How I spent my summer vacation…at Monster Mania
On the weekend of August 20-22 Late Night at the Horror Hotel descended upon the convention event of the summer, or August anyways, known simply as Monster Mania. The preparation and planning that went into our mission to conquer the land of horror was tedious and laborious, but we went into it well stocked and armed to the teeth. I mean how can you describe such an event and experience as what we had gone through…the carnage, the bloodshed and the outrageous prices you had to pay for a bottle of water and a bagel, I mean come on people.
Anyways the morning of August 20th we arrived to on the scene with little pomp and circumstance so as to come in under the radar. We began to set-up our mission control headquarters making sure we had the proper necessities ready go like food, water, electricity and change for the dvds. As Rob, Pig and myself got dug into our corner our other allies arrived on the scene to give us support. They all trickled in table by table and set-up their base of operations while we surveyed the area and greeted our fellow neighbors. Our first contact was with Andrew Hubatsek and Sandi, his girlfriend, who were the nicest of people and when the fire fight of fans would begin you would defiantly want them to be on your side. They were extremely friendly and we all bonded and talked about everything and anything. They were definitely good allies to have in this impending mission. Soon after that we made our next contact with Felissa Rose and her husband, who again were the nicest of people. Felissa was a fighter and scrapper and was ready for the convention mission…and she kept yelling something about size contest, not sure what that was all about. So there we were in our corner of the Terrace room at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill NJ with our fighting partners Andrew and Felissa. A little bit later before the “fit hit the shan” we made another contact with Miko Hughes who turned out to be a technical genius and a fantastically funny guy.
As the hands on the clock ticked by we all knew as the doors opened there would be wave after wave of fans coming in and attacking us. We knew we had to stand strong and as one in order to make sure that we did not falter. As we battled the waves of people coming at us throughout the days we all did our part in order to keep the spirits high even though I was sick through the entire weekend. Andrew relied on his fear factor to keep the people at bay because all we heard from people who were at his table was the statement “that was the scariest thing I had ever seen, I couldn’t sleep for weeks” and then Felissa with her in your face and take no prisoners attitude as she helped in the side mission of operation photo bomb. Pig and I did our part as best as we could, but Rob stood out in his efforts as he dazzled and amazed the people with magic and illusion as best as he could.
We met other fellow warrior fighters throughout the weekend who did their part in fighting the waves of fans and their biological warfare BO weapons. Such notable people as the guys from Zombie Hunters City of the Dead, Ben and Kristy from Fright Rags, and Ken & Buz from The Living Corpse Comics were true standouts in making this a victorious weekend. As well, I can’t not mention the general behind the whole campaign, Dave, who has done this year after year and established such a great event. We made a number of other great contacts and got accomplished a lot in the aspect of networking and getting the name out there.
I had been one of those attacking fans in years past and it was much more different being on the other side of the table. It was an eye opening experience to see what it was like on the other side of the war and being one of the people that was mobbed and surrounded at all times…people buying your merchandise and wanting autographs and pictures, they say war is hell…and it was, but a good hell with streets of gold and psychotic little demon gummy bears singing the whole time. ..maybe that’s my cough medicine talking.
At the end of the day Sunday we were all war torn and worse for wear and we dragged from little sleep and sickness that had taken one of our soldiers out of commission, that being Pig and then soon to be another later in the day. Once the doors had been closed we could breathe a sigh of relief and catch our breath. We talked about our experiences throughout the weekend, exchanged contact information and made our goodbyes. It was a tiring weekend and I am still recovering from it, but I would definitely do it again and on a side not I want to say thanks to Rob’s family for helping out, they were awesome to have there and be around.
Be safe and make sure fight the good fight against body odor,
John Cannon
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