Pageant of the Monsters returning to Laguna Beach after 5-year pause

By Miranda Andrade

Sept. 7, 2018 2:10 PM PT

Come October, you can either stream an Indiana Jones movie online or you can mark your calendar for the return of Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Monsters, whose “Raiders of the Lost Art” theme offers a scarier up-close and personal adaptation of the film franchise.

The four-day event, presented by the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters, has risen from the grave after a five-year hiatus to bring an artsy twist to Halloween.

Diane Challis Davy, director of the Pageant of the Monsters and its summer sister, the Pageant of the Masters — which presents live depictions of famed artworks — said the pageant hall will be transformed into re-creations of settings from various Indiana Jones movies. All the materials used in the Pageant of the Monsters are recycled from previous pageants.

“Every [five years], we seek out to take our sets — our beautiful backgrounds and sculptures and artworks — and we try to recycle them and re-theme them into a haunted house,” Challis Davy said.

“We’re going to take our inspiration from the four movies and we’re going to create some similar themes in, let’s say, South America, India, the Amazon and Egypt. We have these pageant sets from all over the world, so we’re just going to collect all these sets and mash them together.”

On Thursday, Challis Davy said she was watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to help with inspiration for the set creations.

“There are a lot of skeletons in this one,” Challis Davy said, referring to “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” “And weird zombies.”

A Halloween carnival also will be held on the Festival of Arts grounds, with creepy sideshows titled “Alien Autopsy” and “Demented Chef.”

Children 12 and younger can wear Halloween costumes to the Pageant of the Monsters on Halloween night, Oct. 31, but costumes are not permitted for adults, said Sharbie Higuchi, a spokeswoman for the Festival of Arts.

Challis Davy said ticket sales are limited to 2,000 per night.