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In my element at Chicago Ghost Conference IIIDec 18 '11 (Updated Apr 29 '12) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Die-hard paranormal buffs loved Chicago Ghost Conference III, but it was too disorganized for anyone with a casual interest to appreciate. Despite that, I hope it happens again.
As a regular attendee of the World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon), which is held in a different city every year, it was unnecessary for me to book a flight to go this year. It was to my advantage that I could just drive to Reno, but my frequent flyer account with American Airlines had been inactive for a year and I had already earned enough miles to qualify for a freebie. I had to do something before March to avoid losing my miles. After poking around AA's schedule, it appeared Chicago would once again be the most reasonable option for me in terms of flight time and expenses. I had been considering going to Windycon 38 until I ran across the website for Chicago Ghost Conference III, a function Ursula Bielski, a local paranormal researcher, author, and ghost tour operator, organizes every two years. It was being held September 30–October 1 in the Six Corners district of town. My passion for the paranormal is stronger than it is for science fiction and the $83 per night room rate arranged for the conference's hotel block was persuasive. It took no time to choose which I preferred. This was a small conference that was apparently a one-woman effort. Bielski deserves a lot of credit for not canceling out as others in the paranormal community have, but after attending and being on the staff of many science fiction conventions, CGC3 was poorly executed in comparison. Although I reveled in the topic of CGC3, I would be willing to pay a higher admission rate to see it cultivate a bigger staff and be a better organized event. Registration As it frequently happens with most special interest/hobby conventions these days, most folks who would be interested in attending usually find the information on a website. The one for CGC3 had all of the pertinent facts, but the design was too busy and it was sometimes difficult to find the details I was looking for when I referred to it. The time, venue, registration, hotel info, itinerary, speaker bios, list of vendors, and tour info were all crowded onto CGC3's home page. The more effective websites for something of this nature would just provide introductory information with links to pages that would concentrate on single aspects of the conferences. The price was certainly reasonable. At the time I joined the conference, the asking rate for admission was $35. The at-the-door rate was $45. Time-scheduled escalating rates are a way to encourage members to register early and give the organizers some of the capital they need to plan the event. There were additional fees for those who wanted to take the Chicago ghost tour ($35) and partake in the catered dinner ($10) Saturday evening, both for which I was happy to pay, but only admission payments were being accepted in advance. Payments were being accepted through the website via Paypal. I submitted my payment in July, but noticed it took a few weeks to be processed. (This is not unusual, compared to my past experience.) When I attend conventions, I prefer to stay in the hotels where the conference has blocked rooms. It's usually more convenient and it helps the convention committee fulfill its obligations to pay for the function space they use. However, since my knowledge of Chicago is limited, I would learn the arrangements made with the Comfort Suites O'Hare Airport in Schiller Park were not the best thought out. CGC3 officially kicked off at 5:30 p.m. with a reception at the Portage Theatre. When I arrived, a few women were sitting behind a table to check in pre-registered members. After a lot of questions amongst themselves about how to do things, they looked my name up on a hardcopy list, checked me off, wrapped a paper bracelet around my wrist, and let me through. Before I left the reception table, though, I paid for the ghost tour and Saturday evening's banquet. For those who were paying at the door, CGC3 only accepted cash. The venue The Portage was clearly once a lovely movie theatre in its early days. Today it is mostly used as a retro movie house that frequently shows cheesy old horror movies and is available for rent for special events. We have a few of these in the San Francisco Bay Area and when these vintage theatres are well maintained, the punters can feel like they're stepping back in time. On the other hand, the proprietors of the Portage, seemed to think the answer to any décor issues was to slap another layer of paint on its walls. The phone booth was being used for storing supplies and the bathroom had long since lost its vintage fixtures. I understood one of the reasons it was chosen as the site for CGC3 was because it also haunted. I have to admit, I caught a lot more orbs on this trip than I have ever acquired in a three-day period before. Unfortunately, I don't know why I wasn't more aggressive in learning the story behind its haunting. The logistics for this conference were poor. It provided a great stage for programming, but for everything else it proved inadequate. The outdoor portion of