Fear Expo Live bring haunters to town
Jan. 22—A huge Pennywise the Clown towered 9.5 feet above the floor in the Owensboro Convention Center on Friday, menacing the operators of haunted houses attending the first Fear Expo Live.
If anyone wanted to add Pennywise to their haunted attraction, they could take him home for a mere $25,000.
A 7.5-foot one-eyed Ogre stood close by.
He was for sale at between $10,000 and $15,000.
Doug Shelden of Grand Rapids, Michigan, created Fear Expo Live and brought it to Owensboro.
He said Friday that it will definitely return next year and be even bigger.
An ice storm in the Carolinas kept several people away Friday but Shelden said more people will be arriving Saturday for the trade show which runs through Sunday.
"We have people here from as far away as California," he said. "We even have some from Canada and the United Kingdom."
At Brian Blair's Pumpkin Pulp booth, his brother David was tending shop.
The Muncie, Indiana, company has been in business since 2006 and now sells its custom-made masks all over the world, David Blair said.
"Our busiest time of the year is March and April," he said. "People start putting in orders then. Most people think it's October, but that's the end of the season for us."
Bryan Marriott of Haunt Design in Grand Rapids was tending the booth for Distortions Unlimited of Greeley, Colorado, as well.
"I started building animatronics about six to eight months ago," he said. "It's all robotics and engineering, which I went to school for. I've been building things all my life."
Lullaby, a skeletal nanny, was rocking a skeletal baby beside him.
A 7-foot Wicked Wolf, which sells for $6,540, watched over his shoulder.
A few aisles over, Tom Mayberry of TFFX Masks & Props in O'Fallon, Illinois, was waiting for customers in his booth.
He's been sculpting and making scary masks for 13 years.
"It took me nine tries to get my first one right," Mayberry said.
His most popular mask is an Orc, a humanoid monster like a goblin, from "The Lord of the Rings."
But when Mayberry wants to feel like an old man, he puts on the Boomer mask.
Fear Expo Live continues through Sunday.
Fear still sells these days.
HauntWorld.com says, "Haunted attraction owners spend annually over $250 million with specific haunted house vendors for supplies like fog machines, scary animatronic monsters, lighting equipment or masks and costumes to assist them in scaring America."
It adds, "The biggest growth for the vendors to the haunted industry is now overseas, where haunted houses are opening at a record pace. We estimate there are over 1,200 haunted attractions charging admission fees to their events" in the United States.
Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com.
