When I tell some of my non-horror friends that I am going to a 24-hour horror movie marathon, a few might be slightly intrigued, while most give me that strange look of “why in the hell would you want to do that?” If you are a horror fan, then you know exactly why we’d do it. If you’re not, then I’m not sure I could explain it. It is something that each year I tell myself I’m getting too old to do them, but then the next year, I’m right back there for more madness.
With our time of year starting to show itself, with decorations popping up in the stores, we seem just a little less strange than we normally do. It also gives us the opportunity to pick up plenty of stuff for our home decor that we used all year round! But it also does mean that the weekend’s are getting booked with different conventions, movie events, marathons, and all sorts of stuff to celebrate this genre we love so much. We posted a days ago about the upcoming movie events and marathons coming up, so here is the last 3 actual conventions that we will be attending before this year’s tour is over.
Sunday July 10th
Sundays at a convention tend to be a sobering wake-up call. And that has nothing to do with alcohol, but just the fact that the weekend is almost over and soon we’ll be packing up, loading the van back up, and hitting the road. And when you have an eight our ride looming over you, it makes it even more daunting. Plus, it also means that we’ll all soon have to go back to reality, leaving our monstrous weekend behind. What makes it even more difficult is when you’ve had such a great time these last few days at a show like Monster Bash. It really does make you start counting the days until the next one.
For our second day at the Bash, when I wasn’t running around hanging out with authors and getting my books signed, I was working behind our table. Well…most of the time. Lucky for me, my partner-in-crime/wife Dawn was there to take charge. In fact, the way her tote bags and pillows were flying off the table, I was starting to think that the Krypt might soon to be a subsidiary of her business Horror Slave! Everyone seems to love our poster prints that we’ve come up with, and seeing a bunch of people walking around the show with one of her tote bags is pretty cool.
Setting up at a con for three days can sometimes throw you a variety of…challenges. Sometimes your table might not be in the best spot in the dealer room. But even in choice spots, one thing that can really drag down the show is your dealer neighbors. Since you’ll be spending the next three days next to them, it can make those drag like weeks if your neighbors might be…shall we say…”difficult”. But lucky for us, we had none of that here. In fact, we had great neighbors! To the right of us was Steve “the t-shirt guy”, which we’ve known for years from doing shows. I can’t think of another guy that has the selection that he does. You can always find something cool in his t-shirt cave!
One of the great things I loved about Monster Bash is the presence of not only books but authors as well. Last year, I got over dozen books signed by a few different authors that were there. And it didn’t cost a penny! It would have been a lot more books but author Tom Weaver wasn’t able to make it to the show. But this year he was, and I was prepared for his return to the Bash, bringing well over a dozen of his books alone for him to sign. Weaver is a deity when it comes to horror history, spending his time seeking out and interviewing stars of the movies we love, both bigger names and not-so-bigger names, and getting their stories and memories down in print for us monster fans to read and learn even more about them.
In about two weeks, we’ll be hitting our next stop on our 2016 Kryptic World Tour, at the annual Flashback Weekend in Rosemont, IL, taking place on Aug. 5th-7th. We’ve been to everyone of these shows since they started way back in 2002, and this one will be no different. They’ve got a huge list of guests as always, plenty of great dealers, and is just always a fun time. If you’re coming out to the show, make sure you stop by our table and say hello!
Friday, July 8th
After dealing with our auto repair issues and while my traveling companions struggle to get out of bed, I head downstairs to start getting our table set up. At first, getting it organized by myself seems a daunting task, since I usually have my wife Dawn and my son Nick there to help, but I seem to manage pretty well on my own. Or at least I didn’t destroy anything, or get injured. Always a plus.
Thursday, July 7th
I’d been looking forward to this year’s Monster Bash for quite some time. The fact that they were going to have guests from the film Robot Monster actually had me excited for a show. That doesn’t happen often these days. Plus, I just love the feel of this show, not to mention the killer dealer room.
Next month, at the annual Flashback Weekend will be taking place at the Crown Plaza, in Rosemont, IL., one of the many guests that will be attending is legendary director Don Coscarelli, the man who gave us the highly memorable film Phantasm. Phans had been hearing that the original film was getting the remastered treatment for an upcoming release, but now you can have the chance to see this new print screened at a theater!
Last weekend, we were at the Cinevent Classic Film Convention in Columbus and had a lot of fun. Sure, it would have been nice to have a few more bodies coming through the door, but that didn’t stop us from selling a few things, meeting a few people (including another die-hard Naschy fan), as well as picking up a few things for my own collection. This show is a good old fashion memoribilia show. No guests charging money for autographs, but just a bunch of dealers selling everything from posters to lobby cards to stills and much more. Yes, this wasn’t just a horror show, but we were still able to find some good stuff. Although, I have to say, when you come across a table with about 8 stacks of movie posters, each about six inches high, and the dealer says “all posters are a buck each”, you know your back is going to killing you when you’re done going through them all, but you do it anyway. We’re going to plan on going to this show again next year and see how it goes. If we do well again, maybe we’ll make this a regular stop on our World Tour!
kitleyskrypt.com 