Midsummer Scream closes out 3-day celebration of horror in Long Beach

Midsummer Scream closed out its first decade of horror-themed celebration on Sunday, Aug. 9.

The three-day event took over the Long Beach Convention Center, featuring star-studded panels, walk-through haunts, horror cosplayers, musicals and more.

This year’s convention featured a special themed design by Massachusetts-based artist Stephan Andrade, who specializes in ’50s and ’60s-style vintage movie posters. Andrade, who was also a vendor, said his work is inspired by monster, horror and sci-fi movie posters, along with pulp magazines from the ’40s and ’50s, which are known for their use of bold colors and graphics.

Midsummer Scream co-founder David Markland contacted Andrade to ask for his art to be the face of this year’s convention and for a horror musicals theme. He was excited by the idea of having his work be such a pivotal part of the horror con, given it’s only the second convention he’s ever been featured at.

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“David started hashing out a list of what the big ones were, and then we kept on adding more, and we were getting all these that I never realized they made into musicals; it was so cool,” Andrade said. “Then it was just a matter of finding the best visuals for them and assembling them into one image.”

Also vending on the Showfloor was Moreno Valley-based tattoo company Second To None, which had lines of horror fans looking to get some fresh ink. Attendees could choose from flash tattoos, basic fine-line, or portrait realism, in traditional color and black-and-grey. The horror-themed tattoos and Friday the 13th flash were completed by the artists in 30 minutes or less.

German Miranda, the lead artist and owner of the shop, said he brought live tattooing to Midsummer Scream in 2018 after coming with his wife, who ran her own merchandise booth and business on the showroom floor at the time.

Midsummer Scream returns to haunt Long Beach with a decade-long history of fear, fun and frights

“This place is a vibe,” Miranda said. “I recommend everybody come by and check it out at least once.”

Up on the lobby level, the Black Cat Lounge had its own lines, but for a more wholesome cause, aiming to connect humans with some feline friends. Jen Florez is a longtime volunteer with Kitten Rescue LA, who helps with volunteer adoptions.

She said the Black Cat Lounge has been a staple at Midsummer Scream since 2017, and allows fans to come in and meet the cats in small groups, where they can pet and play with kittens and other full-grown cats. The convention sold $15 pins that, for the first 100 purchased each day, included a priority access pass to the Black Cat Lounge and let them skip the lines.

Midsummer Scream marks a decade of fear and frights in Long Beach

The hope is that they can find homes for the cats or at least someone to foster them. If someone is interested in a particular cat, they can scan a QR code and get the process started.

“Obviously, nobody could leave with cats today because we have a multi-step adoption process, but we do get quite a good number of adoptions and foster applications,” Florez said. “We’re a volunteer-run organization, and we don’t have any big corporation behind us. We basically survive on donations and on angels who volunteer their time for us. I’ve had quite a few people actually this weekend that have already signed up to be a foster, which helps us to run this because the more fosters we have, the more kitties we could save.”