After working for Halloween Horror Nights Sunshine took a few years off in the haunt industry to focus on a career in events and event planning then came back to it in 2019 to work for Midsummer Scream which is an incredible Horror and Halloween based convention running out of Long Beach, California for fans and professionals alike that we’ve been attending since 2016. Check out our article about Midsummer Scream!
MTH: How would you best describe what Midsummer Scream is?
Sunshine: Midsummer Scream is bridging that gap of keeping the Halloween Community together. Basically, the glue that holds the community together and lets people know where the producers are in the industry of Halloween and the fans. So, it’s a way to bridge the gap because I don’t know how much you know about conventions and shows and stuff like that.
Sunshine goes onto inform us about another horror convention that is not open to fans that’s for professionals only.
Sunshine: It’s called Transworld. It takes place in St. Louis and it is the largest convention and gathering of all of the prop people, major producers, any Halloween thing that you have ever seen has been purchased or concepted at Transworld. That is where everyone gets their props, ideas, fake blood, dead bodies, they find the sculptures they want to use and the masks, they see the latest costumes, the latest everything happens at Transworld. You have to work at a haunt. You have to be invited. You have to be on a list. You cannot buy a ticket unless you are someone who actually works in the industry. It’s an industry-only event. Where Midsummer Scream is kind of a nice blend of like both of those kinds of things. Where it brings people together for the love of Halloween and so it shows them these are great vendors, these are cool merchandise you can purchase but also their panels and workshops are not based on people trying to sell stuff to you. They’re informative. There is that component of selling but there’s also that component of learning new things or getting to know like, “Oh, my gosh! I didn’t realize that basically all of Halloween was shot in Pasadena, California.” Or how to make fake blood. It does give you the best of all worlds and joins the community together.
MTH: We love it!
What’s really, really cool is that Midsummer Scream is bringing the Halloween community together and they’re making it accessible to everybody.
Sunshine: I went to Midsummer Scream and volunteered with them. I did a great job and had experience being a scare actor, and in both events and Halloween, in addition to the knowledge of running a convention. It is because of my working with Midsummer Scream I met with someone who was doing all their casting directing and she loved working with me and she brought me on. I was originally hired for the Hayride (Haunted Hayride Los Angeles) as a scare actor then I was hired as a talent captain and then I was moved up to their staffing coordinator and then the assistant stage manager. So, I ended up running the entire event. So, working with them was definitely a crash course just in all the politics and stuff that go into a Halloween event.
MTH: Would talk to us about the community of scare actors?
Sunshine: There’s actually a Facebook group that connects all the scare actors all around the country. But there’s not a lot of comradery in that group as far as people supporting each other from like Kentucky, Denver, and Texas and you know wherever. In L.A., I know specifically in the Southern California region there is not a group specifically in Southern California for scare actors. In California, specifically, you have your theme park haunts, you have your independent haunts and you have your home haunts which are all extremely separate categories. So, if you were to line all the haunts up in a top ten, Halloween Horror Nights is going to be the gold standard. HHN and the Warner Brothers Horror Starts here.
MTH: Warner Brothers was SO good!
Sunshine: Well, they were going to bring it back this year but then Covid happened.
MTH: Covid!!!
Great read! Love this interview, so informative.
Thank you! We really enjoyed this interview with Sunshine too as long-time haunt goers. We definitely learned a lot about the haunt industry!