its entrance had been enclosed to enlarge its lobby quite some time ago, losing some of its vintage appeal. Several tables were crowded into this area and this was where the vendors put out their merchandise. They were packed in a space that was a little uncomfortable to move around. The management opened its concession stand for anyone looking for a snack. The theatre had a small stage where the speakers talked on their topics. Since CGC3's attendance was capped at 300, I assume that's how many seats were available in the auditorium. At least it gave the speakers above-average audio-visual assistance when they needed it. While the Comfort Suites was an acceptable lodging for out-of-town members to stay for a conference of this size, it was much too far away for walking to the theatre. While a shuttle was provided for the program participants to go back and forth between the Portage and the Comfort Suites, the average attendee was on her own. Although they were more than happy to give us rides in the evening, there was no point in my leaving the hotel 90 minutes before programming began on Saturday morning. Not knowing the area very well, I wasn't sure how long it would take to walk. I didn't want to be late, so I took a taxi, which cost about $30. That made me unhappy. There were times I would have appreciated going back to my room to unload some of the heavy merchandise I had purchased, but considering the distance from the Portage to the Comfort Suites, it was too inconvenient. I carried that heavy load until the end of the day. Ursula Bielski's Chicago Hauntings ghost tour I had read Bielski's book, Chicago Haunts, quite some time ago and was impressed enough by her research that it is among the few ghost folklore book reviews I have given 5 stars. I'm still impressed by the amount of work she put into that book. When I learned she does a tour for some of the key places she documents, I knew it would be worth taking. Ghost walking tours are my favorite thing to do when I travel, but Chicago's most famous haunts are spread too far apart from each other for people to see them all by foot. Bielski's tour operating business owns a bus to take visitors on a tour, which is fine. Not everyone is up to walking. Tourists miss some intimacy with the neighborhoods, but it's doable. The line of communication between the organizers of this conference and its members was extremely inefficient. With everything Bielski had to supervise at the conference, trying to coordinate the people who paid for the tour was messy. Nothing was posted and when I asked people at registration where I needed to go, they kept answering "I don't know." If I hadn't kept asking around about where I needed to be and when we were supposed to be there, I would have missed the bus. The bus she usually used for her tours was being used as the shuttle for the speakers, so a couple of bigger unmarked buses were rented to accommodate the higher volume of people paying for the tour. However, once we were on the bus, the tour went well. Our guide was Bielski's ex-husband, whose name I missed, but it indicated to me that Chicago Hauntings was a family business. (It's nice to see they're still on good enough terms to work together.) Since I had read Bielski's first book, I was the one who was able to answer all of the questions he threw at us. Personally, I was surprised I still remembered all of those little factoids. I was like Hermione Granger. The tour stopped at some of Chicago's most stigmatized sites, including those of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Eastland boat disaster, and the Jane Addams-Hull House Museum. The site I found the most overwhelming was that of what is now known as the Oriental Theater. It originally opened as the Iroquois in 1903 and before the end of the year one of its arc lights shorted—in those days when electricity was a new contrivance—and ignited a curtain during a performance. Despite efforts to quell it, the fire quickly went out of control. Because of the owners' urge to start business and corruption at City Hall, they were able to bribe city inspectors to overlook the installation of the required fire safety equipment beforehand. To make matters worse, when the fire broke out some of the corridors were blocked and backdraft made it impossible for many people to escape. History records it as the worst single structure fire in the history of United States where more than 600 people perished. The building was refurbished and the courts were bribed to find no one at fault. In doing a little background research, it's still unclear to whether that building is still currently in use or was eventually demolished altogether and another built on its site. Be that as it may, the Oriental Theater was operates on the same spot and opened in 1926. Since then witnesses have heard screaming in the rest rooms, toilets flushing when no one was in the stalls, and the electrics and plumbing frequently go on the fritz. We were taken to the alley behind the theatre, where apparitions are frequently seen, particularly a woman in period fashion trying to leap out a window. It's interesting to note that of all the sites we went to, I was capturing orbs in my photos, except for this one. I don't know what was up with that. At the Hull House, I captured an orb that gradually moved