World's biggest Halloween expo offers tips on masks, haunts, props and all things spooky

LOS ANGELES — The calendar read July and much of the country was getting scorched by a deep summer heat wave, but at this convention center in Southern California the clock sped fast forward into the fall season of witches, ghouls and goblins.

The annual Midsummer Scream expo previewed the 2024 Halloween season with displays of masks, fog machines, props for yard displays and even glimpses into haunts at attractions such as Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights. Started in 2016, the annual trade show has grown to become, its hosts boast, the "largest" Halloween and horror convention anywhere.

"The momentum has just continued and more and more people are loving Halloween," said Claire Dunlap, co-founder and producer of Midsummer Scream.

This year's event, held July 26-28 at the Long Beach Convention Center, drew a record 300-plus vendors and exhibitors plus 50,000 attendees.

Nationally, the National Retail Federation estimated that Americans spent a record $12.2 billion during Halloween last year, a 15% increase over 2022. Some 70% of U.S. consumers participated last year, according to the retail federation.

Investment in this year's spookiness is on. Pop-up costume and accessory specialist Spirit of Halloween began opening locations Aug. 1. Halloween supplies and costumes have appeared on retail shelves now that back-to-school shopping is concluding and scary-and-not-so-scary attractions at theme parks open this month.

Dunlap said she thinks the holiday of haunts is ever more popular because of Halloween's "appeal across a broad demographic" of people.

"I think the upswing of it is that it's more accepted overall," she said. "It's kind of, like, as things get more accepted people show their true colors and say, 'Yay, it's ok to come out and show that I'm a Halloween freak.'"

First decision in a good Halloween scare: The mask

Whether it's a dress-up day at the office, your neighbor's home party a costume contest or your kid's trick-or-treating trek around the community, the starting point for holiday preps is the disguise.

And the defining feature of that get-up is the mask. Most of the iconic Halloween images are dominated by the facial covering or make-up, from Frankenstein to Michael Myers to Sam.

Yared Garcia of Ghoulish Productions, which has been in the costume space since the early 1970s, said a mask is the "essence" of not just what you wear but the holiday itself.

"I think it's the essence of Halloween," she said. "The idea of Halloween is to become someone totally different from the person you are all year."

Garcia stood before her company's Midsummer display, a wall with a hundred different selections of Halloween headwear. She pointed out always popular choices, from clowns to demons. She said Ghoulish's big coup this year, however, was getting the license to offer a series of masks based on the blockbuster Stranger Things franchise.

But whether you go with something classic or from current pop culture, Garcia said, there's one common principle.

"A mask is pretty important," she said. "For us it's what we have been doing for 50 years."

Second Halloween decision: Your yard props

For Adam and Jess Dollins, as with so many others, their Halloween yard display venture began as a hobby. The couple worked as scare actors in haunted houses and holiday-themed attractions at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California before launching their line of props for "professional haunters large and small."

At Midsummer, they displayed various iterations of jack o' lanterns and buckets of gory skulls with mixed produce, corn cobbs and green and red apples. Another was a figure, a gutted human scarecrow, hanging from a wooden stand, with a bloody torso topped with a carved pumpkin on its head.

Adam Dollins said the various objects, ranging in price from $100 to into the thousands of dollars, were molded in foam and detailed in rubber to make them durable and believable.

"We make everything incredibly durable so it's made to last the abuse that they'll see throughout a season of haunting, indoors, outdoors, doesn't really matte," he said. "The other important touch is the detail in every piece. That way, whether it's in dark lighting or very bright lighting, it's all seen and it looks as realistic as possible."

The props are, he added, the finishing touches to any Halloween scene — whether in a front yard or at theme park haunt.

"It's the cherry on top," he said. "You can have a great scene but it it doesn't have some good props, it can make or break it,"

Jess said the seemingly grisly nature of the props are part of the fun.

"Everyone just wants a good time," she said. "We've all dealt with a lot of hardship through the years and I think this is a good escape for all of us to just live our inner child and have fun."

Fog machines now a must-have Halloween haunt fixture

The shelves at any party supply store, or Halloween retailer, will be proof that yard display fixture is the fog machine.

Scott Lynd, sales manager at Froggy's Fog Machines located in Columbia, Tennessee, said fog is indispensable for dispensing Halloween fright. Just look at any classic Universal monsters film or even Michael Jackson's iconic "Thriller" music video.

