Fear Fest 2025

As a big nerd it has been a tradition for me to attend all things convention every year since 2019. Last weekend on May 24th for the first time ever I attended the convention known as Fear Fest in Raleigh, North Carolina, just an hour and some change away from where I live. Fear Fest is the horror movie version of Comic Con and my journey to it is actually an interesting one if I say so myself.

My journey to Fear Fest actually started last May in 2024. It was on a Sunday at the end of the month and I had a ticket to go to Fear Fest. Now this was one day after a close friend’s wedding in which I was a groomsman and had been pretty busy. So I thought the start time of the convention was 6pm to 11pm because that’s what it said for the first night, but it turns out I was wrong. It was actually 11am to 5pm, so I showed up late and missed it. When I got there I was mad pissed at myself but the supervisor in charge of the event asked to see me and made it so my ticket would roll over to the next year and I felt better about that. As it turns out she actually hooked me up with two tickets and I was able to give one to one of my best friends who had never been to a convention and so we began our journey to the con on Saturday May 24, 2025.

So as me and my boy Danny Williams began our long trek to Raleigh, I started playing him a bunch of music from the soundtracks to a lot of the horror movies that we would see being cosplayed at Fear Fest. I was really hoping that Danny would enjoy himself because he had never been to a convention before and always wanted to go to one. He was looking forward to it just as much as me.

When we arrived at the venue there was another festival or parade happening just across the packed Raleigh parking lot, yet it was still easy to identify the Fear Fest attendees by all the merch they had on as well as the cosplayers. As we waited in line to get our wrist bands and headed inside we started chatting with a couple who was in front of us and asked them how good is the convention being that it was my first time at this type of convention and Danny’s first time coming to a convention overall. They gave us a good overview of the joint and that alone gave us enough insight that we would enjoy this convention.

As soon as we walked in it was of course slow for those first ten minutes because people were still coming in, but trust me when I tell you that always changes overtime and this con would be no different. After that first introduction I quickly started seeing cosplayers dressed up as some of my favorite horror characters and told Danny to be the camera man to snap all the pics I took with them. Some of the first characters I saw in cosplay were Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th and The Creeper from Jeepers Creepers.

Me and Danny of course did a lot of looking around at the vendors and merchandise they were selling. I had to keep my hands in my pockets to stop from buying anything. Danny on the other hand couldn’t stop himself from making the impulsive purchases, but I wasn’t complaining. I was just glad he was enjoying his self. He also got a few pics with the horror greats.

As a big fan of the Child’s Play horror series I was well aware that the stars of the movie would be at the convention, especially Alex Vincent who plays the main hero of the series, Andy Barclay. I was hoping I was gonna get to meet him and I did. I got to get a photo with him and was surprised he was down to earth, funny and interactive with the fans myself included. He didn’t look at himself as above anyone and you could tell he really appreciated everyone’s company

I would to say my biggest highlight from Fear Fest was meeting an author named Natasha Durand-Moulton. She was there as a cosplayer but was also advertising her written works that pertained to helping people through many of the issues that even I myself had been dealing with lately. I told her I was also a writer and she told me that she hoped to read my works some day soon. I in return told her that I was planning on reading what she has to say.

Overall Fear Fest was a blast. Danny enjoyed his first convention and made it clear that he was definitely looking forward to joking me at the future conventions coming up. After the disappointment of missing the con last year I’m glad I got to redeem myself by being able to go to this one with interest. I’ve got plenty more convention life to partake in this year and I’m glad my long awaiting Fear Fest attendance kicked this year of convention life off to a dope beginning.