This past weekend we had tickets to the opening reception of the Slashback Video and Ben Cooper Costumes exhibit at The Bearded Ladies Mystic Museum. Â Since the location is about an hour and a half west of where we live we decided to make a day of it and visit a couple of the L.A. area Halloween shops that we’ve followed online for a while, but never had the chance to actually visit.
Traditions Year-Round Holiday Store
After driving for what felt like an eternity (and that was without traffic) we made our way to The Traditions Year-Round Holiday Store. Located in Canoga Park, CA Traditions stocks one of the largest selections of ornaments, folk art, collectibles and decor for all the major holidays. Â I first discovered Traditions on Instagram where they post some amazing photos of their displays. Â Seriously, the photos are so good I didn’t take any while in the store because I knew it wouldn’t do them justice. Â Check out a sampling of them below:
As you can see from the photos above the store is packed floor to ceiling with some amazing decor. The items featured in these shots are all Halloween, but what you don’t see is the other half of the store which is packed with decor for Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. The store is definitely a holiday lover’s dream, but your love of the holidays will come at a price. The items sold at Traditions are high end and high quality, which means the price tags are also fairly high. Many of the larger pieces we browsed in the Halloween section were priced at $100 or more. Not to say these were unfair prices, just that they weren’t in this Halloween lover’s budget.
That’s not to say we left empty handed. There was one particular piece that I fell in love with that I had to leave the store with, which you can see below. Along with a card we found by the register that we couldn’t pass up.
If you can’t fully read the card, it says:
“There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch”
What you don’t get from the photos or the description above is just how sweet the people working here are. Everyone we talked to was as nice and as helpful as could be.
If you don’t live in Southern California and can’t make it to Traditions you’re in luck. They also have a website where they sell all of their products. You can find them at christmastraditions.com
Halloween Town
Our second stop on our Spooky Saturday trip was Halloween Town. This was another store I have followed on social media for some time, but never had the chance to actually go to their store. If you’re not familiar with Halloween Town they are a year-round Halloween, horror, and pop culture shop in Burbank, CA that carries apparel, decor, toys, collectibles, art, costumes, and literally almost anything else you could want relating to Halloween or horror. Best of all this guy greets you at the door.
Halloween Town is another wall-to-wall Halloween experience. Out of respect for store policy, I didn’t snap many pictures here (though I did sneak some of some purses because I LOVED the designs. You can see them on the All Hallows Geek Instagram. Sorry, Halloween Town!) What I dug about Halloween Town is that it appealed to all sides of my geekdom. With their selection, I could decorate my home for Halloween, buy the latest and greatest horror and pop culture toys and then round it all out with some epic horror collectibles or art.
Again, if you’re not in Southern California you’re in luck as Halloween Town sells online via the Halloween Town website. They’re also all over social media so check them out on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Ben Cooper Costumes & Slashback Video Exhibits at Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum
Despite some epic shopping, the final stop and main event of the day was the opening reception for the two new exhibits at Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum: Slashback Video and Ben Cooper Vintage Halloween & Costume exhibits. While the event took some heat due to the size of the crowds and the long wait, we were fortunate enough to have purchased our tickets ahead of time and arrived early enough to make it in as soon as the doors opened.
The first exhibit we hit was the Ben Cooper Costumes exhibit. After sitting in on the Ben Cooper panel at Midsummer Scream, and hearing about the exhibit we were excited to see exactly what the collection include. The exhibit featured a large collection of Ben Cooper masks as well as a handful of Ben Cooper Halloween toys, artwork, and other Ben Cooper era Halloween items. If you’re a fan of Ben Cooper and the era they are famous for this is a fun little exhibit that features a number of rare or popular masks from throughout the history of Ben Cooper Costumes.
In the room next to the Ben Cooper exhibit was Slashback Video, an all-horor VHS art installation that transported you back to your local video rental shop in the 80’s, but if it only carried horror movies. The exhibit featured a wide variety of horror promotional materials from the 80’s and 90’s including cardboard cutouts, posters, promotional photos and more from some of the eras most popular films. At the core of the exhibit are literally hundreds of original horro VHS tapes packed upon the stores shelves. The exhibit even houses a custom Splatterhouse cabinet, but sadly the exhibit was too packed to even consider playing it.
While the room itself isn’t that large, the exhibit overall has a lot to take in. We skimmed each of the shelves since it was so crowded, but I am sure if we had the time to really appreciate all of the movies on display we would have found some real gold. Alongside the actual VHS cases were also a number custom cases created inspired by the VHS artwork, created by contemporary artists. You can see some of the favorites I posted below from Instagram.
Both exhibits will be on display during the Mystic Museum’s regular business hours through Halloween. If you have a chance to make it out to Burbank I highly recommend swinging by. There is a lot of fun stuff to look at, especially if you love Halloween and Horror. We’re even considering a second trip to the exhibit when the crowds are a little lighter so we can take a closer look at everything…and so I can play the Splatterhouse cabinet.
The Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum is located at 3204 W Magnolia Blvd in Burbank, CA and you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
I can’t believe I spent 10 years in Canoga Park and never knew about these places! Have you been to Dark Delicacies in Burbank!?!?
The next time I’m in town, I’m checking ALL these places out! Thank you!
I’ve never heard of Dark Delicacies. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip and thanks for reading!
Next time you go, check out Dark Delicacies! We also love Creature Features and Blast From The Past in that same strip of shops in Burbank.
Creature Features was closed by the time we went back to go to it, but we did get a chance to hit Blast from the Past before the exhibit started. Definitely, need to look into Dark Delicacies, don’t recall seeing that one.