"That's what people associate that fear with," he said, as passerby marveled at the fog rolling out of the company's Midsummer booth.

But Froggys, which has been business for two decades and sells to home haunts and theme parks alike, doesn't offer up just your garden variety foggers.

"They're machines that, maybe, take a little more abuse than a regular machine and have a little bit more oomph to them," said Lind. "They do a lot more and it's a lot better quality."

Their catalogue lists scores of industrial-looking machines that blow out fog, fog bubbles and thick low-lying ground fog that does not require dry ice, CO2 or complicated water works. There's also a unit that emits a flame effect for a different affect.

The newest entry is one that embeds different scents in the fog.

"I don't want to walk into a haunted house and have it smell latex and wood," Lynd said matter of factly. "Now I can get their butcher shop scene to smell like a butcher shop."

The key to purchasing a fog machine is to first calculate how much cover you require, Lynd added. The typical retail unit emits between 1,000 and 5,000 cubic feet of fog per minute, which is the industry benchmark for output.

Lynd said Froggys machines, which start at $252, shoot out 20,000 CFMs.

Regardless, he said, it's the fog that magnifies what is the whole pint of a home haunt or scare — the "fear factor."

"You've never felt more alive unless you have a good scare. You get your heart pumping, your blood pumping, your adrenaline's rushing and people crave that after a while," he said. "And scaring somebody really gets your juices going too. It's like you get a good laugh out of it and you're like, Oh, did you see that guy' and everybody wants to be part of it."

Designing a haunt

Midsummer also listed a series of workshops on the schedule, including numerous ones where experienced hands offered tips on designing a home haunt, a scary maze for children and adults.

One of the presenters, Roger "Uncle Rog" Hayes, who ran Hayes Haunt in Atlanta, offered advice on everything from blueprints to obtaining city parking and street closure permits. For an hour, Hayes walked the dozens of people listening through a series of decision points, giving tips such as do not overdo gore, avoid offensive displays and batten down props to avoid theft.

He advised to be watchful for safety, such as keeping the scares away from a road to avoid an accident, to having burly neighbors watch over young women scare actors to deter anyone from behaving inappropriately. And know when "enough is enough" in frightening people walking through it, he added, urging his audience to find balance.

"Look at it from the guest's perspective," he said. "Scaring has a rhythm to it. There's a cadence to scaring that you want to get into."

In designing your maze, Hayes suggested, the emphasis should be on creepy aspects that your bone-chill your guests, and jump scares that startle them, more so than blood and guts to gross them out.

He counseled to make use of space with natural bushes, existing walk-through flows, like a driveway or porch, and and using curtains and even artificial Christmas trees to create a labyrinth in a garage.

"Building a haunt is an art," he said. "Everybody has a trigger. You just have to find it."

His goal, Hayes said, was to startle the "cocky" college kid type who walked into the maze with a swagger of bravado.

"That is the most satisfying thing you will experience in your haunt," he said laughing.

Halloween: Embrace your 'darker' side

Midsummer's Dunlap said the event represents a kick off the Halloween season.

"It used to be we'd have to wait until September before Halloween decorations were in the stores," she said. "This year, for example, there was a lot out in June. Major retailers realized we've been losing money because we're not capitalizing on it.."

But while the convention was a boon to the hundreds of small businesses that exhibited their goods and crafts, she cautioned Midsummer's goal went far beyond "selling things" or "making a lot of money." Above all, it was an opportunity to bring together a community of Halloween kinship and exhibit a lot of creative talent, establish a networking culture and allow for self-expression in Southern California and beyond.

The costumes, props, haunts and other Halloween trappings, she said, represent a form of art as well as industry.

For the average person, however, it is just an opportunity to enjoy themselves. Personally, she said saying she embraces the mystical aspect of the holiday and the witches and ghosts and mysterious.

"I know why I love Halloween," Dunlap said. "I think more and more people are realizing that it's ok to embrace, maybe, a darker side of themselves. Also to embrace the unknown and Halloween and the characters of Halloween."

She said despite it's darker connotation, it's really not unlike the end of year holidays that follow.

"It's kind of like going to see Christmas lights," Dunlap said. "It's the same idea. It's just, um, the macabre."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Halloween 2024: Time for a costume as holiday becomes big business