Back in May of this year my friend Kellie had found an advertisement on Instagram for a convention called "Halloween in a Small Town" that would be held in the place they filmed Stranger Things. (Jackson, Georgia.) The same people putting on this convention also put on a convention at the Gilmore Girls filming location each year, and go all out. I had met Kellie online in 2018 as someone who would also be flying over to Los Angeles too see Ryan Ross perform live. Most people know Panic! At the Disco for Brendon Urie, but our favorite band member was Ryan Ross. We also both ironically ended up becoming big Stranger Things fans, and both had Will as our favorite character. I don't think I've met anyone else besides her who has also picked Will as their favorite character. Kellie travels a lot for work so we were able to meet up nearly a year after seeing Ryan Ross, but that had been the last time I had seen her in person. Pre-pandemic and even college graduation, so it had been awhile. We have stayed in touch throughout the years though, mainly through Instagram.
Kellie decided for sure she was going to go, and said she was fine going solo if I couldn't make it. I made the decision to go in early July, and booked my flight to Atlanta. Kellie had already booked a hotel room that would have two beds. We made sure both of our flights landed at similar times, and it worked out well. No delays for either of us thankfully. It also turned out that Finn Wolfhard (the actor that plays Mike) would be performing his music in Atlanta two days after the convention ended, so Kellie also got tickets for that. The Gilmore Girls convention was able to get in more major characters than the Stranger Things convention including Scott Patterson (Luke's actor). The Stranger Things convention was originally going to have the actor for the character, Barb but she had a scheduling conflict. The characters they were able to get for the convention included: Mr. Clarke, Chrissy, and Jason for the bigger characters, and Holly's friend Mary, little Henry Creel, little Will, the other bully characters, etc. The convention also had the actor for James from Twilight coming in and two of the actors from Halloweentown. As a nod to Halloweentown Jackson Square had a giant jack-o-lantern outside of the welcome center, and the bus stop signs from Halloweentown which free shuttles stopped at for the weekend.
It was so fun planning what we were going to do during the trip. I was more than excited to see downtown Jackson transformed into Hawkins with signs that matched how it looked in the show. I was also stoked to get to see the Wheeler and Byer's house in person. They had sadly already torn down all the schools they built for the show, the lab, and the radio station. I was excited to go somewhere still experiencing summer weather to hold onto the warmer weather for a little bit longer. The period of warm weather in Wisconsin is so short. Originally it looked like it would be a rainy weekend when I checked the weather a few days before leaving for Atlanta. Saturday looked like it would have on and off rain, and Sunday looked like it would rain all day. The forecast luckily was wrong. A lot of the activities were inside, but it was still nice to be able to walk around and be outside.
We flew in on Thursday so we had a little extra time with the conference being Friday-Sunday. We got a rental car through Enterprise which was right at the airport. The rental car process was surprisingly very quick and they told us to pick any mini van. A mini van for two people was kind of a strange pairing, but apparently it was the cheapest option. We went with a black minivan, and Kellie put in the address of the Wheeler House. The filming locations of most of the houses happened to be closer to the airport then to Jackson Georgia. We figured we could hit the other houses when we stayed in Atlanta Monday and Tuesday for Finn's show. Seeing the most recognizable house from the show besides the Byer's house felt really surreal, and so was walking in downtown Jackson when we finally made it there. Kellie was able to book a hotel just down the street from downtown Jackson so it was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel, however parking downtown was actually pretty easy. We took pictures of the Wheeler house quick before checking into our hotel. Kellie had a short work meeting before we walked downtown from our hotel. The town was putting up the signs on the building to match the show when we got there. It was so surreal seeing the downtown area, which had been in so many scenes throughout the show. It didn't look how I thought it would. Seeing the massive welcome center used as the Hawkins library was definitely a highlight. We went into an 80's/Stranger Things themed store that had all kind of different Stranger Things merchandise, different photo op places, and even costumes for characters from the show. We decided to buy the stuff we wanted that day in case the town got crowded for the convention. I got a fridge magnet that said "I've been to Hawkins, Indiana Jackson, Georgia", and a pin of Castle Byers. The store also had a blacklight area with arcade games. Outside of Hawkins Headquarters was the Surfer Boy van parked on the street. The van remains parked on the street and is even unlocked so fans can take pictures inside of it. Papa John's is across the street from where the van is parked, which made us hungry for pizza when deciding where to eat dinner that night. We did not go to the Papa John's but an actual pizza restaurant called "The Brickery". The next day the restaurant actually had a "Surfer Boy Pizza" sign outside of it to be on theme. Kellie and I shared a magherita pizza, and then walked back to our hotel for the night. The people of Jackson Georgia seemed excited to have the convention in town and were super sweet. We even saw a sign outside a gas station before entering Jackson that said "Welcome Stranger Things Fans!" The small town feel was definitely felt.
