My morning at Horrified Crawley

At the weekend I went to Horrified horror con, which was being hosted in Crawley.

I was able to go to last year's as well, which was the first time a Horrified con was on, so I was excited to see what this year's would hold.

I was only there for a couple hours so didn't go to the talks this time around, and I wasn't planning to get any autographs either, as I wanted all my money to go on merch!

When first going in they had some spooky stuff like animatronics and a Gremlins set in the hallway, which they also had at last years one.

While these were fun to look at and take photos of, they were stuck out in a brightly lit hallway without much thought or attention paid to them, which (for me) kinda ruined the fun of them. It's like when you have a coaster with no theming stuck on some tarmac. Yeah the ride is fun, but having no thought put into the surrounds ruins the enjoyment.

Also in the hallway there were a few vendors as well. It was pretty busy around those stalls as there were people queuing for the autographs and the like, so I wasn't able to look at the stalls as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I did end up buying from one of them.

Onto the main hall, and there was a lot of stalls to look at.

As well as the ones you see at all conventions that are selling the usual models, mass produced merch and the like, there were a lot of independent artists and authors there too, which is always great to see.

After a decent look around these are the things I ended up buying.

First up is this choose your own adventure horror book. 

I used to enjoy doing the choose your own Goosebumps books, as well as the classic adventure style ones, but I've never done a full on adult horror one so thought it would be fun to try!

The other book I got was one based on video nasties.

I find the history of video nasties to be a fascinating part of horror history, and I've always loved the artwork that came with these kinds of films, so this book was a must for me.

Example of how the book looks inside. Picked this as the example since
 a new Faces Of Death is coming out soon, well kinda anyway...

As for handmade items, I bought this awesome snailien from Lawn Of The Dead.

While they're made so they can be lawn ornaments, I'm tempted to keep it next to our fish tank instead as it's full of so many flipping snails it feels like an appropriate place to have it.

The final item I bought was this tea towel from Amongst The Gorse.

This was from the stall that was out in the hallway that I got a brief look at before heading inside.

Last year I bought a hand towel from the convention

Still one of my favourite bits of merch I've ever bought!

so it seemed only fitting to buy another towel this year 😄

I loved the art on the tea towel, plus I'm interested in British folklore as well, so it ended up being a must buy. It also came with a print out of what each design represents, which I thought was a really nice touch.

One thing I didn't buy this year but I recommend is the hot sauce company Dean Of The Dead.

Last year I bought four of their hot sauces and so far they've all be delicious. The only reason I didn't buy any this year is because of the four I bought I've currently only finished one, almost halfway through number two and recently opened three, and the forth is still unopened, plus I have tons of other hot sauces in our cupboard that need eating up, so I had to unfortunately forgo buying any this year. I do plan to buy some from their site though as soon as I've got through all the others!

If you love hot sauces and horror I highly recommend their ones as they're delicious (and be mindful of their spice levels, because when it says they're hot, they mean it!)

In order of finished to yet to open (plus a bat to help keep the bottles
from rolling while taking the photo 🦇)

Overall I had fun time looking around. I kinda wish I had gone to at least one of the talks so I could have compared them to the ones I watched last year, but as I said before the main reason I was there was for the merch, so I'm happy with my day there overall.

Do I plan to go to next years? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. £30 is amazing value if you go to all the talks, but if there's no talks you want to see/aren't able to stay around for them, the price feels a little steep if all you want to do is look at the merch stalls. One issue is that they don't tell you until a week in advance what talks are going to be on, which means you have to buy in advance and keep your fingers crossed there's something you want to see, or wait to just before, which isn't always possible if you need to plan longer in advance.

While I do wish they had a standard ticket and a separate ticket for if you want to see the talks, I can understand it would be a pain to make sure you have an area for the talks that you can only get into if you have the correct wristband, as both this and last year's talks were where you can just go and wander in, or even listen at the side if you wanted. Maybe they'll bring it in at some point in the future, but I'm not holding my breath about it.

I think maybe if it's closer to me next year I'll go, but if it's a tad further afield like it was this time I may save my money and opt to try another horror con I've never been to before instead. If you have any suggestions on horror cons happening around the South East that you've been to and loved, let me know so I can hopefully give some of them a try!