We just got back from the Halloween Costume, Haunted Attraction, and Party show in Las Vegas. Eileen and I had a great time and even made the paper.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal

The four-day convention includes more than 700 exhibitors and is expected to attract about 10,000 attendees from 47 countries.

In 24 years it has grown from a small event in Chicago with about 20 vendors to today’s incarnation, a multiday costume, prop and gore extravaganza for an industry worth about $7 billion.

“Something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. will attend a haunted house,” said Joe Thaler, chairman and CEO of TransWorld Exhibits, the company that runs the Halloween show. “It can be very valuable.”

Mutilated bodies, full-length Sasquatch and Yeti suits, trampy nurse and superhero outfits are among the highlights of the Las Vegas event. There’s plenty at the show to shock even the most hardened sensibilities.

The firm Dapper Cadaver of Los Angeles showed off a line of vintage medical instruments, mutilated and vandalized corpses and a collection of faux human and animal fetuses stored in jars.

Dapper Cadaver owner-artist BJ Winslow said he’s been fascinated by macabre preservation techniques since childhood.

“Even when I was a little kid and I had a toy I was no longer interested in I would stick it in a jar, fill it with fluid and put it on a shelf,” Winslow said. “My mom still has some of them.”