The 39th installment of Monster-Mania Con was held on March 9-11, 2018, welcoming a large slate of celebrity guests and a gigantic crowd. Once again, the event was held at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which was packed with horror fans for the three-day event.

The list of celebrity guests ranged from horror-affiliated Hollywood icons to horror legends to newcomers on the rise. The biggest draws were undoubtedly Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, It), John Carpenter (writer-director Halloween, The Fog, They Live), Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Paul Reubens (Pee-wee’s Playhouse), and the It 2017 film reunion with Jaeden Leiberher, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Chosen Jacobs, and Wyatt Oleff. Fans waited for hours to meet these guests who were barely visible because they were surrounded by so many fans.

Autograph seekers also lined up in droves for Kathleen Turner (Serial Mom), Sean Astin and Joe Pantoliano (The Goonies), Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Cassandra Peterson (Elvira Mistress of the Dark), Tony Todd (Candyman), Terry Kiser (Weekend at Bernies), Steve Nappe (Death House), and Sharni Vinson (You’re Next).

The con also hosted Friday the 13th Jason Voorhees actors Steve Dash (Part 2), Ted White (Part 4), Tom Morga (Part 5), C.J. Graham (Part 6), Kane Hodder (Parts 7-10), and Ken Kirzinger (Freddy vs. Jason). A Killer Klowns from Outer Space reunion included filmmakers the Chiodo Brothers, stars Suzanne Snyder and Grant Cramer, and two of the Killer Klowns ‒ Mike Martinez and Harrod Blank.

Vendors filled three exhibit rooms and two hallways with an assorted mixture of collectibles and artwork. Troma Entertainment had a large selection of their films, some dealers sold new horror and hard to find out of print flicks, and there was a stand with a wide selection of Japanese films. Many vendors sold t-shirts, capitalizing on the guests with designs based on their movies. There were statues, action figures, dolls, games, knickknacks, masks, movie posters, and geek-centric purses. Artists created a variety of posters, prints, and postcards with everything from cutesy monsters to downright frightening villains.

Monster-Mania hosts three conventions a year and I’ve attended almost each one of them for the past six years. As a lifelong horror fan, it’s one of my favorite conventions to attend, the staff puts on a great show with a variety of guests, fun Q&As in smaller, more intimate settings, and they show lots of popular horror movies throughout the weekend.

The 39th installment of Monster-Mania was fun – on Friday and Sunday. Saturday was a different story entirely. Since I’ve been to it so many times and know that they usually host a great con, the best way I can describe last weekend is by comparing it to seeing a good movie in a bad theater experience. Imagine you’re all settled in to see Wonder Woman or Black Panther but your seat is being kicked by the guy behind you, there’s an obnoxious glare in your peripheral vision from the woman texting in front of you, and the teenagers beside you won’t stop chattering. The movie was awesome, but the experience was marred by surrounding circumstances. That’s what it was like at Monster-Mania on Saturday. It was still an enjoyable con with exciting guests, cool vendors, and fun events, but it was way too crowded to be enjoyed to the fullest.

It was clear on Friday night that this wouldn’t be the typical Monster-Mania con. The amount of people at the Crowne Plaza on the first day mirrored the volume of attendees on a regular Saturday. The con opened Saturday morning to a tide of people, some of whom arrived hours early in anticipation of parking difficulties or to secure front of the line placement for autographs and photo ops.

As the attendees with weekend passes or pre-purchased Saturday passes flooded the building, a giant line of people waiting to buy tickets for the day snaked through the vestibule and into the hotel’s large lobby. Tickets continued being sold throughout the morning, which packed the crowd even tighter, prompting Monster-Mania staff to end sales for the day.

After the convention, I reached out to Monster-Mania President Dave Hagan to ask for his comments on the weekend. In addition to sharing his perspective, Hagan said that I was the first journalist who actually sought to hear his side of the events.

