The haunted Biltmore Hotel also served as a location in "Ghostbusters."
Para-Con returns to Downtown Los Angeles this weekend for it’s second year, this time extended to two days, and moving on from the LA Convention Center to the haunted Biltmore Hotel.
Event producer Jessica Johnson describes Friday events as being for those new to ghost hunting and the supernatural. The day kicks off with a “Paranormal Bootcamp” followed presentations on tarot reading, EVP (electronic voice phenomenon), and an evening field trip to the Magic Castle to see a performance by escape artist and magician Aron Houdini.
Saturday continues with more lectures on the paranormal, with a jampacked schedule feature ghost story tellers, psychics, and celebrities from supernatural themed reality shows (and even one panel asking if such shows help or harm the field the cover). Throughout both days, vendors representing creepy crafts, supernatural themed books, ghost hunting organizations, and more, will be available for browsing and shopping.
On Saturday night, the convention becomes the Carnivale of the Dead Costume Ball, inviting attendees to dress in their spookiest attire. Those showing up an hour early can also be turned into zombies by a staff of makeup artists. The ball promises celebrity guests, roving circus acts, and, according to rumor, an invasion by a small army of zombies.
Johnson tells CreepyLA that this is the first time the Biltmore has haunted a paranormal themed event. “They said they didn’t want to be known for being haunted, ” she says. “‘Too late!” we told them.”
The hotel is also notoriously known as being where Elizabeth Short, nicknamed the Black Dahlia, was last seen alive days before her body was found, naked and severed in half in a vacant lot, in 1947. Last October the Biltmore made national news after Laura Finley, the wife of a reality TV star, was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell. Both cases remain unsolved.
The convention is offering tours of the hotel Friday and Saturday night, where guests may be able to see some an apparition.
According to Los Angeles ghost expert Richard Carradine, the Biltmore is reportedly haunted by the Black Dahlia and a number of other ghosts, including a “lost little girl,” a solemn nun who is trapped in the basement, and that of a man in a tophat who can only be seen in the reflection of one of the hotel’s bar’s mirrors.
The oddest apparition that has been reported in the hotel is that of a well-dressed male phantom that loiters on various floors, but always near an ice machine. When a hotel guest approaches (and steps around the “man”) to fill his ice bucket, he will feel a hand slide into his pocket (as if an attempt to steal it contents or “pick-pocket”). Once caught in the act, the phantom man vanishes into thin air.
Tickets for both days to the convention are $45, with additional costs for the ball, field trip, and tour. For more information visit their official site.
