WonderFest is an American fan convention focusing on science fiction and horror, held annually since 1992 after two years as a predecessor event. "One of the biggest hobby events in the country," [1] it takes place in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the site of the annual presentation of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.
WonderFest originated in 1990 as the hobbyist club The Scale Figure Modelers Society's Louisville Plastic Kit & Toy Show, held at a Ramada Inn hotel. [2] The club had been founded the year before by Irwin Severs and Larry Johnson. [3] In 1992, the convention changed its name to WonderFest, and was held at a larger venue. Four years later, it relocated to its current home, the hotel Crowne Plaza, formerly Executive West. The convention formally split off from the hobbyist club after the 1997 show. [2] [4] The edition originally scheduled for May 30–31, 2020, and then October 24–25, 200, was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. [5]
Guests throughout the years have included filmmakers / TV producers Joe Dante, D. C. Fontana, Nicholas Meyer, Greg Nicotero, and George Romero, genre-film actors and actresses Dirk Benedict, Martine Beswick, Veronica and Angela Cartwright, Joanna Cassidy, Yvonne Craig, Claudia Christian, Denise Crosby, Sybil Danning, Keir Dullea, Anne Francis, Marta Kristen, Gary Lockwood, Kevin McCarthy, Lee Meriwether, Caroline Munro, Robert Picardo, Linnea Quigley, and Brinke Stevens, special effects artists Ray Harryhausen, Tom Savini, and Chris Walas, comics and children's-book writers / artists Frank Cho, Basil Gogos, Joe Jusko, Michael Kaluta, Mark Schultz, William Stout, and Bernie Wrightson, and horror scions Sara Karloff [5] and Vanessa Harryhausen. [6] It also features cosplayers. [7]
Events there include the annual presentation of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards [8] [9] and the WonderFest Model Contest, hosted by Amazing Figure Modeler magazine. [10] Charitable outreach has included raffles to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the WHAS Crusade for Children. [11]
In 2014, three Louisville, Kentucky-based podcasters attempted to set a Guinness World Record at WonderFest for the Longest Uninterrupted Webcast (now called now Longest Audio-Only Live Stream), Tower of Technobabble, to raise money for a local animal organization's spay and neuter program. [12] They set the then-record of 41 hours. [13]
The CEO as of 2004 was Dave Hodge. [14] As of 2022, its CEO was Melina Angstrom. [15]
Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city, although by population density, it is the 265th most dense city. Louisville is the historical county seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
A model figure is a scale model representing a human, monster or other creature. Human figures may be either a generic figure of a type, a historical personage, or a fictional character.
Churchill Downs is a horse racing complex located on Central Avenue in south Louisville, Kentucky, United States, famed for hosting the annual Kentucky Derby. It officially opened in 1875 and was named for Samuel Churchill, whose family was prominent in Kentucky for many years. The first Kentucky Derby, a Thoroughbred sweepstakes and part of today's horse racing Triple Crown, and the first Kentucky Oaks were held in the same year. Churchill Downs has also hosted the renowned Breeders' Cup on nine occasions, most recently on November 2 and 3, 2018.
The Kentucky Derby Festival is an annual festival held in Louisville, Kentucky, during the two weeks preceding the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby. The festival, Kentucky's largest single annual event, first ran from 1935 to 1937, and restarted in 1956 and includes:
Rondo Hatton was an American journalist and actor. After writing for The Tampa Tribune, Hatton found a career in film due to his unique facial features, which were the result of acromegaly. He headlined horror films with Universal Studios near the end of his life, earning him a reputation as a cult icon.
Timothy Ray Lucas is an American film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter and blogger, best known for publishing and editing the video review magazine Video Watchdog.
Kentucky Educational Television (KET) is a statewide television network serving the U.S. commonwealth of Kentucky, a member of PBS. It is operated by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Kentucky state government, which provides more than half of its annual funding. KET is the dominant public broadcaster in the commonwealth, with transmitters covering the vast majority of the state as well as parts of adjacent states; the only other PBS member in Kentucky is WKYU-TV in Bowling Green. KET is the largest PBS state network in the United States; the broadcast signals of its sixteen stations cover almost all of the state, as well as parts of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The network's offices, network center, and primary studio facilities are located at the O. Leonard Press Telecommunications Center on Cooper Drive in Lexington; KET also has production centers in Louisville and at the Kentucky State Capitol Annex in Frankfort.
A garage kit (ガレージキット) or resin kit is an assembly scale model kit most commonly cast in polyurethane resin.
Dr. Gangrene is a television horror host based in the Middle Tennessee area, played by actor/writer/producer Larry Underwood.
Cameron McCasland is an American filmmaker.
Todd Livingston is a filmmaker and author.
American Scary is a 2006 American documentary film about the history and legacy of classic television horror hosts, written and directed by American independent filmmakers John E. Hudgens and Sandy Clark.
The 1997–98 Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team were coached by Tubby Smith. He was in his first season as head coach after taking over from Rick Pitino. The team finished the season with a 29–4 record and won the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship over the Utah Utes, 78–69.
John Walsh is an English filmmaker and author. He is the founder of the film company Walsh Bros. Ltd. His film work on subjects such as social mobility and social justice has received two BAFTA nominations.
The 2019 Kentucky gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2019, to elect the governor and lieutenant governor of Kentucky. The Democratic nominee, Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear, defeated Republican incumbent Matt Bevin by just over 5,000 votes, or 0.37%, making this the closest gubernatorial election in Kentucky since 1899 by total votes, and the closest since 1915 by percentage. It was also the closest race of the 2019 gubernatorial election cycle.
The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award, often called the Rondo Award, is an annual award founded in 2002 that honors journalism, scholarship and film preservation in the horror genre, particularly of classic horror film and their modern-day counterparts.
Harryhausen: The Lost Movies is a book by John Walsh published September 10, 2019. This is a guide to unrealised cinema films of Ray Harryhausen from 1940s to the 2000s.
Escape From New York The Official Story of the Film is a book by John Walsh published December 14, 2021. This is a behind the scenes look at the making of the film Escape from New York from 1981. Walsh had previously written Harryhausen: The Lost Movies and Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film.
The Kentucky Derby Festival Basketball Classic was an annual American all-star game featuring high school basketball players. Started in 1973, it was part of the Kentucky Derby Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, leading up to the Kentucky Derby horse race. The Classic was sponsored by the local McDonald's restaurants of Kentuckiana for over 20 years from its inception until 1996. It was played at Freedom Hall, except for one year at the KFC Yum! Center in 2011. The Classic was canceled in 2018 due to declining attendance and financial losses. It had been the country's longest-running high school all-star basketball game. Star players who participated included Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Penny Hardaway, Moses Malone, Jamal Mashburn, Donovan Mitchell, Victor Oladipo, Isiah Thomas, and Dominique Wilkins.