Chiller Theatre 13 Anniversary 2003 Halloween Expo

Chiller Theatre 13^th 2003 Halloween Expo

Tuesday, November 4th, 2003

This year's Fall Chiller Show coincided directly with the Halloween weekend, with Friday's show taking place on Halloween itself. Although I had originally planned to attend the show on both Friday and Saturday (staying overnight at the Sheraton), Halloween ultimately changed my plans, since I had to do the "Daddy-Thang," and take my kids out to Trick-or-Treat. No problem though.

Saturday morning found me making my way up to the Sheraton Meadowlands after picking up my bud Gene. We arrived at around 11:30, after making a slight detour to a local Wendy's to get a bite to eat before the show - (those $2.00 Chiller hot dogs and $1.50 sodas are difficult to digest, figuratively speaking).

I immediately noticed several major changes at this show. The first was that all of the vendors who are usually set up in the hallways were no longer there. A second change was there were now lines set up to enter each of the two main vendor rooms found on the second floor. Evidently the fire marshal had recently dropped by the hotel and decided to change things up (a LOT!)

After waiting a relatively short period of time to enter the "Diamond Court Ballroom," - (the large vending room located on the right) - I started checking out and taking pics of some of the figure build-ups that were out on display.

Sassy's Satellite was the first vendor I stopped by to see.

Next, I made my way over to Black Star Models.

Following this I moseyed over to Amok Time.

They had several X-men model figures that I had been salivating over and dreaming about for the past five or six months - (yeah, I know, I gotta get a life!) I ended up picking up one of each. These turned out to be the last ones that Amok had at the show. Ironically, a couple minutes later someone else came by looking for a Nightcrawler.

I took numerous pictures of other build-ups that they had on display.

Located next to Amok Time was Needful Things.

I sparked up a conversation with one of the guys who was behind the Amok Time table. As it turned out this was none other than Shawn Nagle, one of the most talented sculptors (in my humble opinion) in the Garage Kit industry.

After toting my newly acquired haul out to the trunk of my car I worked my way back up to the second floor. (I unfortunately discovered that there was now a line formed to get back up the escalator).

I made my way (after waiting in yet another line) into the smaller Derby Ballroom and dropped by to chat with "BWAIN" (Tom Parker) and Amazing Figure Modeler's Terry Webb. After picking up the latest AFM Magazine and dropping by the Smooth-On booth I headed back out.

I was finally able to locate Gabe Perna, (the sculptor of a number of very popular recent figure releases, including Thanos, Weapon X and Lobo). He was hanging out with some other "Clubhouse BB" members.

I was particularly interested in his built-up Lobo figure, (that I had previously obtained a copy of). I ended up taking a bunch of pictures to be used later as reference shots.

After talking to Gabe I decided to head up to the third floor to check out the contest entries. A short time later I was in.

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