Midsummer Scream Convention Review 2026
Written by: Team Pacific Ghost Highway (Team Leader Casey Moriarty)
-8/10/2026
It’s early August in Long Beach, California, and the hot, muggy weather means many of the locals (not to mention an army of tourists) are spending the weekend at the beach, enjoying the gentle breeze gliding over the beautiful Pacific Ocean. For Team Pacific Ghost Highway, however, and about 50,000 of our fellow Halloween, Haunting and Horror enthusiasts, we’re spending the weekend crammed like sardines into the Long Beach Convention Center for the annual “Midsummer Scream Convention,” an event that serves not only as a preview for the upcoming haunt season, but a sampler platter of walkthrough attractions as well.
The first Midsummer Scream was in 2016, and while we missed that one, we’ve been coming every year since 2017. Technically, that would make the 2026 convention the tenth anniversary, but I didn’t really see any emphasis placed on that milestone, perhaps because the convention did not take place in 2020 or 2021, due to pandemic restrictions.
Nevertheless, in the eight times we’ve attended this convention, we’ve seen it grow tremendously, from a relatively small spooky swap meet to which a complimentary ticket could be procured on Goldstar if you just covered the processing fee, to a packed three-day event where a weekend-long Gold Bat VIP pass will run you nearly $200. We skipped the VIP tickets this year, opting instead for the regular day passes at $42 per person for Friday.
We did once have Gold Bat Passes for a past convention, which we won in a horror trivia contest and did not pay for. While we were happy to have them and thought it was fun to skip the lines and attend the swanky afterparty, we ultimately did not think the Gold Bat Passes were really worth the hefty price tag that year.
Getting In
Over the years we’ve been attending, we’ve learned a few tricks that have made the experience easier for us, which we were glad of this year because when we arrived for the opening day at 6 pm on Friday, August 7, we were met with what seemed like a bigger crowd than ever before.
One thing we have learned is that there’s essentially no point in lining up ahead of time to get into the convention, because the queue of enthusiastic attendees jostling to enter at the exact moment the doors open snakes its way far beyond the convention center itself and nearly all the way down to the adjacent Aquarium of the Pacific.
It’s far better to grab some food nearby and avoid the outrageous convention center prices, then wait until about half an hour after the doors open to make your way inside. It’s honestly much faster and less stressful this way.
We should also mention that if you ever attend this convention, parking is an absolute nightmare as well. In times past, we haven’t even bothered to park nearby and have just used rideshares, but this year we braved the gridlock to try and get into the nearby parking garage. It took us about 45 minutes and cost $30, but we made it.
We grabbed food at Waba Grill (where we were seated next to a life-sized Chucky doll brought by another attendee) and walked to the convention around 6:30, only to discover that the gargantuan line was still wending its way around the entire convention center, in between several residential buildings and bars.
We walked all the way to the end of the line, passing by a half dozen Michael Myerses, four Jasons, a few Arts the Clown, and one Kamen Rider, who scrutinized us with his buggy eyes from his position on the Motorsports Walk of Fame.
We had acknowledged in previous years, but failed to remember until the exact moment we entered the queue, that the organization of this convention, at least when it comes to managing entry for the attendees, leaves something to be desired. There were a multitude of security guards and a small platoon of staff administering wristbands, so the line moved quickly, but there was a great deal of confusion as to where each segment of the line was supposed to go as they split up during the approach to the entrance. It’s also worth mentioning that the digital tickets had the wrong times on them: they said 5 pm, but the convention is actually at 6 pm, a fact confirmed by the website. While the website itself is accurate, the Instagram page and official app offer perilously little information about when the event actually begins.
Finally, after much to-do, we made it inside the convention, spilling into the entryway with a hundred other guests, where we were greeted by a family of inflatable black cats grinning down at us from the balcony above. There’s plenty to see even in the entrance, from photo ops to wandering cosplayers to advertising for various events and entertainments, but as experienced Midsummer Screamers we understood that there would be wait times for some of the activities we were hoping to do and that the operating hours on Friday (6 pm-10 pm) were unfortunately short.
The Hall of Shadows
Hoping to maximize our time, we quickly trotted down the stairs, ignoring the vendors and the celebrities who were signing in the main hall and beelined straight for the famous Hall of Shadows, which is located to the right of the floor entrance.
