Thread: A Look Back, NHC 2010

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This is our personal experience at NHC.

It was hard to find good information about haunt conventions when I was checking them out last year. No one offered detailed stuff, just basics. It was cool or it sucked, or One is here one is there... Go where your friends are...

So...

The NHC in King Prussa was great! It was very good for us; the first time haunt convention goer and small home haunter. A nice variety of classes and vendors, the overall majority of classes and vendors were good to great, and a couple.... Everybody associated with the NHC was always nice to deal with, rather it be advise, small talk, or help. We would definitely fly over 5000 miles and 14 hours to do it again! Now for the details.

FLOOR SHOW & VENDORS
The convention overall was a bit smaller in size than we had expected, for some reason we envisioned a larger show floor. However, it provided a great collection of different vendors. The facade entrance, castle walls, was inspiring to see what one can build as a large stage prop that can be broken down. Once in and walking around we did expect to see more vendors dealing in haunt supplies and products. A bit surprised at the number of booths selling, jewelry, baked/food items, and collectable's, which is ok, but it is a haunt convention. The stage was an interesting place to hang out and watch the different performers.

A great thing about the NHC vendors, they all made the time to talk with us, the small home haunter. Not one single vendor blew us off when we came to their booth to ask them the same old questions they hear a thousand times. Kudo's to those vendors! And of course they had a couple of vendors who stood out to us. These vendors went that extra mile in our book! Sinister Controls LLC, owner Scott, and Lisa Berczel of GREX Airbrushing. They not only answered our questions, gave us hands on demo's, and taught great classes, they hooked us up! These 2 vendors did what no other company has ever been willing to do, they agreed to work with us and/or our shipping problems. They offered guarantees on everything and every aspect of their products! Scott and Lisa made the convention a complete success for us; they had the items we were searching for and/or a company to work with us long term. Big Mahalo nui loa!

The classes are a very important part of the haunt convention for us. Besides reading about the NHC and what others thought of it, the classes offered and prices for them, was probably the second biggest reason we choose NHC over the others. The fist reason, the main one, was that we kept finding the same comments coming up over and over about the other conventions out there. It became apparent that the other conventions treat the small home haunters differently, apparently like the black plague according to some haunters. OK... back to the classes.

Hands down the best class we attended was, Michael "Tattoo" Krausert of Bad Boys Scenic Design; "Detailing Your Haunted Attraction: Foam Carving & More!" We would sign up for Michael's classes anytime we can attend them. This 4 hour classes was excellent, it went far beyond anything we imagined. The techniques they taught were amazing, detailed, step by step, and made to look easy. Michael encourages hands on during class and questions, the more the better! We have never learned so much from one class before, and his honesty to our questions was refreshing, no text book or regurgitated speech. If you ever have the chance to take Michael's classes, do so! You will not be disappointed, especially if your a small home haunter or newbie! Ok, I think we kissed his ass enough...

The other classes we took that were note worthy because they were great were: Mold Making I & II by Kristen Phillps, Airbrush 101 Airbrush by Lisa Berczel, and Animatronics: Pneumatic Safety & Application by Scott of Sinister Controls. All three of the above instructors were very detailed, clear instructions or information, and experienced. We would like to see more from Kristen Phillps, like body casting. Again Scott and Lisa both were amazing instructors, and we would like to see more form them too.

On the downside... There were only 2 classes that we found that did not met there descriptions provided by Halloween University and NHC. Sorry to step on your toes but... Trash To Terror and LED Lighting in the Modern World fell short. I don't think the speakers were bad, just that the descriptions did not fit the classes taught, so the participants were unhappy or felt mislead.

One class that we did not take and wish we could have was: Make-up To Die For Workshop by Bobbie Weiner. Everyone we spoke with said she was amazing, all hands on, great step by step instructions, with a take home goodie bag! We wanted to take it but the class conflicted with another class we wanted, and that sucked!


OTHER STUFF
The Costume Ball and buffet was a blast, so we heard. We went at midnight, to the after party, party, free. The ticket price was a bit on the high side for us, $75 a person, but most folks payed it because they wanted to be there and had costumes on. For us, it was to complicated to pack that much extra stuff and fly it over. We packed light in order to be able to fly home with products we wanted to buy. It was a trade off... Our party after the ball was a blast. Don't believe me, go to HauntCast and check out Chris Bakers blog. Enough said...

The tour to Horror Fest, Shade Brook Farms, at $135 a person; was something we did not do. Again, for us, it wasn't a must, the whole dinner, lights on and lights off tours, talking with the actors... plus the late return with classes at 8am the next day. Ouch... We felt that this was something more for the pro haunter to experience. We could be wrong.

The meet and greet before the convention was nice, and having it open to anyone was great. We met with some great folks from SEPHH, SouthEastern PA Home Haunters. Just a wealth of information and willingness to share it with us, very nice. A big mahalo to the gent who chatted me up about the mini projector. I forgot his name but he was super nice! He even had the mini projector with him and gave me a demo. Sweet toy, we will be buying some.

All in all, we would be more than happy and willing to attend another NHC. The convention center was great, nice location, easy access to everything (except for BEER!) , quick find from Philly airport, good parking, and the Radisson was a nice hotel. We did our own tour of cemeteries and old churches. WOW! Next time we would like to do the midnight tour at the Laurel Cemetery, it was an amazing place, over 78 Acers of tombstones. We got some breath taking shots of structures that we can use for future building references and it was neat to see a cemetery that old.

Thanks for read this long winded blog!

We hope we provided a good description of OUR experience at NHC 2010.
This was not intended to offend anyone!

I agree Evil Queen, the show floor did disappoint slightly also. You are correct in saying that there were several vendor booths taken up by crafters. If the convention was labeled as the Halloween Convention then that would be all encompassing, but it is the "National Haunters Convention". I would have like to have seen some more makeup, costume and mask companies represented.

The classes that I took were great. Now I took the Trash to Terror and found it very informative, got some tips that I would have never thought of. Well I guess differences are what make the world go round. I also took the class How to scare without Gore and was disappointed with it. The presenter came at us from a very religious background and I found them to be just a little too preachy. That wasn't described in the brochure. About 25% of the class was about the lord.

All in all I will go back again next year. I will have to save my pennies though as it is expensive. I only was there for 2 days and it cost me around $500 for my son and I. If you are a pro haunter, you can take it off taxes as a business expense I guess.

Hey Johnny Thunder

I don't recall seeing you in the Trash to Terror class. I mean no offense but you are a little hard to hide in any crowd, let alone a room. Sure you did mean the Cheap Scares That Won't Frighten Your Wallet? I head that was pretty good from a couple of folks.