16 Vendor Spotlights from TransWorld’s Halloween & Attractions Show 2026

Plague Productions

Plague Productions made its vendor debut at this year’s show after founder Jon Cooke spent more than a decade attending as a buyer. Cooke, whose experiential design company has produced attractions for clients including Knott’s Scary Farm and Six Flags, brought a dark ride-themed booth to the floor, complete with a giant character overhead designed to create the atmosphere of a vintage dark ride. “We’re super excited to be here meeting people, be a part of the community and showing what we have to offer,” Cooke said.

VFX Creates

Patrick Voss walked attendees through the VFX Creates lineup at Booth 714, which included several new puppets for the 2026 season. Among the new additions are the UV Ambrose Vampire, a fully UV-reactive puppet with light-up eyes, and Lilith, a demon puppet with optional glowing eye upgrades. VFX Creates also debuted a demon bat puppet, Tiki the parrot, Molly (a rave-themed puppet), Scully the pirate, and Smokey Joe, a full-body burnt zombie puppet that comes standard with the option to upgrade to LED lighted eyes and a built-in smoke system. Smokey Joe is priced between $2,000 and $2,400 depending on configuration and weighs around 10 pounds.

The booth also featured the company’s punch box, lantern launcher, zombie goats, zombie pig, regular pig, red dragon, and both standard and zombie versions of their chimp puppet. All puppets include VFX Creates’ Puppet Master Sound Systems.

Dusk Productions (Best Booth Award Winner)

Dusk Productions took home the Best Booth Award with a 20-foot-tall gothic cathedral facade at Booths 1026 and 1030. The build was a collaborative effort between Drew Designs, Dusk Productions, and Tailored to Fear, which handled the construction.

The facade spans over 40 feet wide, including a side arch, and functions as a two-level retail display disguised as a cathedral. The upper level allows Dusk to display props at height, creating the effect of forcing attendees to look up as they browse. Founder Matthew Kaprielian said the company found that going big on the show floor draws attention and adds value, building on their approach from last year.

“I really like the gothic look,” Kaprielian said. “To be honest with you, I want to live inside of this.”

On the award, Kaprielian added, “Nobody does a show like Transworld. It is the best of the best. And this award means so much coming from them.”

Nethercraft Panels

Elise Young from Nethercraft Panels at Booth 723 made the case for what vacuum-formed panels can do beyond flat wall coverage. The centerpiece of the booth was a full walk-through arch built from four of their flying buttress kits, modified and customized with additional pieces to create a walk-through and walk-under scene. Nethercraft’s brick panels were also on display in the TransWorld storefront, where the company built a factory facade using LED panels and TVs behind the windows for added immersion.

“We are haunters and we like to make things for haunters who love durability, attention to detail, and immersion above everything else,” Young said.

Show pricing ran $199 for painted panels and $149 for unpainted, with larger kits also available.

Distortions Unlimited

Ed Edmunds from Distortions Unlimited brought a deep lineup of new and returning products to Booths 1014 and 1015. The Greeley, Colorado, company, which has been making monsters for over 45 years, debuted several new pieces for the 2026 season.

Ghost Revenant is an all-electric animatronic standing approximately 8.5 feet tall. The ghost appears to float while pulling on a chain, with an LED flame effect illuminating the eyes and mouth. The figure is also coated with invisible UV paint, allowing operators to light it under blacklight for an alternate look. Ghost Revenant is priced at $1,189 with free shipping in the continental U.S.

Grumpy Grandpa was one of Edmunds’ personal favorites on display. The animatronic features eight different audio tracks, each ending with a water-spitting surprise. “I created him for comic relief,” Edmunds said. “Movies use comic relief all the time. But he’s actually kind of scary in the sense that when people realize he’s dangerous, they get scared.” Grumpy Grandpa is priced at $2,840.

The Mad Scientist and Evil Brain pairing also drew attention. The Mad Scientist uses electric cylinders for smooth, fluid motion as it turns its head and works the levers on a metal podium, priced at $3,850. The Evil Brain is a 7-foot-tall sci-fi horror display with a six-program lighting, sound, and fog system, priced at $5,900.

Distortions also brought back its Shocktronic line with Savage Shock, an actor-driven animatronic that makes guests think it’s a prop until a costumed actor bursts out. Savage Shock is priced at $5,780. Frankenstein’s Monster, an all-electric shaking animatronic standing about 7 feet tall with sound-reactive lights, is priced at $1,069.

Kong, an 11-foot-tall animatronic gorilla head sculpted by Edmunds, is designed as both a photo op and a marketing tool. “Make sure your logo is somewhere nearby,” Edmunds said. “Now they post this on Facebook or some social media, and your logo is getting advertised every time.” Kong is priced at $7,940 and weighs approximately 980 pounds. The company also had its Xenovore alien animatronic and Raptor on display.

