The Renaissance Hotel in Glendale was taken over by a party of monstrous proportions earlier this month, a Mad Monster Party to be exact! Hosting an impressive amount of beloved celebrities from horror movies past such as MATTHEW LILLARD (“Scooby Doo”, “Scream”, “Five Nights at Freddy’s”), KANE HODDER (“Friday the 13th”), JULIETTE LEWIS (“From Dusk Till Dawn”, “Natural Born Killers”), as well as some that have crossover into the Music world like NIVEK OGRE (“Repo! The Genetic Opera”, Skinny Puppy), SID WILSON (Slipknot, DJ Starscream), and even absolute legendary OZZY OSBOURNE (Black Sabbath), among many, many more.
While, as always with conventions, celebrity appearances are a heavy selling point to those excited to attend, the vendors are also certainly just as anticipated, and this convention had a lot of them. So many that they were not even all able to be contained to a singular room and had booths spilling out into the hallways. While this in itself is not a negative notation, especially not on Mad Monster’s behalf, this separation is a key factor to what made some experiences over the weekend extremely unsatisfactory.
Unfortunately for those in attendance, it seems that the Renaissance Glendale Hotel was not prioritizing the safety and comfortability of their attendees over their bottom lines. With Friday’s festivities starting the latest, being scheduled from 6:00pm - 11:00pm, fans excitedly pulled up in Phoenix’s brisk 115 degree high for the day looking forward to a nice evening of that almost mythical “hotel air conditioning” that anybody who regularly travels has come to know and love. Instead, many were greeted with a very muggy and warm building that felt like they barely even had the air set to “fan” let alone “cool.”
*Note: The next paragraph describes a case of heatstroke in graphic detail. Feel free to skip to the following paragraph.
Once inside, things were great, albeit warm. The air did indeed feel to be moving in the “main” event room at least, but certainly still not cooling. Before we dive more into the convention itself, we want to amplify not just how extreme this truly was but also how dangerous this scenario is while Arizona is on track to break its previous high for the summer: just leaving the main room to venture into the hallways and see what was happening with panels or vendors that didn’t make it to the main room, I ended up profusely sweating. This was also where the only source of food or water lived inside of the building. When I returned from my ventures, the heat from the hallways was getting to the point that I had a full on migraine which put me in a chair and unable to move for roughly an hour. Once I had recovered and was on my way home, nausea from the heat began to set in. As I was already driving at highway speeds, I wasn’t able to do much but make the cabin of my car into a replica of the infamous scene from The Exorcist and projectile vomited not once, not twice, but thrice all over myself and my dashboard.
There were reports that Saturday was just as bad starting out, with many attendees who were fortunate enough to be staying at the hotel taking many breaks throughout the day to go back to their rooms and cool down in working air conditioning. When the evening came around, though, the air seemed to finally be set properly…which was more than halfway through the duration of time that the convention was running. It should also be noted that the “hell hallway,” as I began calling it, was also where the overflow was kept for people waiting hours to meet celebrities.
Despite the issues, it was clear that many attendees were having a fantastic time. Some even got more than they might have expected! One attendee, Amy Castillo, had the surprise of her life when Matthew Lillard drew her a doodle that went on to become her newest tattoo! Lillard has proven time and time again in his fan interactions that he’s truly in it to make people happy, even if it’s just coming out from behind the table to give his fans a hug instead of a handshake from across it.
I can appreciate that it certainly can’t be easy to organize something of this level and details like this are certainly lower on the list of what is needed for success, but one small additional pain point was the lack of food vendors. There were two spaces in the “hell hallway” with identical menus of pre-packed salads, wraps, etc. being run by the hotel. No local trucks or stands to be seen. A heavy disappointment when the usual expectations for an event like this are at least a handful of food trucks, even if they are not entirely local.
While it's expected to have some overlap between what people are selling from booth to booth, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the selection was all fairly diverse with just about everything fans could imagine. From custom designed clothing, stickers, posters and pins to high quality replicas of Audrey II, beautiful replica and custom designed Lightsabers and even some independently made horror parody films. If you imagine something vaguely horror related, you could probably purchase it on the vendor floor.
Even if you weren't planning on buying an autograph or photo and just wanted to say hello, every celebrity was more than happy to strike up a brief conversation with all of their fans. Though, some certainly were more accessible than others, as dictated by their current demand in popularity.
Overall? Even though I didn’t sign up for a haunted house experience (though for anybody who did, I hope you checked out Terror in Tolleson’s haunt!) I got one. Was it enough to turn me off from attending the next Mad Monster Party? Absolutely not. It is an extremely unique convention that I only hope to see grow even larger and get more support as time goes on; the opportunities to speak with celebrities you admire as well as discovering new artists and projects massively outweigh logistical issues outside of the convention’s control.
*Editor’s Note: Our team reached out to both Mad Monster and The Renaissance Glendale multiple times over the last two weeks to get a statement regarding the issues with the air conditioning in the convention area. We have not received any correspondence back despite our multiple efforts, and instead the executive editor has been blocked by The Renaissance Glendale on social media. We are still working to get to the bottom of this issue.
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