With tickets selling out days in advance for a horror convention that brought more than 50,000 people to Long Beach this past weekend, organizers of Midsummer Scream had a tough choice to make.
It came down to deciding whether to continue their wildly popular event at the Long Beach Convention Center, where Midsummer was launched 10 years ago, or accommodate its growth by moving to a larger venue where the haunts, monsters, slashers and zombies could rise to new levels.
They announced the decision to move to the Anaheim Convention Center starting next year at the closing of Midsummer Scream during the Universal Horror Nights presentation in the Grand Ballroom on Sunday night, Aug. 9 and was met with loud cheers from a packed crowd.
“We’ve been trying to figure out what to do and we saw an opportunity to expand, that part was easy, but the hard part, of course, is that we love Long Beach,” said Midsummer Scream co-founder David Markland, who made the public announcement about the move to Anaheim, where the larger venue will offer more space to accommodate the event’s growing number of fans, haunters, vendors, artists, and celebrities. Next year’s Midsummer Scream is scheduled to run Aug. 6-8.
While it was a tough emotional decision, logistically there was no other choice.
“It was an easy call to make in the sense that we needed to grow,” he said. “We sold out weeks ahead of the event and we can’t have more guests and people want to come out, they want to see it so that will allow us room for more people to attend. We have an overwhelming amount of vendors who want to be part of the show.”
But not all is dead for Long Beach, since Markland said Season’s Screamings, the smaller holiday-themed sister version of the convention, will come to Long Beach in early December 2027 after being canceled about four years ago when it took place in Pasadena.
“We’re excited to bring it down to Long Beach. Season’s Screamings will be in a bigger venue and we’re still working out what that show’s going to be,” said Markland, adding that next winter Long Beach can expect Krampus and his gang to haunt the holidays with vendors, celebrity appearances and the popular Hall of Yuletide Spirits, which was the holiday version of Midsummer Scream’s Hall of Shadows where people can walk through haunts.
They grow up so fast
The first Midsummer Scream attracted 10,000 people and took up one exhibit hall at the Long Beach Convention Center. One of the halls featured about 150 horror vendors. Today it fills all three halls plus ballrooms and other spaces and will include 350 vendors.
And Anaheim officials said they are ready for the horde of horror to come to their city, which already hosts such major events as the annual NAMM show — the world’s largest music industry trade show that drew more than 60,000 attendees this past January, according to the National Association of Music Merchants.and WonderCon in March.
“We’re expecting upwards of 50,000 fans,” Visit Anaheim President and CEO Mike Waterman said. “That’s approaching NAMM numbers and we’re super excited.”
Visit Anaheim is a nonprofit that markets the city and the resort area and books the Convention Center for the city.
“We handle the equivalent of a Super Bowl every single day in Anaheim with the amount of visitors we get coming to the parks and the attractions and our conventions,” Waterman said. “We’ll be ready for it, and we just can’t wait to welcome some new visitors, slightly south of Long Beach, just coming to Anaheim.”
But it’s still up in the air on what the Super Bowl of horror will actually look like in 2027.
“We’re still evaluating what it will look like in terms of how much more we can grown,” Markland said. “Anaheim does allow us a chance to expand over the years. Next year I think we’ll be bigger but I wouldn’t say twice as big. We’re hoping we can expand 20% to 25%,” he said.
While there will be changes, Markland said the fabric of the vent will remain the same with the return of things like the Hall Of Shadows, vendors, panels, celebrities and shows.
“I hope it’s not the same Midsummer Scream you’re used to but I hope it’s the same Midsummer Scream you love,” he said.
Staff writer Victoria Le contributed to this report.