No one can argue that the San Diego Comic Con established an annual three-day media frenzy. Conventions have been popping up all over the country using the words 'Comic Con,' attracting a mass audience of young and old alike. Even children under the age of five show up in their super hero pajamas and Halloween costumes to participate. Sadly, the same cannot be said for film festivals and nostalgia pop culture conventions that are devoid of comic book vendors and celebrities who made an appearance on The Walking Dead.

Film festivals and nostalgia events were not always devoid of excitement. Throughout the eighties and nineties, a resurgence in nostalgia led to large crowds gathering in hotels, at convention centers and on county fairgrounds. Business boomed, antique vendors made a living selling old furniture and glassware, and the cost of movie posters and lobby cards were the meat and potatoes at film festivals where thousands swarmed into a dark room to watch a silent matinee.

Scratch it off to an aging fan base and a declined economy, the crowds are diminishing in size. Attendance is low and convention promoters are questioning how to take their event into the 21st century. Today, the survival of a film festival centering on black and white movies requires celebrity guests introducing the movies they appeared in, a colorful website to promote the event, and enough vendors to warrant the travel expenses for attendees. But this may not be enough. Attendance continues to dwindle a percentage and the harshest critics can only theorize the reason.

One convention that appears immune to this fallacy is the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention (also known as MANC). According to Martin Grams, one of the event promoters, the attendance in 2013, the eighth year for the event, was officially ten times the size of the first. 'Our rule of thumb is to try everything once,' Grams explained. 'Last year we added a sock hop to the schedule of events. This year we began video streaming the slide show seminars and celebrity interviews so people at home could watch the events live from their home computer.' So what lies in store for the 2014 event? Grams won't say. Not until the official press release and announcement goes public in February.


(Jeff Connors talks about his father, Chuck Connors)
Celebrity guests at past MANC events included Bond girls, a member of the Our Gang comedies, the model for Disney's Tinkerbell, and Timmy from Lassie. Fran Striker Jr. talked about how his father created The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet. Buck Biggers talked about how he co-created Underdog. Hollywood actors and singers have included Davy Jones, Patti Duke, James Darren, Robert Colbert, Ron Ely, David Hedison, Shirley Jones, Jay North, Dawn Wells, Marsha Hunt, Roy Thinnes, Lee Meriwether, Ed Nelson, Marta Kristen, Celeste Holm and many others.

The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is a hybrid of numerous subject matter, often compared to many conventions held across the country. Vendors sell comic books, pulp magazines, glossy photographs, lobby cards, movie posters, commercial DVDs, books, magazines, refrigerator magnets, bobbleheads, figurines, board games and anything else you can think of. Slide show seminars are held every hour, on the hour, with subjects ranging from the history of Buck Rogers, the crime scene investigation unit of 1954, the history of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a retrospective of the 1938 'War of the Worlds' panic broadcast, a history of Dick Tracy, a mini festival of Charlie Chaplin film shorts... well, you get the idea. With old time radio dramas re-enacted on stage (complete with microphones, scripts and sound effects), a drive-in movie theater in the hotel parking lot on Friday evenings, 3-D screenings of classic 1950s flicks, over 200 vendor tables and a movie room that screens vintage films 24 hours a day, you can understand the excitement attendees experience year after year.

This year was no exception. Edward Asner posed for photographs and signed glossy photos for fans. He received a standing ovation when he walked up on stage to participate in a Q&A session, taking questions from the audience. His opening remark to the moderator on stage, 'Okay Chuckles. Let's get this over with.' The audience roared. Julie Newmar, best known as Catwoman on Batman, purred on cue over the microphone at the request of one fan. Elizabeth Shepherd talked about her Shakespeare performances on stage and working with Vincent Price on The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman shook hands with Jeff Connors, the son of Chuck Connors, and provided fans of the Western television program a weekend to remember. Robert Loggia (T.H.E. Cat and The Nine Lives of Elfago Baca) loved meeting fans and answered questions about his films... including Independence Day, Big and Scarface. Margaret O'Brien, who received top billing over the weekend, introduced a special screening of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).


(Larry Storch signs autographs for fans)
Among the highlights of this year was Bob Daniel, the grandson of Brace Beemer, radio's Lone Ranger, offering an hour of rare clips and family home movies, providing a new retrospective of the masked man we all grew up with. 'If there is an award to be given for the best presentation,' remarked Lone Ranger historian Terry Salomonson, 'Bob Daniel would have received it.' On display at the convention this year was the Blob silicone -- the very movie monster itself. How cool is that? Abbott and Costello impersonators walked about the hallways performing comedy skits for the attendees, including the ever popular 'Who's On First?' routine.

Quoting Brad Rogers, an annual attendee, 'The Nostalgia Con is a throwback to conventions 20 and 30 years ago when they were fun and not like those today that try to rake people over with large admission costs and autograph fees.' A horror convention in New Jersey charges 0 per day for admission and their idea of a program guide is a printed color sheet of paper, folded in half. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, admission is 5 per day and the printed program guide totals a minimum of 48 pages.

'It is difficult to gauge the success of a convention,' explained Martin Grams, 'because the word success is relative. I remember when an event was semi-cancelled and instead was held in someone's back yard with a bar-b-que on the grill. People who attended said it was the best ever, but with an attendance of 12 compared to 500 the year prior, I am not certain I would call that a success. Since we have a responsibility to the celebrity guests, and the vendors, our goal is to have a larger attendance than the year prior. If we continue to accomplish that every September, we can continue to state that the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is a success.'

The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is a three-day film festival held every year in Hunt Valley, Maryland, located 10 minutes outside Baltimore. For more information, visit MidAtlanticNostalgiaConvention.com.