Scarefest: I had fun.
I attended the 2nd, what I assume is to be, annual Scarefest and thought it was a very nicely done event. When I walked in, I realized that the conference was larger than I was expecting (but still much smaller than the Home and Garden Show I attended at the same place back in May). I’d guess there were 1000-1500 attendees while I was there. I’m basing this assumption on there being 4 concurrent seminar rooms; the small rooms were all standing room only for each session (~450 people) and the large conference room looked about ¾ full (300). Also, there were ~100+ booths, and were well attended but I would call it “over crowded”.
The general theme of the place was about a 50/30/20 split, 50 percent horror movies, 30 percent paranormal ghost hunter stuff, and 20 “other”. The booths had a wide variety of content. There were movie/book collectibles, B-movie horror actors (it was fun speaking with the guy who played “Dr. Satan!”), custom costume makers, a specialty contact lens manufacturer, and groups who design and hold haunted houses for Halloween. The part I found interesting is that there were at least 3 separate Tattoo groups who were providing onsite Tattooing. I wasn’t sure how this fit with the theme except that people who like horror movies are also likely to want tattoos?
Anyway, the other booths were all woo. And a heavy dose of it. There were dozens of paranormal investigator groups. People offering psychic readings, offering to take your Aura photos, palm readings, charts read, tea leaves read. Anything that didn’t have words was being read. As I walked through these Aisles, my eye caught a sign “Biomat”. Now this shocked me, because both the sign and word were in the production style that I’d expect from a science conference. I’m a biomaterials researcher. Often, people in biomaterials will abbreviate it to “BIOMAT”. So, I instantly wondered if I miss read something. So I went closer and realized I was in the company of a full on woo. This was a group offering the BIOMAT, a device that uses “The power of trisynergy”. It incorporates Infrared, negative ions and crystals to… do good stuff. The pamphlet I picked up showed that it also uses “quantum therapeutics”. I knew this was good stuff.
Well, I went in and started speaking with vendor, whose business card informs me is a Author, Minister and Shaman, so I knew I was in good hands. I asked for her to tell me more about the product and she asks me to sit down on the heating pad biomat. Instantly, she informs me that using crystals and ions with the heating, it can reach into seven layers for complete heating. I was compelled to ask, “Layers of what?”
“Layers of energy and tissue penetrating your core”
“What’s the thickness of the layers?”
“well, they are energy…(some hand waving ensued)…Most other devices only reach 2 layers”..
Ok, I agree. 7 is definitely 5 better than 2. I can’t argue with that. Well, she goes further to explain how the mat can leach out my toxins and can reverse diseases. She even gave multiple anecdotal stories of a person needing dialysis didn’t need it anymore and a prostate cancer patient who was cured(with or without actual medical treatment was never stated). Her argument for this one was that it’s “deep heating” allow for the heat to kill the cancer. This frustrated me as it was another example of a woo taking a real method (thermal ablation) but completely missing the point on how it would work. It was at this point that I had enough of her cosmic debris, thanked her for her time and went on. In truth, I was getting a bit angry listening to her claiming to cure disease with a magic mat. But I saw nothing gained from getting into an argument.
The paranormal ghost hunter booths for the most part took themselves seriously. It was clear that they believed it. The only exception to this rule would be some of the groups who were selling haunted house ghost stories based upon historical sites. These booths kind of had the “twinkle in the eye” feeling of a grandpa telling spooky stories to a kid. They don’t seem to really believe, but won’t ruin the fun for those who want to pretend.
However, I am fascinated by the true believers that had booths and gave talks there. I mean this event was clearly designed to cater heavily toward the horror movie fandom. Horror movies are clearly works of fiction and fakery. This element even had people who excelled at how to create spooky settings, make mock spooky scenes, or how to fake a haunted house. Now, if I was a true believer who truly believed that I had encountered ghosts and risked my life doing this*, why would I associate myself with a fiction convention? It would be like me presenting my research in drug targeting at a Star Trek convention. If they really believed they aren’t the genuine article, why attend a campy horror fest? I suspect it’s because they recognize, on some level, the fact that what they do is still entertainment.
To finish up, do I think a skeptic track would work in this venue? Very possibly. I’m a fan of horror movies. I enjoy a good ghost story. I like to feel spooked during Halloween. But I know and recognize the difference between reality and fantasy. I think a series at this convention which could highlight the “skeptics enjoyment of the spooky” would work well. The key is you don’t want to simply be killjoys. The most important part to me would be to encourage critical thinking to stop the “Biomat” nonsense that was there. It was clearly a non-spooky device and was purely there to prey upon the gullible. And with multiple people there believing in ghosts and goblins, there were many gullible people there.
*I did also attend two talks, One who claimed to have risked his life doing ghost hunting and the other who claimed to be a psychic vampire. If anyone is interested, I can write reviews on these talks.
Hope this helps.
joobz