I want to take a moment to appreciate what a thing of beauty the Hall of Shadows is if you’re a fan of Halloween or haunted attractions. This is the reason we have attended this convention every year since we discovered it: an entire section of the convention center has been dedicated to previewing and promoting the local California haunted attractions, and the haunters have taken great care to construct beautiful facades to entice visitors to come try their attractions. Fog drifts somberly throughout the venue, and every square inch of the space is festooned with monsters, Jack O’Lanterns, and tombstones, as a dozen different organizations work together to create a microcosm of the California haunt season.
It’s a sensory overload, packed with stunning visuals and alive with the constant sound of shrieking visitors, who are taking turns being terrified by groaning actors or sudden jump scares. This part of the convention is truly something special.
One of the reasons we love this part so much is the fact that the Hall of Shadows features haunts of all sizes. You’ll see major theme parks represented, alongside local churches and other organizations. People even preview their home haunts here, ones which are realized with just as much or more detail as many of the large-scale corporate attractions. When we stood in line to preview a haunt, we often didn’t know if we were visiting an expensive professional haunt or one that would be installed in someone’s front yard this October. That’s not to say that some haunts are not better than others: they are, but each of them is impressive in its own way and worthy of being where they are.
When you enter the Hall of Shadows, you really should simply stroll around for a while and take everything in, but that’s not what we did, because we really wanted to maximize the time we had there that evening. Instead, we decided to strategically hit as many of the haunts as possible in a tightening loop, because although these haunts are merely short previews of attractions that will take place in October, the lines they draw are often just as lengthy as full-scale productions during the Halloween season proper.
We didn’t make it to every haunt in the Hall of Shadows, but we did pretty well for ourselves in the time we had. I’ll offer our thoughts on the ones we did make it to:
H&L’s Realm of Horror: Witchaulz – The Hunter’s Reckoning
H&L’s Realm of Horror is a home haunt based out of Adelanto, California, and they can periodically be found doing pop-ups and visiting events like Midsummer Scream. The High Desert happens to be home to a number of excellent home haunts, and this one is no exception. The estimated wait time here was ten minutes, but we actually waited less than one, so we barely had a chance to enjoy the facade itself.
We entered a haunted forest by passing under a pockmarked funeral moon, where a haunting lullaby and the guttural voice of a supernatural narrator told us the story of a witch hunter. As we entered, we were greeted by frightening aristocrats dressed in the extravagant Rococo fashions of the eighteenth century, which were impeccably realized and created a strong folk-horror atmosphere that only deepened when we began to see the caged children all around us, setting the tone for a Hansel and Gretel tale in which we were participating. There were minimal jump scares, and the only effects were light- and sound-based, but the results were striking. Since it was a preview, we spent less than a minute in this haunt, but in that time, it left a strong impression, particularly for a home haunt, and we’ll probably have to make the trip to the High Desert to see what this team has in store for us this October.
Straite to Hale Productions: Side Effects
Based out of Rancho Cucamonga in the Valley, Straite to Hale Productions is primarily a prop-making and set-building enterprise (founded by two partners named Mark Straite and Ron Hale), rather than a haunt production in their own right. Nevertheless, they maintain a presence at Midsummer Scream, presumably to advertise to haunters what they can do for their production. I believe they have also done work for some of the notable haunts in the region, and it’s easy to see why: their Side Effects haunt in the Hall of Shadows is an absolute blast.
The premise of their entry this year is a haunted moonshine distillery, and the facade they have created establishes that beautifully: they have built a barn out of reclaimed wood and corrugated sheet metal that nearly scrapes the convention ceiling, which must have required some serious design and engineering skills to successfully execute. The line was estimated at a 15-minute wait, but we ended up waiting a little over 20 minutes, which still isn’t bad and gave us some time to enjoy the outer part of the attraction. The inside of the haunt is equally amazing, and the designers here have made perfect use of three-dimensional space, a feat that is all the more impressive considering this is a temporary building thrown up on a convention floor. We walked across a bridge and began slogging through a swamp, where we were accosted by mossy swamp monsters on stilts. We then made our way through a church where a funeral was being held, and soon enough an acrobatic spirit began swinging above our heads. All around us, angry ghosts shouted at us while the fearsome crackle of broken electrical cables created an ominous sensory experience. The denouement features a gigantic, charmingly janky foam snake, like something out of a dark ride in the 1950s. We were in this haunt for about two and a half minutes, which makes it a veritable epic in Hall of Shadows terms. We absolutely loved this one.