and grew brighter in my control shots. Programming Unlike most of the conventions I've been to, this one only had one track of programming, but perhaps that's the difference between conference and convention. Most of CGC3's programming items were single speakers. Among the program participants were Jeff Belanger, Dave Schrader, Jeff Mudgett, Joshua P. Warren, Linda Godfrey, Michael Kleen, Scott Markus, Ghost Head Soup, Willy Adkins and George Hawrylenko. Psychic Medium Chris Fleming was the keynote speaker. One of my biggest complaints about CGC3 was that it neither passed out printed programs nor posted a large schedule board for its members to consult, so I was constantly having to go to the registration table to ask when each guest was due to take the stage. Although I didn't sit through all the presentations in their entirety, I did take in a good sample of the programming. The first item on the agenda was featured on Friday night, when an episode of 30 Odd Minutes, which is hosted by Jeff Belanger, was filmed for cable access television. It was a light-hearted talk show that took advantage of the program participants present for one of its installments. Among the guests appearing were Dave Schrader, Joshua Warren, Linda Godfrey, Chris Fleming and Ursula Bielski. Belanger probed them about their experiences researching the paranormal, such as which paranormal investigation was their favorite. It was amusing to watch and I'll probably look for it on my cable system. Ghost Head Soup opened the programming Saturday morning with their presentation, "Perception is Nine-Tenths of the Flaw." This five-man paranormal investigation team described how your senses and equipment can fool investigators into misinterpreting data. One of the advantages of panels is that the panelists bounce ideas against each other, but they worked it differently. I was probably one of the few there who doesn't always come down so hard on personal experiences. Just because a rational explanation can be found to explain some paranormal activity, it doesn't always mean it was caused by the rational explanation. Linda Godfrey has some solid credentials researching the paranormal and weird of Wisconsin and Michigan, but her biggest strength appears to be cryptozoology. She's the expert people consult when they want information on the Beast of Bray Road in Wisconsin or the Dog Man in Michigan. Although I've heard stories about Big Foot/Sasquatch for decades, I have never held the same fascination for this topic as I have had for ghosts. For anyone who is interested, though, Godfrey has several books out and has appeared in several TV and radio shows. At CGC3, she described a lot of her findings, but I'm afraid I retained little information on this topic. The speaker I did make a point of listening to for his entire talk was Jeff Mudgett, although he would probably be more appropriately featured at Bouchercon or Left Coast Crime. He was there to promote his book, Bloodstains, which he wrote as a catharsis after he learned he was the great-great grandson Herman Webster Mudgett, aka H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer. Mudgett acquired permission to enter the basement of the haunted Post Office at Englewood, formerly the "Murder Castle," where the ghosts of Holmes's victims overwhelmed him. Even more compelling was learning that H.H. Holmes was in London in 1888 and was a person of interest during the Jack the Ripper investigation. Mudgett's family has provided writing samples to four experts to compare against letters Jack the Ripper wrote and two have confirmed they match. If the other two experts agree, the stamp used to mail the letter will be scraped for DNA to compare against Mudgett's. If it matches, then we could hear some big news on the case in the near future. Jeff Belanger has many books on ghosts and hauntings out, but might be best known for his website, GhostVillage.com. His lecture was more of an overview of ghosts and what has motivated him to pursue paranormal research. He was right on the same page with me when he said he sees them as a direct connection to the past. I'd like to think earthbound spirits could help us resolve some of history's unanswered questions. Chris Fleming has appeared on several of the most popular paranormal shows on cable television during the past few years and with his talents, it's easy to see why he's in demand. The one where he shines is Psychic Kids, where he helps young people with psychic abilities adjust to them. Many kids who are sensitive don't know where to go for the help and support they need and the movie, The Sixth Sense, was very similar to experience to one a medium friend of mine had. So much so her circle prevented her from seeing with other people the first time she watched it. They knew it would affect her. Fleming spent a couple of hours describing what it was like growing up psychic and how he came to grips with seeing entities that the rest of family couldn't around their home. Other people told me they found it all very creepy, but the story that unnerved me was ambiguous. He said when he was 18 months old, he had disappeared from the family home. His parents had the fright of their lives when there was no sign of what happened. They had a responsible babysitter taking care of him at the time, but she said she never