Organizers of the popular horror convention Midsummer Scream announced Sunday night that the event will move from the Long Beach Convention Center to the Anaheim Convention Center beginning next year.
Growth, space drive decision
The decision, revealed during the convention’s closing presentation on Aug. 9, came after a year in which tickets sold out days in advance and organizers said the show drew more than 50,000 people to Long Beach.
At the announcement, co-founder David Markland said the move was driven by the need to accommodate the convention’s expanding attendance, vendors, artists and celebrity guests. “We’ve been trying to figure out what to do and we saw an opportunity to expand, that part was easy, but the hard part, of course, is that we love Long Beach,” Markland said.
“It was an easy call to make in the sense that we needed to grow… We sold out weeks ahead of the event and we can’t have more guests and people want to come out.”
Organizers set the next Midsummer Scream for Aug. 6–8 next year at the Anaheim Convention Center. They said the larger venue will allow “room for more people to attend” and accommodate an “overwhelming amount of vendors” seeking space at the show.
Local implications for Anaheim
The move will bring a major summer fan convention to Anaheim’s convention portfolio, adding to the city’s calendar of large events. For local businesses, hoteliers and restaurants, the influx of attendees during a summer weekend could bolster tourism-related revenue and increase demand for accommodations near the convention center and Disneyland-area hotels.
- Event footprint: Midsummer Scream’s format — which features haunted attractions, vendors, artists and celebrity appearances — will likely expand in a larger convention space.
- Attendance pressure: Organizers cited sold-out tickets and the need for more capacity as the primary reasons for relocation.
- Timing: The convention is slated for Aug. 6–8 next year, placing it in the mid-summer event season.
City officials and local stakeholders were not quoted in the announcement, and organizers did not provide specific projections for expected attendance in Anaheim beyond the stated need to grow the event.
Long Beach retains holiday spinoff
While Midsummer Scream will relocate, the organizers said Long Beach will not be left without a related show. Markland announced that Season’s Screamings, a smaller holiday-themed sister convention, will return to Long Beach in December 2027. The holiday event had been canceled roughly four years earlier when it took place in Pasadena.
Markland said Season’s Screamings will be staged in a larger Long Beach venue than previous iterations and will feature vendors, celebrity appearances and the event’s recurring Hall of Yuletide attractions. Details about the specific Long Beach venue and ticketing plans were not yet finalized at the time of the announcement.
| Event | Current/Previous Location | New Location / Date |
|---|---|---|
| Midsummer Scream | Long Beach Convention Center | Anaheim Convention Center — Aug. 6–8 (next year) |
| Season’s Screamings | Canceled after Pasadena appearance ~4 years ago | Long Beach — December 2027 (venue TBA) |
For Anaheim residents, the change means a large-scale genre convention will join the city’s roster of summer events. Organizers and venues typically coordinate logistics such as crowd management, vendor placement and transportation with city officials; those conversations are likely to follow as planning moves forward.
The announcement also signals continued demand for fan conventions in Southern California, and highlights how growing attendance can prompt long-running events to relocate when their original venues can no longer meet demand.