Black Casket Productions: Abandoned
For our next stop, we sort of gave up on our attempt at strategically visiting the haunts in the order they were located and just began to move towards the ones we felt we’d be most disappointed if we missed out on, since we didn’t know how much time we’d really have for everything. To that end, after leaving the haunted distillery, we sped over to the other side of the convention floor to visit a haunted funeral home from Black Casket Productions, a professional haunted attraction located in Yucaipa, California. We were drawn by the facade they had created, which was of a multi-story brick building entirely covered in creeping ivy, which served to emphasize the “Abandoned” title of this particular haunt.
The estimated wait time was 30 minutes, but we were pleasantly surprised when we ended up waiting less than 20, at which point we shuffled through the doors of this old brick building to discover its terrible secrets. We passed through a dilapidated foyer, where exposed wiring and peeling wallpaper indicated that this funeral home had not been operational in some time. We moved through this area to the morgue itself, where we began to experience the disturbing activity that seemed to be taking place in this evil place. A woman, hung from the wall by her arms and missing the lower half of her body, screamed that she couldn’t feel her legs while a sinister mortician explained to us the value of human scalps as DIY storage containers. Meanwhile, decomposing decedents attempted to free themselves from the refrigerators, causing the refrigerator doors to rattle and, in one memorable scare, pop open to reveal an actor in white contact lenses snapping her teeth at us threateningly.
My favorite spot in this haunted mortuary, however, was the crematory, where a not-quite-dead victim of the sinister entities running this establishment begged us not to let them burn her alive. The set design here was incredible: the walls were weathered to hideous perfection, and you could never quite be sure which mortuary features were just finely realized set dressing and which ones hid shrieking, lunging actors who looked like they had been left to decompose for months before they made themselves known. We also very much enjoyed the performances of the actors, who did more than simply create loud and showy jump scares: they created memorable characters that helped make for an immersive, disturbingly entertaining experience that lasted over two minutes and very much made me want to drive to Yucaipa this fall.
Fear Farm: BITE
Next, we hurried over to the convention center to visit Fear Farm, a haunt we had visited in the past when they were located in a cornfield in Chino, California (they are now in Hesperia). We’d had a great experience then, so we looked forward to seeing what they had in store for us with their BITE attraction.
The facade gave strong “Monster House” vibes, being a run-down A-frame house with a gaping, toothy maw serving as its entrance. The wait was estimated at half an hour this time, but it actually only took about fifteen minutes before we were strolling through the fearsome jaws of this man-eating mansion. The premise of the haunt appeared to be a home that had come alive to eat its residents: the hallways, picture frames, and even the chairs had all sprouted rows of fangs, the better to chomp us with. The set design here was not as impressively realized as the last couple of haunts, because although the concept was indeed creative, the teeth had seemingly mostly been constructed from plywood, rendering them a bit flat to look at in contrast to the 3D effects in the other attractions. Much of the set design was a bit less lovingly crafted, as well: for example, there were skeletons mounted to the walls that looked like they had been purchased from Target and repainted, which, while not necessarily a bad effect, was not as crafty as some of the other haunts. Cackling witches and animatronic spiders were also fairly generic inclusions, and the experience ended with a claustrophobia tunnel, which, while also not bad, is such a staple of haunts these days it did nothing to set this particular attraction apart from the others. Nevertheless, we did enjoy the facade and the toothy furniture, as well as the use of actors swinging above us acrobatically in order to create a more three-dimensional feel to the overall setting.
The Dreich Society: Fear Fest ’89: Part II
Our next stop was the Dreich Society, a home haunt from Ontario, California, whose Fear Fest 89 specializes in recreating scenes from iconic horror films of the 1980s (not necessarily just 1989). This year, the films they were reproducing were The Lost Boys, My Bloody Valentine, and Evil Dead II. The facade was essentially a video store shelf, which was stocked with horror mainstays such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. After about a twenty-minute wait, we entered the haunt, walking under a projection screen playing Friday the 13th, Part III.
The haunt itself was very short: we first stepped through the Lost Boys’ hotel, where we were warned about bloodsucker activity before being ambushed by a vampire. Then we quickly moved through a Canadian coal mine, where the lumbering Miner took a swing at us with his pickaxe. Finally, we ended up looking at a facade of Professor Knowby’s cabin, where legendary chainsaw-handed horror hero Ash warned us about the presence of Deadites. After that, it was over, and we were back outside. This haunt was much smaller in scale than the others, which was to be expected being a home haunt, and our primary takeaway was that we wished the actors had committed a bit more: for example, Ash was just sort of standing there, and perhaps would have benefited from just a touch more of Bruce Campbell’s panicky swagger. Nevertheless, we enjoyed seeing a smaller production nestled in on the floor of the Hall of Shadows.
