A Visit In Pictures: Midsummer Scream 2019

With Midsummer Scream 2019 in the rear view mirror and Midsummer Scream 2020 already creating buzz and excitement for the future, plenty of people will make the decision to attend (and probably already planning their visit to) the largest Halloween convention around! If you want to hear exactly what we thought of MSS 2019, you can listen to our latest episode below!

If you are more of a visual person, here is our Visit In Pictures Blog from MSS 2019! For those of you who haven’t seen one of these posts before, it isn’t a review. It is a literal visual representation of our weekend at MSS with some brief descriptions. We hope you enjoy and see you at MSS 2020!

The Show Floor

This year’s show floor was expansive and, at a glance, extremely overwhelming. But once you got your bearings, traversing the show floor was enjoyable and simple. The biggest difference between MSS 2018 and MSS 2019 is the sheer size of the show floor. This year, it has almost doubled! Another major change and the one that makes the most difference is the size of each isle. The wider isles makes it completely enjoyable, even with increased attendance.

Everywhere you look, you’ll find people in cosplay or in chairs getting prosthetic/makeup work done to transform them into the truly beautiful ghouls and monsters that scare us each and every fall. People come out to celebrate the spookiest time of the year and use MSS as the true kick off to the Halloween season.

We found a couple members of the Decayed Brigade wandering around the show floor. We followed them back to see one of their shows later in the day inside the Hall of Shadows! Doing yourself a favor, if you ever find the Decayed Brigade at an event, make sure to see their shows! They are high energy, fun and extremely impressive.

This is Mudd The Magnificent! A wonderful magician with a wicked sense of humor! Mudd was created by professional Comedy Magician, Jimmy H and born out of love for magic, horror and the haunt industry. A must see when at MSS.

The folks at Creep LA can always be found around the show floor…creeping people out and promoting their newest experience.

For the true haunt fanatic, spooky decor infuses our lives all year round! We all have our favorite spooky Etsy shop or other Halloween themed home goods supplier, don’t we? wouldn’t it be great if all of these shops and vendors were in one convenient location so we could browse at our leisure? Luckily, all these products and goodies converge at MSS and you have your choice of many different items that range from extremely disturbing to down right cute! Some of our favorite things we saw were more kid oriented items, since we have a 10 month old now. When people hear Halloween convention, the first thing that come stop mind is scary. But this is a perfect example of how the Halloween season is not only for those looking to get the pants scared off of them, but also for families looking to bring the kid friendly spookiness into their children’s lives.

 

The Hall of Shadows: TIKI TERROR

The Hall of Shadows is (to us) one of the major contributing factors why MSS is so unique and successful. This is a whole area dedicated to independent local haunted houses and some stellar shows and displays.

This years theme for the HoS was Tiki Terror! As you approach the impressive lava rock work, you are invited into the darkness by Tiki Tum Tum. Who interacts with each and every visitor. If you stay long enough, he might try to sacrifice you to the Gods!

Once you pass through the spectacular entryway and scare zone created by Cal Haunts, you can find a myriad of entertainment offerings. This is where you will find The Decayed Brigade shows, independent haunts and some fun traditional halloween displays.

You can spend almost a full day in the HoS taking in each and every haunted attraction they have to offer. If you get a Gold Bat Pass for the weekend, you can have front of line privileges so you don’t have to spend all day.

Inside the HoS, you could find booths which sold merchandise that fit that years theme…TIKI TERROR! It was very hard to keep our wallets in our pockets with such incredibly awesome items for purchase.

 

Major Panels

The Grand Ballroom is where you would find the major panels that took place at MSS. Although there were smaller stages with many more offerings, the Grand Ballroom had the biggest lines of the weekend. It is where you can find the major theme parks talking about this years halloween season or even some celebrities talking about their latest shows. For example, this year they had Christine McConnell talk about her latest Netflix show!

Knott’s Scary Farm is one of our favorite events to attend during the halloween season. So you know we made an appearance to get a glimpse into their plans for 2019! Although, they usually keep things under wraps until their announcement event at the park. But, never the less, it is still fun to see some of the iconic monsters from the park roam the walkways of the Grand Ballroom.

Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor is honestly the highlight of the panels for us. Each and every year, they bring out their cast of characters to delight and entertain the crowd. At the end of this panel, my cheeks (I mean my face) and my stomach hurt from laughing so much. This year, they talked more about their newest haunt coming to Florida, Dark Horizons. Even introducing a new character created specifically for this new event.

Haunted Mansion 50th Anniversary Panel was the kick off to MSS 2019! This panel had a stacked lineup of guests such as: Tony Baxter, Tom Morris, Tania Norris, Don Han, and Bob Gurr! It was truly incredible hearing behind the scenes stories about The Haunted Mansion and even stories about Walt Disney himself. So many moments brought tears to our eyes and even gave us goosebumps.

CONCLUSION

Midsummer Scream continues to grow each and every year. It also seems as though it gets better each and every year as well! With a wide variety of entertainment offerings and panels, MSS is truly the San Diego Comic Con of the Halloween season. This means that planning is imperative when you visit MSS, even for those of us who’ve been to the event in the past. You can’t just walk in and expect to experience everything the show has to offer! But even with having to make hard decisions, you leave feeling satisfied in what you’ve accomplish and experienced at the event. We honestly don’t see an end to the growth of MSS, although this can be a scary thought because most LARGE conventions are almost impossible  to traverse; if the creative team continues to put the love, care and appreciation for the season (and its fans) first, then we shouldn’t have anything to worry about in the future. All we have is to look forward to is many more years of MSS and it’s incredible ability to bring the community together to celebrate the happiest time of the year…HALLOWEEN!