Haunt Dolls

We got a preview of the Haunt Dolls‘ “In The Flesh” experience at Booth 1822. Now in its third installment, the In The Flesh series is an immersive horror experience that Haunt Dolls builds around a limited edition collectible package, giving show attendees something interactive to do on the floor.

This year’s experience, titled SLASHER Part 1, is set in 1980s St. Louis and draws on the decade’s slasher film and VHS culture. The backstory follows Janice Smith, a suburban matriarch who answers the call of an ancient darkness during a family game night gone wrong. Attendees walked through the experience and received the In The Flesh #3 package, which includes a numbered crochet kitchen knife (limited to 120 regular and 20 bloody editions), a VHS display box, a certificate of authenticity designed to look like a retro video store rental card, a limited edition sticker from featured artist KDA, and hand-signed artist and artisan cards.

Haunt Dolls founder Alex Berland said the company plans to bring the experience to the East Coast Haunters Convention and Midwest Haunters Convention later this year with new installments. “There’s nothing for people to do that’s fun at these events,” Berland said. “That’s where we wanted to fill that gap.”

Beyond the show floor experience, the company’s core offering is the Necromancer Collection, a bespoke doll line aimed at haunt owners, actors, and cosplayers. Each doll is handcrafted in crochet to match a customer’s original character, and packages start at $400 with a $150 deposit. The base package includes a custom doll, a premium hardwood coffin with laser-engraved branding, a display stand, a certificate of authenticity, exclusive stickers, and artist cards. For an additional $100, customers can upgrade to the Extracted Doll option, which adds removable costumes, masks, and accessories, allowing the character to evolve over time. Custom coffin lid artwork designed in collaboration with a Haunt Dolls artist is available for an additional $300. The first production run is limited to a set number of orders.

The brand started in 2024 after Berland began gifting custom crocheted dolls of haunt characters to his clients during the holidays. The response led to a full product line of bespoke collectibles for the haunt industry.

Froggy’s Fog

Caitlin Hodges from Froggy’s Fog walked attendees through one of the company’s new products for 2026: an IP-rated fan paired with a new IP-rated scent machine. The fan is fully weatherproof and DMX-compatible, designed for outdoor use at haunted attractions, midways, and other open-air venues. Paired with Froggy’s new IP-rated scent machine, operators can pipe scent across large outdoor areas. Hodges said the system can also be used indoors with any of Froggy’s scent options.

“You want to do your whole midway in center popcorn? We got you covered,” Hodges said. “You want to put this inside your haunt, and for some crazy reason, you want it to smell like gag reflex? We got you covered.”

Vexa (Best New Exhibitor Award Winner)

Vexa took home the Best New Exhibitor Award at Booth 1730. The company is a new prop vendor, but its owners, Holly Spahr and Dustin Ring, are not new to the industry. The two also run Dark Prison, a haunted house operating inside the historic Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nevada, and Spahr credits working alongside Michael Chaille of Ghostride Productions as formative to their understanding of quality props.

Spahr said that background informed how Vexa designs and builds its products. “We know what it’s like for a prop to go through a haunt environment,” she said. “We created Vexa to bring new energy to the trade show floor.”

The company’s best seller at the show was the Bio-Veralien, a signature series piece sculpted by Spahr with lead fabrication by Matthew Hawkins. The prop depicts a synthetic extraterrestrial mid-assembly, dissected across five polycarbonate trays connected by exposed fiber-optic cabling and silicone bio-tubing. The trays are pre-drilled for multiple mounting options, from wall-mounted butterfly-style displays to lab tabletop setups. The Bio-Veralien is priced at $2,750 and ships out of Reno, Nevada, where all Vexa products are fabricated in-house.

HauntPay

Alex Linebrink from HauntPay at Booth 315 outlined several new features for the 2026 season. The company announced a new integrated email marketing and automation platform built directly into the HauntPay dashboard, eliminating the need for operators to export customer data into separate tools. HauntPay has also launched a new CRM system for tracking customer data, and Linebrink said the company has a deal with StubHub that will put haunt operators in front of 100 million fans across the U.S. and Canada.

“We’d love to work with you and help you reach more fans and sell more tickets this year,” Linebrink said.

Reanimated Creations

Thomas Kaufmann from Reanimated Creations at Booth 1823 brought his lineup of animatronics, masks, and props to the show floor. His most popular piece was the Pooping Spice, an animatronic pumpkin in an outhouse that, in Kaufmann’s telling, explains how pumpkin spice is made.

