Halifax Oddities Show: a sanctuary for the macabre

If you missed the Halifax Exhibition Centre this past weekend, you missed Atlantic Canada's biggest gathering of the strange. The Halifax Oddities & Curiosities Show, also known as the Halifax Oddities Show, held its fourth edition on Saturday, September 19, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, and it lived up to its billing as a sanctuary for lovers of the macabre.

At its core, the show is a curated market for the unusual. More than 120 vendors set up tables across a wide range of categories: vintage and antique oddities, bones, skulls and skeletons, taxidermy, natural and preserved specimens, outsider and dark art, unusual photography, religious, funeral and memento mori pieces, vintage Halloween and Day of the Dead, occult, metaphysical and magick, gothic, medieval and steampunk, horror, sci-fi and fantasy, tattoo and body modification culture, quack medical and scientific oddities, artisan-made oddities, and unique jewellery and unusual clothing. A few names stood out among them. Marina Smith of Arcane Angel makes memento mori necklaces, circus macabre bracelets, earrings, hair combs, metal cases, alchemy boxes, witch bracelets and crystal-etched spell lockets using vintage mechanisms and timepieces from 1815 to 1940. Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark brought Undersea Oddities, with marine curiosities, skeletal anatomy, shipwreck finds, restored antique diving gear, folk art and books on Maritime marine life and Canadian sharks. Surreal Secreta showed off eleven decorated deer jaws, four decorated bison jaws, four decorated muskrat skulls and three pairs of decorated muskrat jaw earrings.

Admission was C$10 cash at the door, with no advance sales for general admission, and the organisers asked people to bring extra cash because not all vendors take e-payment. Parking was free. An Odd Squad VIP ticket ran C$20 and let people in at 9:00 am, two hours before the general public; those went on sale through EventBrite starting April 1. By early afternoon, around 3,000 people had already passed through the doors.

Founder and creator Brandon Dean Matheson calls it the biggest show of its kind east of Toronto, drawing vendors and visitors from across the Maritimes. He says people come to find things they would not run into at a regular craft market, like steampunk, goth, horror and fantasy items, and he is quick to point out it is a family-friendly event that kids love. The venue, at 200 Prospect Road in Goodwood, just off Highway 103, sits about 10 to 15 minutes from downtown Halifax.

A few people walked away with a haul. Deanna Manolakos, who came with vendor Pascal Poirier, picked up a magic lantern slide, a pin from the 1900s and a cigarette container. New Germany artist Adam Mack, who works in wood, said the show let him push his work from decorative pieces of colourful mushrooms and flowers toward interpretations of animal skulls and darker subjects. Matheson is already planning to make next year's edition even bigger, with a date set for October 30 and a larger space to grow into.