Colorado Festival of Horror 2024: Friday

I got to the hotel a few hours early. This allowed me to check in and get early access to take pics of all the different con sites before it opened to the public. This was my fourth year covering this con and this con is feeling more and more like home. I say this because of how truly nice all of the people are and they are willing to welcome new people in to the fold. This is the con where I can expect to have great conversations in a mostly judgement free way. This con now feels more like hanging out with friends then the other larger cons in the state. At the same time this con is still growing so it will be interesting to see how this evolves over time.

Dealers' Room and Artist Alley

These two were mixed together in one main room with some additional tables outside in the hallway.

This was a 3D printed piece. I talked to the gentlemen that had created it and he was super great telling me about the process.

Even haunted houses had tables where they could advertise. The actors were really great for both photos and for jump scaring con goers.

When Baked Things Attack is a new movie project based off of a comic that some of the people with connections to the con are currently working on. For more information check out: https://www.whenbakedthingsattack.com/ .

Panels

COFOH Coloring Hour

This was a nice little down time for anyone that needed a break from the larger con. It was a little weird to have this panel on Friday and doing it on Saturday would have made more sense when the con is louder and busier. I wish they would have actually had a quiet space like other cons do and then having the coloring in there throughout the whole weekend would have been nice. Since only a couple of people showed up they let those that did take a whole coloring book when they left, 

HORRID Book Club

For this panel the host read a short story from the above book and then the group talked about the story. It was cool that the host picked a book by Native authors and I think I will be trying to find this book in the future to read the other stories. I felt like the other con attendees did engage in this panel (a challenge that every panelist faces).

Violence We Do To Ourselves: Self-destruction as Monster

This was an interesting panel where the hosts talked about the different movies that fall under the category of self-destruction.  

Rocky Mountain Paranormal Book Release

This was the release party for the second book in the series. I still haven't gotten the chance to read the first book in the series, just so many books to read with so little time.

They also had sparkling wine to share with of age guests at the panel. It was funny watching Bob opening the bottles. No injuries happened even though the corks did go flying.

Events

Annual Horror Charity Raffle

This year the proceeds from the raffle went towards the Foothills Animal Shelter...so in no way did this encourage me to spend more money then usual on the raffle... ok...yes it did. It also didn't help that they had a lot of really cool stuff this year. They even had plus size clothing which most raffles don't have. Personally, there were 6 things I was going for from the prizes. I have participated in the raffle for the past 4 years with no wins. Then this year I win twice. I was a little surprised each time as Smurf called out the numbers since I expect this year to be a loss as well. I was super excited and this was a great way to end Friday night at the con.

Many of the prizes were themed baskets. Some of the themes were movie night, kitchen goods, and horror Christmas.

Two of their plus size clothing options was this dress and hoodie. Also included in this photo was a bat rug that seemed to be one of the most popular items people were going for based on the amount of tickets in its bag.

Here were my winnings of the evening. I won the plus size dress and one of the baskets. I was aiming for this basket specifically for just one item in it for Mommy Geek. It had the below viral night light in it. 

Mommy Geek had seen this night light on TikTok and was sad to find it was only for sell on line. Since we don't do online shopping this meant that she couldn't get it. Then when I saw that it was in one of the baskets, I super focused on trying to win this basket. 

My Friday night ended with me showing Mommy Geek my winnings and giving her the nightlight. So a great end to the day.

Sights From around the con on Friday

Many of the statues, 'friends', around the con were created by Distortions Unlimited.

One of the vendors had this statue near them and decided to use it to help market their wears. The look on the monster's face was just too perfect, like "why are you making me a part of this?"

Slimer spent some time in different places at the con. At one point he would be posed in a funny moment, but more on that later.

There were some creepy cars at the event outside, not far from the ax toss area.