What's at the top of your must-do list for the first week of August?
Some people are addressing back-to-school shopping. Some are planning one more quick weekend away, before classes kick off. And a few of us are building eight-foot-tall smoke-breathing monsters with LED lights for eyes and moving arms and legs.
True, Halloween is still nearly three months away, but not for the many SoCalers who are full-on enamored with the eeriest of annual occasions. ScareLA, "the first Los Angeles convention dedicated to celebrating Halloween" is back on Saturday, Aug. 9 and Sunday, Aug. 10 to serve those fans, fans who boast an obsessiveness with Halloween that borders on Gomez and Morticia's love (to use an "Addams Family" reference) or a certain vampire's quest for a certain libation (to go all "Dracula" on you).
So does one simply trick-or-treat and bob for apples at the con, which'll take over a good chunk of LA Mart-The Reef downtown? That's a big nope: ScareLA is very much about helping its attendees learn the best way to construct a yard haunt, create realistic make-up, build complex costumes, and learn terrifying techniques from professionals and incredibly involved amateur haunters.
Vendors'll be vending various goopy, eeky, screamy products for your Halloween needs, Terror Trucks'll give a dose of that walk-through horror house fun, experts shall Q&A on all matters monsterly, and Disneyland's Haunted Mansion gets a few different tributes on the occasion of its 45th anniversary.
Who out there knows the elevator spiel inside the Mansion? Yeah, it's a SoCal thing.
Are all of these happenings just the tip of the iceburg -- or the castle, rather -- for ScareLA? Truly. In just its second year, the convention brings all manner of Halloween expertise and all-out entertainment to the locals who live the holiday for much of the year.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
But October is just the month after next and giant smoke-breathing figures must be built. Are you ready to haunt, scary souls of Southern California? Better step up your ghoulish game fast, as fast as a werewolf runs through the forest. (Read: Pretty dang fast.)
