We were lucky to catch up with Megan Valantine recently and have shared our conversation below.

Megan, appreciate you joining us today. So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.

We donate a percentage of tickets sales quietly after each event to help support the non profit museum where we have our events. This museum where we hold our events do a lot of wonderful things for the community and we like to give back in any way that we can. Our ultimate goal is to help them raise enough funds to renovate the historic Maag Farmhouse at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. It’s such a beautiful Victorian era treasure that needs a lot of love and TLC.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Kevin and I are co-producers of Creep It Real OC which is a homegrown Halloween event that takes place every year in Orange County. Creep It Real OC started out as a Halloween EXPO in Laguna Niguel in 2019. Our very first event took place at the Sea Country Senior and Community Center in Laguna Niguel (everybody has to start somewhere). Our event was such a hit with the vendors that they were all asking us if we were going to do this again. We felt the love and decided we HAD to make this happen for the community. When 2020 hit, our event was cancelled because of Covid-19. In place of the event, we held an instagram shop-til-you-drop event where the vendors who had signed up for the event, had the chance to sell their items on an instagram page. It helped boost some sales for our vendors at a time when everyone needed to be innovative in the ways they had to drive sales.
Then in 2021 we were back, in person, at a new venue- the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana, Ca. We fell in love with this venue because of its organic spooky atmosphere. They say that both the Kellogg House and the Maag Farmhouse have a lot of paranormal activity. This was a huge bonus for us! Besides that, the venue is also very picturesque being that there are dwellings from the 1800’s. It was a match made in heaven for a spooky event! Our 2021 event sold out and was a huge success and far surpassed our wildest dreams. It happened at a time when a lot of other events were still canceling and large gatherings were not really allowed. We figured that since our venue was all outside, it was possible for it to work and we never gave up!
Last year for our 2022 event we also sold out on Saturday and even added some celebrity guests, a theme, even more spooky vendors and ghost tours. In addition, we created a new event concept at the same location last November called Creep It Real FESTIVE in which Halloween had some unfinished business during Christmastime. It was such an entertainment fun filled event that we cannot wait to repeat this year again!

This year for our 2023 event, we have already announced a mini Hocus Pocus 30 year anniversary reunion with a few of the cast members including Jason Marsden (voice of Thackery Binx), Omri Katz (Max) and Vinessa Shaw (Allison). In addition to celebrity meet and greets, we will have over 100 spooky only vendors, live music, a magician, a Halloween only music DJ, themed photo ops, roaming characters, lots of food and treats, and so much more. Our theme this year is “Camp Creep It Real OC”. While it’s not actually a camp, it’s a fun take on a theme that people can relate to in which we have our own original story for the characters and photo ops.

Our biggest accomplishment has been our growth since 2019. We pride ourselves as being communicative with our audience as well as our vendors. We try to keep our costs low when all other costs keep rising around us, and we want to make sure our events are affordable for the guests. We spend a lot of time on social media interacting with our fans/attendees and all of our social media has been built up by us over time.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

In 2022 we saw that all the other events around us were introducing celebrities to their cons, events and shows. As nervous as we were to add them into our mix since it was a new territory for us, we just had to take a gamble on it. I remember one fan asking us on social media, well before the event, if Kimberly J. Brown from HalloweenTown was going to be at our event. As random as I thought it was at the time, I was totally up for the challenge. I remember trying to reach out to her via social media and not getting a response. Then I dug around a bit and finally found her email address and the next thing I knew her agent was contacting me saying they were interested in doing the event. Persistence was key in this situation. When you want something bad enough, you can make it work. That was the first time I had ever dealt with celebrity agents and when we had it secured I was so excited that my persistence had worked. We had both Kimberly J. Brown (Marnie) and her finacé Daniel Kountz (Kal from HalloweenTown 2) at the event. They were such a hit and just about the nicest celebrities ever!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Honestly, treating others the way you want to be treated has always been our motto. We care a lot about all the teams of people who surround us throughout these events. We like to make sure our vendors are well communicated to so they know what’s going on and what’s expected of them. We like to make sure all of working crew is well taken care of and having fun, we are so lucky to have found the dream team who works for us. We couldn’t do any of this without them and our fabulous volunteers. We also make sure the Heritage Museum is taken care of too. Sometimes we find ourselves moving furniture around before the events and even volunteering our time to rake leaves. Then after the event is over, we comb over the property to pick up trash and move the furniture back where we found it. The thing that people don’t realize is that the museum is mostly run on volunteer help. They don’t have the means to have large clean up crews after events. It’s important for us to make sure we take care of them and help them clean up after our events are over. And yes, we get very dirty doing it, but it’s all worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.creepitrealoc.com/
• Instagram: @creepitrealoc
• Facebook:@creepitrealoc
• Other: Tik Tok @creepitrealoc

Image Credits
Johnathan Garcia ( @forgekeep )