“This year is a lot quieter than last year,” said Stephanie Willis, wife of “Weird Ohio” author James Willis.
Stephanie Willis, like many presenters, said she thought the economy was to blame for the low turnout.
Neal Parks, who leads Parks Paranormal Research and Investigation, cited the $35 adult admission.
“Every other festival I’ve gone to is $15 or $20,” said Parks, who has been in the paranormal business since 1986. He also noted that fewer people were buying books for sale.
“We are getting a lot of window shoppers,” he said.
However, in a twist befitting the event, organizers Brian Klein and James Bell said they were happy with the traffic.
“We did meet or slightly exceed last year’s (attendance),” Klein said. “We saw a lot more kids than last year.”
But, regardless of who did or didn’t show, the presenters enthusiastically shared skills and information, which included astrological past life reports, Tarot card and chakra readings, unusual haunted artifacts and paranormal investigations.
Also at the event, Scott Tepperman, the newest member of SyFy Channel’s “Ghost Hunters International,” spoke, and there was a paranormal investigation into the Mansfield Reformatory, which was made famous in the filming of “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Klein said those in attendance felt the paranormal energy at the reformatory.
“Some saw shadows, for others it was the pulling of hair,” he said.
Parks also talked about his readings at Ellis Island and the Majestic Theatre in Chillicothe.
“The area had a flu outbreak in 1918, and they had to stockpile bodies at the Majestic,” he said. “They couldn’t properly diagnose back then if someone died, so they literally had some dead bodies stacked on top of live ones.”
Bob Heath, relaying the work of author and reincarnation advocate Edgar Cayce, said he could determine your past lives by your time and date of birth.
“Each time (you are born), you come in with a pattern and a purpose,” Heath said. “It is just part of the evolution of the soul.”
James Willis, who said he has been searching out ghosts since he was 8 years old, said he also likes to write about “weird folks.”
“I just heard about a guy who makes statues and puts them on his roof — to me that is paranormal,” he said.
The not-for-profit event raised money for the Dayton History — Montgomery County Historical Society.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7325 or jikelley@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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