Hello Frightners!
I wanted to take a moment and write about the Jersey Fest convention that I attended yesterday with my wife and daughter. Now I know some people may first say "Jersey Fest?" "What does that have to do with Halloween, haunting, or horror?" "Sounds like Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi should be playing there!" But I assure you Frightners, if you love horror and Halloween then this is a great little show to attend.
The show itself is held at The Marriot Hanover Hotel in New Jersey and spans three days the 28-30th. Being that it was only a 30 minute drive for me I figured it would be a good show to check out since I have never attended it before and the vendor list on-line looked very good.
The entire show floor took place in one large room though there were multiple rooms that were holding various classes and panel dicussions. There was a nice mix of both vendors selling various model kits and finished statues as well as many artist some of which you may know and others maybe not as well know but equally impressive.
Now personally I am not much of a model kit builder though in the Fright Radio issue one EZine my good friend Eric Vysther gave us the low down down on the world of kit building along with showing off some of his favorite works. I have to say I was intrigued by some of the kits I saw at the show. Some where box kits of various companies but there were vendors such as Starlighting Projects who were making their own kits and various pieces which you could purchase for use in any miniature diorama you may be building. Check out their site at starlightingprojects.com. I mean the stuff was great! They had various miniature flicker lanterns, flicker candles, illusion boxes and more. You could build a creep Frankenstein lab, Dracula's lair or really any creepy setting you could imagine. I didn't really have any thoughts of what to do with any of it at the moment I saw it but I'm sure interested in purchasing some of their items later down the line to create my own creepy miniature display.
As I mentioned above there were also a great number of artists at the show and meeting them and seeing their work was one of the top reasons I attended. Let's start with two of which you are probably most familiar with and they are Jordu Schell and Mikey Rotella. Most likely you know them from the show Making Monsters where both were special guest sculptors for Ed Edmunds of Distortions but both Jordu and Mikey have worked on countless other projects which there are too many to name. I was lucky enough to meet Mikey before I left and he was a lot of fun to talk to. Both he and Jordu were very busy throughout the day teaching various classes which I will get too in a bit. I unfortunately did not get to speak with Jordu because of his class schedule but I did get to see his work on display at his and Mikey's table and as always it is very impressive. He is currently working on a line of lifelike busts. I believe there were 4-5 on display and they were simply amazing. Mikey also had some of his works on display and for sale. I am personally a fan of his sculpting style. One mini bust he had which was named "Fat Zombie" was pretty cool!
Directly next to Mikey & Jordu's table was the table consisting of George Troester, Linday Gavin, Jake Corrick, Ben Bayouth, Brett Guerra, and Chaz Vance. You may know some of them from both Faceoff and Jim Hensons Creature Shop. Their table was full of pieces by each artist and we were lucky enough to see George do a makeup demo on Linday while we were there. They were all very welcoming and took the time to talk, share what they have been up to and answer any questions we had and I have to say that along with Mikey everyone was super nice to my daughter Harper who is just 3 years old. George even let her behind the table to watch as he applied the makeup to Linday. For my wife and I this was special because it really made the day. Some people don't understand the impression they can leave on a young child but knowing that Harper showed interest in the monsters and makeup they all provided her with memories that hopefully one day she can recall as reasons why she too took to art and the crazy world of monsters! I mean hey, when the real R2-D2 is rolling around and your daughter says the monster makeup was the coolest part of the show that's something to be proud of!
We did meet many other artists like Karl Libecap of Monster Dork Studios, the folks of Wayward Leather Design and a friend of mine Brian Dunn of Alter Ego Dezines who's booth really looked great! Overall there was plenty too see and be inspired by at this show.
Along with the vendor and artist floor Jersey Fest also offers a wide variety of workshops which you may attend throughout the day. While we did not attend any I will say that what was offered on paper sounded very interesting. Most time when you attend a show such as this you just get one show floor with the vendors selling there goods but to have classes and various demos going on was a nice added bonus here and the people leading and doing the demos were all very knowledgeable. There were classes focused on sculpting and casting, panels discussing the FX industry and others based on model kit building. All really catered to all aspects of what the show itself was all about.
I think Jersey Fest has room to grow but what they currently offer is pretty great for the price of entry and worth checking out if you haven't already. I know I will be headed back for the next one!