“Everyone associates pumpkin spice with Halloween, and I wanted to find a creative way of how it’s made,” Kaufmann said. “I just thought a pumpkin pooping in an outhouse would be the best way.”

The prop previously appeared at the IAAPA Expo 2025 and is priced at $4,600 plus freight. Kaufmann has been making Halloween masks, props, and animatronics since he began learning sculpting, mold-making, and painting at a special effects shop around 2015, and launched Reanimated Creations to bring his own designs to market.

Gore Galore

Kevin Alvey from Gore Galore at Booths 440 and 441 had several products on display, including the Wendigo Night Flyer, a fully automated animation that moves with organic, fluid motion, appearing to be operated by an actor without requiring one. Also on display was Asmodeus, a new 3D grabber styled as a king of demons, operated by an actor using a camera and monitor system to see and interact with guests.

Alvey said he recently purchased a haunted house and designed a full product line around it, which he brought to the show floor. The themed display, called Lector Labs, featured experimental corpses and other props from the company’s horror lab line.

Vampire Circus

Francisco Santos, director of Vampire Circus, was at Booth 1430 with a bookable live entertainment option for haunted attractions and Halloween events. The show has been performing since 2006, and Santos comes from a circus family with a tradition dating back to 1803 in Spain.

Performances run 45 to 90 minutes and feature aerial acts, audience interaction, and a spooky-but-not-gory atmosphere that works for all ages. Santos said the format can also help operators manage guest flow, keeping audiences entertained while reducing queue lines. The show needs a minimum stage of 20 by 40 feet with rigging points for aerials, but the team travels with their own trussing and can adapt to a range of venues. Pricing is structured as either a booking fee or a ticket split depending on the engagement.

Santos plays both the ringmaster and the clown. “It’s very interactive,” he said. “I bring all the audience on stage and mock them and make games.”

HalloweenCostumes.com

HalloweenCostumes.com was at Booths 1906 and 1907 in its second year exhibiting at the show. The company walked attendees through several new products for the 2026 season, including variants of some of its top-selling animatronics from last year.

Among the new offerings are a white werewolf variant with extra blood detailing, a zombie version of their popular Swiping Scarecrow, and a gray variant of their Town Alien that retains the original’s light-up features. The booth also featured their 11.5-foot Mothman animatronic, which includes moving wings and arms, glowing eyes, and built-in sound effects.

The company is also launching a new Custom Design program this year, inviting fans to submit their own animatronic ideas and vote on other submissions at designprogram.halloweencostumes.com.

Fearworm

Fearworm, a full-service marketing agency specializing in haunted attractions, presented a seminar at the show on SMS and email marketing, specifically loyalty programs. Tyler from Fearworm and his team walked attendees through case studies from clients, including the Dent Schoolhouse and Brighton Asylum.

The key takeaway: SMS campaigns significantly outperform email campaigns, with an average click rate of 14.2% compared to 2.5% for email and an average conversion rate of 39.4% compared to 5% for email. In one case study, the Dent Schoolhouse gained over 3,000 new SMS subscribers between September and November 2025, with an average campaign click-through rate of 5.22% and an initial welcome flow conversion rate of 17%.

Fearworm emphasized that operators cannot simply upload mobile numbers from ticket sales and market to them. Prior consent must be given, and there are federal fines for violations.

Screamium

Screamium returned to the show for its second year, with two new rotomold products at Booth 1707. The Giant Frankenstein is a heavy-duty polyresin piece with stainless steel hardware and real aluminum neck bolts, designed to withstand wind and weather. It runs on 110V with a weatherproof 20-foot cord. The company also debuted a Friendly Ghost, a Casper-inspired rotomold with a large gaping mouth, also built from poly resin with stainless steel hardware, a 20-foot weatherproof cord, and 110V power.

Fright Props

Scott Bibus from Fright Props introduced a new line of controllers for the 2026 season that maintain the same reliability operators expect from the company but now include a web interface, allowing users to access controllers remotely from any web-enabled device to adjust audio, change settings, and alter programming without being on-site.

Fright Props also had its full lineup of Gantom lighting on display. The Nano Spots are compact accent lights starting at $12.99, designed for tight spaces. The Precision Z Spots and Floods are IP68-rated fixtures built for indoor and outdoor use, with a machined aluminum chassis and over 50,000 hours of lamp life, priced at $94.99. The Precision Alpha is an ultra-compact LED pinspot that replaces traditional PAR16 “Birdie” fixtures at a fraction of the size and power draw, and ships with gel filter packs for custom color mixing, priced at $97.99. All three lines run on low-voltage 12VDC input with internal constant-current drivers for consistent output.