In regard to ticket sales on Saturday, Hagan said, “I closed ticket sales about 90 minutes before the fire marshal arrived. When he arrived, he shut the doors completely for 30 minutes. He didn’t force anyone to leave but he wouldn’t allow anyone back into the building. After about 30 minutes, enough people had left the event and he allowed us to gradually bring in more people. As ten people would leave, we’d allow ten more in. Within approximately 30 more minutes we got everyone back inside and the doors were completely opened again for the rest of the day. I certainly didn’t want to disappoint anyone who had made the trip to the show by closing ticket sales as I was sure some of them traveled quite a distance to attend the show. It was by far the largest one-day turnout we’ve ever had at the show in our 15 years of doing them.”

On the ground floor, every hallway, alcove, and the hotel lobby were packed shoulder to shoulder with people. There was some movement in the vendor rooms, but those in the hallway likely missed out on business because the flow of traffic hindered attendees from looking at the tables. The main autograph room became so full that it spilled out into the hallway that connects with the hotel-proper. This caused even more grief for vendors near that entry way as their booths were blocked by people waiting to get in for autographs. And as the number of people in the building rose, so did the temperature.

Parking has increasingly become a challenge at Monster-Mania, but Saturday took it to a new limit. The hotel parking lot itself was filled by Friday evening, so Saturday attendees crowded into local businesses and on several side streets. As a result, some cars were ticketed for illegal parking.

Photo ops were another issue. The con offered tons of photo ops with guests, that included in-costume photos with the Jason actors. Because of the gigantic crowd, the photo ops schedule fell behind and some lines had to extend outside into the cold weather. The in-costume photos are a cool idea, but they were offered for single Jasons, combos of two to four Jasons, and all six. The costume changes and package varieties likely slowed down the process significantly. The photo-op ticket line was also lengthened because Randy Quaid (Christmas Vacation, Independence Day) cancelled his appearance on Friday, so fans who had pre-purchased photos with him needed to get refunds.

One of the weekend’s earliest challenges occurred Friday when the fire marshal decided that the event tent needed to be taken down. One of the rooms typically reserved for panels and Q&As was designated for autographs, so an event tent was going to hold some panels.

Hagan shared that after the last show he had had a meeting with the hotel about options for creating more meeting space for the con. The hotel suggested setting up a large tent near the pool area, and Hagan was open to the idea if it would be heated, large enough to host events, be enclosed, and have sufficient lighting. He was told that the tent would meet the requirements, be large enough for 300 people with a stage, and that he would not need to apply for permits since he was not the owner of the hotel property or the tent renting company.

“Friday morning the fire marshal arrived at the hotel for his normal setup walk through and he informed the hotel and myself that the tent could not be used,” Hagan said. “Without a place to relocate the five 1-hour events that had been scheduled for the tent on Saturday afternoon, we were forced to cancel those five events.”

When the tent had to be removed, a shuffling act needed to be done and some attendees were upset to find that events they planned to attend were canceled. However, several events were still held – the costume contest and The Men Who Were Jason panel among them – while others were cancelled due to the event tent’s removal.

Then on Sunday, the con was empty by comparison to Saturday. One vendor described it as a “ghost town.” But was the drastic decline because so many people only came for Saturday or did people with weekend passes just leave early after the overcrowded time on the previous day? Considering how busy Friday night was, it is likely that weekend pass holders left early.

Given the current climate in the country it was hard not to be concerned for everyone’s safety, especially since there were kids there, and some guests are older or have health/physical issues. Some people posted on social media about altercations between frustrated attendees that put people in danger in the overcrowded space.

Making matters worse, someone with a megaphone in a car made to look like the Ghostbusters vehicle was inciting fans to break down the doors and break the hotel windows after the fire marshal’s orders. Thankfully fans did not follow the dangerous suggestions, though the added tension made things more difficult for the Monster-Mania staff to handle.

The show was run primarily by volunteers, who were vastly understaffed for the turnout, which caused more issues and tempers to flair. People waited for lengthy periods to get questions answered and in some cases, were not given the most accurate information, especially when trying to find the ends of lines they wanted to be in. I witnessed several attendees complaining to or yelling at staff members.

