New horror convention coming to Las Vegas this fall
From the blood-red, blood-thirsty ’58 Plymouth Fury in “Christine” to Ash Williams’ dented ’73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 in “The Evil Dead” series to the Ghostbusters’ iconic hearse/ambulance hybrid, cars and horror flicks go together like rubber and asphalt.
Isn’t it about time, then, for something that caters to fans of both?
Answering in the affirmative is Nightmare in Vegas, which will debut at the Silverton on Oct. 4-5 as a novel combination of a horror convention and classic car show.
Though Vegas already hosts the popular “Days of the Dead” horror con at the Plaza in January, this will be the city’s first outdoor gathering of its kind.
It all began last year, when friends and Nightmare in Vegas founders Darlene Seguin and Amy Acevedo began kicking around the idea of developing a new event predicated upon their shared love of horror.
“We were like, ‘That’d be so great if we had a horror con in Vegas,’ because we attend a lot of horror conventions in the L.A. area, in California, and we love haunts,” Seguin explains. “So we said, ‘Let’s do something different. We’re in Vegas; Vegas is the city of entertainment, and we love classic cars.’ Classic cars and horror just kind of go together.”
The idea is to make a Nightmare in Vegas a full-on festival of frights.
“We’ll have food trucks, different vendors, celebrity guest signings from, like, old slasher movies, like ‘Friday the 13th’ or maybe some of the cast from ‘Halloween,’” Seguin says. “We’re still lining up a lot of people. We’re going to have a stage with bands, and it’s going to be a variety of rock music, metal, some rap.”
If all goes well, Seguin sees Nightmare in Vegas becoming an annual event.
Vegas already boasts a solid and growing horror-related infrastructure, from local shops like Cemetery Pulp and Blaspheme Boutique, a bevy of immersive attractions like “Experience It” and “Escape Blair Witch” and the forthcoming Universal Horror Unleashed coming to Area15 late this year.
Seguin envisions Nightmare in Vegas further contributing to the creepy cause.
“We just want to promote small businesses and really put Vegas on the map when it comes to the horror community,” Seguin says. “Vegas — you know what? — one day we’re gonna be the horror entertainment capital world.”
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.