Sid’s Twisted Cinema
Our next stop was also cinema themed, albeit a very different experience from the last one: Sid’s Twisted Cinema imagined if Sid from Toy Story had taken over a movie theater and filled it with his creations. The production was put on by a group called @Real_Family_Adventures
on Instagram, who had previously had a photo op called @Real_Pizza_PlanetTruck, all themed around Toy Story and now expanded into a full haunt. We waited longer for this one, although we couldn’t quite figure out why the line was moving more slowly, because they didn’t stagger the entrances for the guests at all. We assumed it may have something to do with actor breaks, although we never actually found out.
While we waited, we got to see a small part of the Slider show, which seemed popular, with a few sliders demonstrating their skills for an enthusiastic crowd. Finally, we made our way to the ticket booth, above which a marquee advertised fictional films such as A Slasher in Texas and Raptor Rewind. Before we entered, a sinister clown handed us a seemingly AI-generated bill outlining what we could expect when we went in: a full-sized (non-scary) version of Sheriff Woody greeted us alongside some sinister clowns in the movie theater lobby, called “the Possessed Clown” according to the brochure. Each small area featured another film parody, including full-sized vehicles such as the Jeep from Jurassic Park. The production values varied wildly from one moment to the next, with some effects being entirely constructed from papier-mâché and others being more complex puppets. The walkthrough was eclectic, with cameos from villains such as Leatherface and Springtrap, but it was a fanged Babyface from Toy Story and a real-life version of Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine van that stole the show.
Realm of Shadow: Shadow’s Hollow Asylum
The last haunt we successfully visited before running out of time for the evening was Realm of Shadow’s haunted asylum (the host told us they were going to shut the line down three minutes after we arrived). Realm of Shadow is a community haunt which is performed annually at Trinity Lutheran School in Norwalk, California, and they pride themselves on emphasizing a creepy atmosphere over gore. Certainly this haunt was the one that was most carefully front-loaded, as before we entered an employee gave us a full speech about how to behave, including asking us to take care not to appear as patients in the asylum. Nevertheless, we were told that if we did end up being committed there, all insurance would be accepted.
When we entered, flickering LED candles set the scene, although the majority of the actual experience was digitally rendered creatures, projected onto the walls. We encountered a two-dimensional clown and some sort of spider person, although the patient enduring shock therapy was three-dimensional. Most memorable was a live actor portraying a nun who stood up from a backward crab walk, only to make intimidating eye contact with us. For a small-scale community haunt, we enjoyed this one, although the emphasis on digital effects is not something we prefer.
Leaving the Hall of Shadows
We finally exited the Hall of Shadows, and there were a couple of attractions we missed. The biggest one was the Lionsgate Haunt, which was obviously a professional production licensed by a major film studio. We thought the line was simply too long and we would have had to miss out on other attractions, so we reluctantly opted not to try that one. We also missed the Universal Horror Unleashed attraction, which was closed most of the time we were there (we had already seen the full-scale version of this attraction in Las Vegas earlier this year and so didn’t feel too disappointed about not seeing this one). We walked by photo ops from the Haunted Carwash and the Haunt with No Name… Yet and enjoyed the latter’s cemetery setup. Finally, we snuck through the Shadows of Hell exhibit, which was a dark version of a circus sideshow, perhaps too small to be called a proper haunt, but still requiring passing through a door to get in.
Seeing the Vendors and Leaving the Convention
Before leaving for the day, we paid a quick visit to the main floor of the convention, where the major theme parks advertised their upcoming attractions, celebrities including Scream actors Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich signed autographs, and horror- and Halloween-themed vendors sold their wares. I bought a signed book from Dark Delicacies, and we visited a beautiful reproduction of the Queen Mary’s swimming pool, which was a memorable set piece from Dark Harbor that had been transposed to the vendor’s floor for the convention this year.
Ultimately, the Midsummer Scream Convention is a great way to spend a day, especially if you visit the Hall of Shadows. There’s plenty more to do if you have the time: horror musicals, film screenings, and even Halloween craft and activity with well-known haunters and YouTubers are some of the features we have most enjoyed from past years. The Hall of Shadows is what really sets this experience apart, however, and a visit here is one of the best ways to kick off the haunt season early here in Southern California.
Here is some of our previous coverage of Midsummer Scream:
