, hearse rallies, costume ball, and garage sale tables for used equipment.Hauntcon also features a tradeshow floor with a variety of vendors. National Haunters is the newest convention located in Philadelphia area but is developing a good reputation. They have attracted some name presenters for their seminars and a host of exciting events plus haunt tours. The strong point of these three is the variety of haunt tours available.
Chiller Theatre: Biggest horror show on the planet. Best option to meet and contract celebrities for publicity appearances at your haunt.
Mask Association Horrorhound Weekend: Specialized for the mask making and collector industry, meet celebrities, good place to send your specific personnel and or find niche companies who make masks and costumes.
Ironstock: Started out as a Haunter Gathering. While the focus is a social gathering they have some education and smaller vendors.This event is about passion and going strong all these years later!
Whether attending a trade show or a convention, there is no reason NOT to have a good time! (Why do you think there are so many conventions in Vegas?) See what each has to offer. Attending Haunt tours can be fun AND educational. Speaking of education, just because there are a ton of seminars available does not mean they will all be beneficial. If you have free seminars it is usually because the speakers are not paid. Fee oriented seminars usually must provide a higher value to justify the charge. Again, this is a basic rule of thumb. Obviously there have been awesome free seminars, but inadequate paid seminars are seldom repeated.
The important fact remains that the best avenue to continued success is education and exposure to cutting edge trends and technology. To that end, attending trade shows and conventions can be the single most important thing you do for your business.
Hauntworld is the biggest website on the web to help you find haunted houses, haunted house by state, city or by zip code. Hauntworld.com also features hudreds of haunted hayrides, Halloween attractions, corn mazes, ghost tours, haunted tours and much more. Hauntworld.com also includes trick or treat safety tips, free pumpkin carving patterns, haunted news, horror movie reviews, featured articles on haunted attractions and links to vendors, other haunt related websites and so much more. Guests can also create accounts on Hauntworld.com and rate, review their favorite local haunted houses. Create an account today and start rating and reviewing haunted houses. Hauntworld is publishs a magazine called Hauntworld Magazine and you can subscribe at www.Hauntedhousemagazine.com. Hauntworld is also a proud supporter of HHA (www.hauntedhouseassociation.org). Hauntworld also supports several haunted house tradeshows and you can find a complete list of upcoming trades on our haunted house tradeshow page. Hauntworld.com is the most advanced haunted house website on the planet featured on www.Google.com, www.Yahoo.com, www.USAtoday.com, www.Myspace.com and has been featured on Travel Channel, National Geographic Channel and many more.