When attendance was capped for the day, Monster-Mania shared the update on their Facebook page. Throughout the rest of the day about 2,000 comments were made, ranging from mystification and genuine questions to outright hostility and vulgarity. Monster-Mania staff removed the post without responding to comments, until later Sunday after the con ended.

After the Saturday post was pulled several people complained about the lack of response, but it really was a double-edged sword. A response could’ve gone a long way in quelling anger, but on Saturday they were genuinely too busy to provide an adequate response and needed to focus energy on the con. Had they taken time to craft a response, some people still in attendance might’ve been irked at them for responding rather than fixing the immediate problems at the con.

“I’m the person who runs both the Facebook page and the convention,” Hagan said. “I posted when ticket sales were cut off so fans were aware but it’s simply not possible for a promoter to reply back and forth on Facebook when you’re running the show in the moment. And of course, Saturday was the busiest day of the show with events and films running until to 2 AM.”

He went on to share that Saturday’s post caused some confusion for Sunday-only attendees. “Sunday morning the hotel front desk came over to the ticket table and told me they were receiving a lot of phone calls from people seeing the post I made on Saturday about the ticket cutoff, thinking that post was referring to Sunday. Many were already en route to the show Sunday morning when they saw that post and were confused so I deleted that post to avoid any further confusion,” Hagan said.

Social media was also the source of the rumor mill. A story was circulated that Paul Reubens was threatened at the show. According to Hagan, Reubens travels with his own security team, which was one of the agreement points in his contract to appear at Monster-Mania, and that Reubens was not threatened while he was there.

There were lots of very negative posts on social media from first-timers and longtime attendees, but after the fervor died down, some people started sharing positive experiences they had during the weekend. People posted photos and videos of meeting the guests and connecting with fellow horror fans, having fun despite the large crowd. The costume contest saw a kid do Pee-wee Herman’s “Tequila” dance, Friday night a marriage proposal was accepted, and Ben Heller, the actor who played Stan in the 1990 TV miniseries of It attended and met Wyatt Oleff, the 2017 movie’s Stan.

Conventions need delicate balance between creating an eventful show and keeping it manageable for the location. While concerts and sporting events typically have a certain number of seats available which helps manage the crowd, conventions don’t have those helpful precepts. Showrunners likely know the venue’s capacity but that doesn’t account for events that extend outside of the main area to other floors or outdoors.

Obviously, convention runners get an idea about the size of attendance based on presale tickets, but it’s challenging to account for the number of fans who will show up the day of the show to buy tickets on the spot. My experiences with Monster-Mania have all been great, except for Saturday, which leads me to believe that the oversized crowd was a snafu. By comparison, I’ve been to another relatively local con that is habitually stuffed to the gills, which suggests that those showrunners aren’t concerned about crowd comfort.  

That delicate balance is the main factor that determined the outcome for Monster-Mania. The whole weekend would’ve been viewed as a major success if about 30% of the Saturday-only attendees had gone on Sunday instead. Even with the disappointments that the event tent was removed and Randy Quaid didn’t attend, fans would’ve gushed about meeting the stars, buying cool swag, and enjoying the events that were held.

When making a guest list, showrunners must analyze and estimate the impact each guest will have on attendance. For some that’s obvious. In the case of Monster-Mania, Tim Curry, John Carpenter, Paul Reubens, and Cassandra Peterson were going to be a major draw because some of them had never been to this particularly con and they are (with the exception of Reubens) considered horror icons. The kids from It also fall into that category because the movie was a recent major success and is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

But then there are the wildcard guests who either don’t fully fit the mold of the show (for instance a nostalgia star at a comic con) or haven’t been in the spotlight for a while even if they were very popular at one time. At this show, those folks were primarily Richard Dreyfuss, Kathleen Turner, and Sean Astin. They are all film stars, higher caliber than many other guests, but they are not major horror actors, which would call into question how many horror con attendees would line up for them. In this case, it turns out many, many would. However, at previous Monster-Mania shows, I’ve seen similar guests (perhaps more popular in the ’80s) who had shorter lines though I expected to see longer ones.

