(Owensboro, Ky)- From the outside of the Owensboro Convention Center, things look normal for an early spring weekend in downtown Owensboro. Once you enter through the doors of the building, you feel like you’re walking into a haunted house on a brisk October evening. Costumed characters welcome you into the exhibit hall of the show where you see props and masks to take your haunted house experience to a whole other level.
This is the second year for the expo to be held in downtown Owensboro. Event organizer and owner of Hauntrepeneurs, Leonard Pickel says “Doug Sheldon, the owner of the event was looking for a great place to have a convention and he stumbled upon the Owensboro Convention Center which is an absolutely beautiful facility and they have been so good to us. We are going to be here for a while, and we have already announced our dates for 2024.” Attendees from all over the nation and even Canada have converged on downtown Owensboro for the Fear Expo and Haunt Con.
Pickel’s company Hauntepreneurs is a design and consulting firm that helps with the architectural side of building haunted houses or converting buildings into haunts.” “Maybe someone has been hosting haunted houses in their garages for years and everyone tells them how good it is and their attendance is getting big. Sometimes a home haunter has so much traffic that sometimes his wife, or her husband or the city says this isn’t going to happen at the house again and then the haunter has a choice of is he is going to call it and go cold turkey or go pro. That is where we help people get started,” says Pickel.
Pickel, who got his start in the haunted house industry in 1976 at Texas A&M University says the “haunting bug is a disease and it’s terminal.” Pickel said that haunted houses have a 60% fail rate in the first three years. Unlike many businesses, the COVID pandemic helped the haunted house industry boom. “Everyone was locked up and the few haunts that were allowed to open had to utilize plexi-glass and a masks that were scenically done had a record year. 2022 was still solid, it wasn’t as good as ’21 but the haunted house industry has been growing an average 10% annually in revenue for as long as I can remember.”
One of the exhibitors at the Convention Center is Midnightstudiosfx.com. Michael Santos says the trip to Owensboro is something different than they usually do. “Our props are seen around the world by millions of people every year. This is our eighteenth year in the industry. For us, this was a move towards a boutique show where you can spend a little more one on one time with the visitors and clients,” says Santos. Santos’ company is a third generation company and has “haunted” as far away as Saudi Arabia on a special invite from government officials.
There is also a TikTok star making appearances at the Fear Expo in downtown Owensboro. Molly the Zombie or “Molly Z” can be seen walking with her friend, Jose Castro throughout the show and lobby of the Convention Center. Molly Z is a creation of VFX Creates and went viral last fall with her and Jose’s attempt to get into an NFL game. VFX has a wide selection of creepy creatures including zombies and clowns, but also more kid-friendly characters in their “Crate Creature” line featuring dinosaurs, piglets and chimpanzees.
For Payton Ford, a local author and owner of Ghostly Productions on 4th street, it’s an opportunity to display his creations and merchandise less than two blocks from his home store. Payton says” It’s a really cool experience bringing things from the shop to these people here especially with how many people are traveling from out of town. It’s a lot easier having it here in town and being able to be right here with all of our stuff.” Payton’s store Ghostly Productions is located on fourth street in downtown Owensboro and is open all year providing custom spooky creations.
Tickets are still available to attend Fear Expo at FearExpoLive.com. Saturday’s schedule includes educational, hands-on educational seminars, vendor booth availability and wraps up tonight with a costume ball. The vendor area will be open on Sunday for the public to visit from 10am until 2pm.