Normally, the horror conventions of the world take place in or aroundthe Halloween season (September-October). However, in Southern California, we get these types of conventions all year-round. One such event is Creep I.E. Con (pronounced Creep EYE-EEE Con). They’re on their 5th year of running this event out of the Ontario Convention Center, and they had an impressive list of guests (even after some cancellations) and a nice show floor. So why did I not have as good a time as I could have? Well, it first starts with how the event was organized and some other glaring issues. I went on Sunday, February 1st, and got there bright and early. They have VIP passes that get you in an hour early to the showfloor, but I went with the general admission ticket.

Most conventions are like this; they line you up outside, and you slowly go in. It didn’t help that it was unusually hot for a February morning in SoCal, and that’s not the convention organizers’ fault. They handed out wristbands to some people in line to scan their tickets, but most people went through security and then grabbed their wristbands and scanned their tickets in a room before the actual convention hall. Comparing it to the gold standard of Horror conventions, Midsummer Scream, this was a similar experience.

Once inside, there were a couple of choices, go walk the showfloor, check out some of the haunt previews from places like Fear Farm, or check out the food truck area with plenty of food options. I went to the showfloor to peruse the booths of the event and spend some money on horror items that will barely fit into my house.

The Showfloor Is Fun, But It’s Easy To Tell Where Their Priorities Are

First off, the showfloor is nicely sized, but a large portion of it are for autographs from various horror personalities, and then there’s another room that is just dedicated to the biggest and brightest of horror stars like Robert Englund, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), and others that were in attendance. It would be nice to have more space, but the Ontario Convention Center is only so big. The booths of the event were selling your standard horror convention stuff, movies, toys, figures, stickers, apparel, you name it. There was even a booth selling evil gnome statues. The people were nice, and the prices varied from absolutely outrageous for certain things to reasonably priced.

The biggest issue I had with the event was how the panels were run. There’s only one room here for panels, and they only had three panels on the day. First, more panels would be nice to have a more varied schedule of things to see, you have a room full of horror fans, and horror personalities in attendance. I missed out on the Nightmare On Elm Street panel they ran earlier in the day, but got in line to see the Scream panel at 1:00 PM. So I went to where I’m assuming the panels were, upstairs. Nope, that’s for VIP passholders only. Okay, walk across the convention center to the stairs that go up, and there’s a bunch of people waiting around.

So I wait around with these people, naturally, thinking it was the line for the Scream panel. Nope.

That line is over there; these people are just waiting around for no reason.

So I get in the ACTUAL line for the Scream panel, and then…

I waited for 45 minutes, only to find out from someone walking back, “the Scream panel got canceled.”

So, no one from the event decided to let the people in line know? No reason given, just time wasted for plenty of people in line at the convention.

The Event Going Forward

Don’t get me wrong, the event is not a failure in the slightest. For an “offseason” horror event, most of the parts were great. The two haunted maze previews were fun, and Fear Farm showed off their particular brand of scares that we only see in the Halloween season. Having something like this in a smaller convention center is a bit of a miracle on the event organizers part.

Overall, Creep IE Con is fine event for most horror fans. It’s a pretty decent value, with tickets starting at around $40 for Sunday, it even runs three days and has an Afterparty type event on Saturday night. However, the miscommunication from event organizers about where panels are, and not letting people in line for a panel know that it was canceled is a problem. They always have great guests from all walks of horror, so if you’re into getting autographs or pictures, it’s kind of perfect in that way. But when you compare it to other events that happen around SoCal, like Midsummer Scream, Monsterpalooza, HorrorCon, and plenty of others, there’s some work to be done, for sure.

Check out their website for more information on future events and their sister event, Creep I.E. Aftermath.

For more on Horror, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.

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