saw or heard anything. He was soon found unharmed at the beach and there was no explanation how it happened. If he had done it on his own volition, he had to tottle down their second-story hallway, go out the door and walk through the streets by himself to the beach. Fleming has no memory of the event himself, but I found that more scary than the monsters he did remember. It's always interesting learning how psychics approach their abilities and when so few people can do what he can, I'm disappointed when his talents are dissed when he appears on a show like Ghost Hunters. He can contribute so more than the electronic toys. Some ghosts need and want help. The two speakers I'm sorry I missed were Michael Kleen and Scott Markus. They were talking about some of Chicago's local folklore and legends, which are not as easy to access from California. Hospitality This is one department at a convention that really needs someone who can give it his or her complete attention and, once again, it suffered more than any other aspect of the conference. The opening reception went about as well as can be expected, although the hostess's attention was divided too much to spend much time to leisurely chat with many people. Not knowing very many people, it wasn't easy for me to start mingling with people. (It helps having a connection to start rolling the ball.) The lack of places to sit in the lobby made it uncomfortable. A continental breakfast was provided early in the morning on Saturday, which was a nice touch. Members could help themselves to juices, donuts, fruit, etc., as desired. When it was removed, the concessions kiosk was opened and sold the typical fare normally offered at movie theaters, but had wine and beer as well. The Saturday evening meal was the most disappointing, but not because of the quality of the food. The caterers brought it in after the vendors packed up and people were shooed away as the food was set up. Unfortunately they failed to call members back when it was ready. I was waiting in the auditorium playing with my iPad while other people were helping themselves. Most of the food was gone by the time I became aware everyone else was eating. Only one of the entrées was still available when I returned to the lobby. That didn't bother me as much as the lack of seating. There were plenty of tables, but the amount of chairs failed to provide seating for half the people there. I was hoping to sit down with other people and become acquainted them during the meal. There were plenty of seats in the auditorium, but its setup foiled the opportunity to socialize. I had one last chance to meet people at the wrap-up party, which took place at The Great Escape, one of Chicago's haunted restaurants. Unfortunately, despite the great appetizers put out and having tables to sit at, less than half the people attending the conference appeared, but at least a few of the speakers were present. I sat down and chatted with a few people, but within a half hour most left. It seemed like the speakers who stuck around were scoping for babes, so I didn't see much point of staying longer. Hucksters Setting aside the aforementioned logistical details, the vendors at CGC3 were one of the highpoints for me. It gave me the opportunity to meet the authors of some of the books I bought and have them signed as well. I brought along my copies of the books Bielski wrote and she signed them on request. Also on sale were a lot of electronic tools, metaphysical supplies, and miscellaneous items related to the paranormal community. Many of the vendors were promoting other paranormal events. Jeff Belanger had plenty of his books to sell and when I had a hard time deciding which one, he suggested I buy them all. As much as I would have liked, money and weight restrictions for my luggage made his recommendation impractical. After talking with him for a little while, this fellow certainly has no self esteem issues. Be that as it may, for anyone looking for paranormal equipment or books, the best ghost conferences would have good hucksters' room. Although I don't have a lot to compare this one against, it had enough to satisfy me. The bottom line One of the minor quibbles I have to make about CGC3 is that people outside the staff were referring to it as an annual convention. Technically, this is untrue. The first one took place in 2007 and the second in 2009. If anything, it is a bi-annual conference. If Ursula Bielski continues the same pattern, the next will take place in 2013. While I've been to better organized conventions, I've also been to worse. The biggest issue with the Chicago Ghost Conference III is one woman took on more than she could efficiently handle by herself. At least, if she had any significant help, it was not apparent. It affected the overall quality of her product. I would be willing to pay more for admission if that would make it a better organized event. I have die hard interest in the subject of ghosts, so I would be willing to go again—time and money permitting—mainly to see if there is any improvement in how it is organized. For those who just have a casual interest the paranormal, move on to something else if another Chicago Ghost Conference is put together. There is too much aggravation keeping up with what is happening.  |
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