Since Monster-Mania’s next installment is their 40th con, it’s likely that they are planning to put on a big show. Given the crowd size for Monster-Mania 39 in conjunction with the guest list, that might need to be reevaluated. “We are reviewing every aspect about this past weekend’s show including the guest list as we continue to plan for the next one,” Hagan said.

Another factor in planning a con is the balancing act between guests and vendors. If a convention gets a ton of big name guests, then attendees won’t spend money with vendors, and if the vendors don’t make a good enough profit they won’t come the following year. As a result, in that next year, the con can’t get the big name guests because they don’t have vendor money to pay them, and attendance drops. Or, they use filler booths (phone carriers, insurance companies, banks, etc.) to pay for the big name guests and then attendees who like shopping have a bad experience, and they won’t come the next year – which again, loses the con money.

Like it or not, at this point the biggest draw to most ‒ not all ‒ conventions are celebrity guests. But, that doesn’t negate the need for good vendors. Monster-Mania had good vendors last weekend and hopefully most of them did well, given the size of the crowd.

An obvious solution for Monster-Mania would be moving to a larger venue. The past few cons in Cherry Hill have progressively gotten busier with larger turnouts – at least on Saturday. The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA would be a sound solution since it’s a larger space, has adequate and free parking, and isn’t too far from the current location.

However, moving could be a challenge if they have a contract with the current hotel, not to mention local restaurants, other hotels, entertainment venues, and tattoo shops that get a boost in business during convention weekend. Showrunners would need to consider many factors to move: if it’s at a convention center is the venue near hotels, what are the transportation issues for local attendees who don’t drive, will attendees follow to a new city, will there be better parking options, etc.

Several Monster-Mania attendees voiced this suggestion on social media. However, the con is promoting their August show for the Crowne Plaza, which has already booked rooms for the con, so if they are considering a move it won’t be until the spring of 2019.

When asked about a possible relocation, Hagan said that they are reviewing all aspects of the show, including location, though they haven’t officially pursued anywhere yet. “In the past we’ve looked at moving to convention centers but that would mean a lot of changes to the show that we have now,” Hagan said. “At a convention center there wouldn’t be any after hours events, no bar or restaurant on the premises where fans would mingle after the show ‒ sometimes even with the stars ‒ no films or Q&A panels or contests in the evening, etc. like we have currently.”

He pointed out that the cost of parking for the convention center in Philadelphia is a factor and that the other convention center further in Pennsylvania would be away from the New Jersey base. It would also change the general atmosphere of the con. “Generally I find convention center shows to be an entirely different, somewhat colder, atmosphere than what we strive for but we will certainly be exploring every option we have available to us. Wherever we have the show we will have to look at whatever options we have to match the size of the crowd to the venue,” Hagan said.

Another option to foster a more manageable turnout would be to downsize the guest list so that it doesn’t attract as large of a crowd. In a similar vein, the con runners could keep the guest list at its current size, but book fewer marquee stars. Since their next show is just a few months away, it’s likely that that guest list is made, and they could run into the same problem. If that’s the case, they could also determine exactly how many tickets were in play Saturday morning and set a lower limit for the upcoming shows. This would certainly irk fans who show up the day of the con without a ticket, but would guarantee that those who prepaid will get in and have a good time.

Monster-Mania could also extend Friday and Sunday hours and add events those days. Their present format sees panels only on Saturdays and movies don’t start until later Friday with none on Sunday. Having more events on other days could encourage single day attendance on Friday or Sunday, especially coupled with longer hours and/or a discounted rate. Sundays would also be better if attendees are ensured that guests won’t leave early, which unfortunately does happen if they are not contractually obligated to appear for the full event.

Like other conventions that’ve run into similar challenges, Monster-Mania has some reassessing to do before the next show. The issues that arose last weekend were unfortunate, considering how fun their cons usually are, so what they do to address and fix the problems will influence their credibility as a show that cares about fans and likely determine the continued loyalty of those who’ve been attending for years. Personally, I’m rooting for them.

-Amanda Sheriff