The Official Statement
Regarding the Negotiations and Trademark
for HauntCon
It is my understanding that there is some confusion regarding the business dealing between myself and Doug Sheldon specifically regarding the sale the HauntCon Haunt Convention and Tradeshow. It is my hope that this statement clears up any confusion and ends the pointless rumors which may be currently floating through the Haunt community.
First, and let me be very clear on this point, this was a private transaction between Doug Sheldon and I, and did not involve the Chamber of Haunters in any capacity. I realize this may be apart of the various rumors that have been erroneously spread, but I can offer the Chamber’s monthly and annual financial reports as evidence that this was most assuredly not the case.
In November 2024, Doug Sheldon Announced the closure of both HauntCon and Fear Expo (A) and I made contact with him regarding the future of HauntCon (B1, B2). In March of 2025, Doug Sheldon posted on various facebook groups, including the HauntCon FB page, that he was putting HauntCon up for sale (C). I was interested in it, and I got in contact with him. There was no price listed, and no assets listed.
By March 7th I had learned from Doug Sheldon what was being sold was HauntCon’s Social Media Accounts, email list, show information from previous shows and “anything that is considered intellectual property of Hauntcon” (D) (E1, E2, E3). There were no licenses, corporations, or other business assets which would be transferred in the sale. Further, the bank accounts were no included in the sale because “…. The financials were together with Fear Expo” (E2) and that he had spoken with his accountant and “… For him to redo them out is going to be quite a process” (F).
Doug Sheldon did admit that he did not know what I needed the bank account balances for (E3), and I then understood why seeing he had co-mingled the funds with another event. He did give me a guestimation of the income for the 2024 Daytona show on March 17th: “… cost was around 60k with everything. 65 vendors at 600 per booth is 39k. 2200 attending at 50 per ticket. That’s 110,000. About 150,000 in sales at Daytona. With 60k in cost. 90k profits.” (G)
He reiterated “There’s just no way for me to separate the shows for 2023, and 24.” And “That’s why we are selling this show based on name and reputation, not profit and loss.” (G)
To summarize, Doug Sheldon would not provide any business assets beyond a mailing list, social media presence and a website for $150,000.
My investor required far greater information on the net worth of this business before he would be willing to hand over $150,000 in cash to someone he had never met, who refused to turn over profit and loss statements, who could not give an accurate accounting of any business assets, and who would not include corporate entities or even bank accounts as part of the sale. The investor was not willing to take Doug Sheldon at his word without any sort of accounting whatsoever. I was instructed to do my due diligence in assessing exactly what assets were being transferred in the sale, and what assets were available. One of the conditions was confirmation of trademark status.
The preliminary asset search revealed at the time HauntCon and Fear Expo had been closed, so was Fear Expo, LLC – the parent corporation of both events- was dissolved (December 14th 2024). (H) With the closure of the LLC, I had to assume that- if there was a corporate bank account, it had been closed at the time of the dissolution. The HauntCon word mark had been cancelled and was no longer active as of October 25th, 2024. (I) The domain was still active as was the website. According to Doug Sheldon, he rented most all of the equipment and therefore did not own any of it. (E3)
Since it had been mentioned in a March 7th text message that intellectual property was to be transferred in the sale, (D) (E3) it was- quite honestly- the easiest place to start. The United States Patent and Trademark Office website showed the trademark had been owned both by Leonard B. Pickle and the Clarion Events Inc. Both were listed as “Dead” and “Cancelled”. On July 24th 2015 Pickle had let the mark expire. (J) It was registered on April 3rd, 2018 by Clarion and it had been canceled on October 25th, 2024. (I)
Doug Sheldon did not register the Hauntcon word mark in his name, thereby protecting the intellectual property at the time of the sale, and therefore had left the name Hauntcon in the public domain. He could not sell it as part of the business assets associated with HauntCon because he did not own it. HauntCon had no intellectual property associated with it.
I called the USPTO in regards to the wordmark and I was told- to summarize- they could not give me any information on the mark or any possible conflicts without an application being filed. I engaged LegalZoom in order to do the in depth inquiries required, and in May- after the in depth inquiries on part of the Lawyers had been done, and finding no conflict- the final inquiry with the USPTO had been filed.
In June of 2025, Robert Nulton left the Chamber for personal reasons and Kimberley Grant had stepped up as President. When we saw the state of the corporation we realized we had no choice but to put several of our business activities on hold- including our own charity haunt and the due diligence for the purchase of HauntCon. At this juncture Dough Sheldon had already made overtures that someone else was going to buy HauntCon and refused to release anymore information to me about the business viability of HauntCon, the decision to abandon the negotiations was an easy one to enact.
On July 10th, I sent an email to Doug Sheldon at scaremichigan@gmail.com stating that were officially no longer in the running for purchasing HauntCon. (K)
On October 6th a suspension letter was issued from the USPTO, (L) citing a conflict with the trademark application filed in Georgia by Haunt Fest, LLC (M) for the word mark “Haunt Fest”. The USPTO felt there were far too many points of commonality and the marks may get confused, therefore my application- which had been filed with them over a year after Haunt Fest, LLC’s (April 18th, 2024) (K) (L)- was placed on an indefinite hold. At that time, I contacted the USPTO, and having learned what I had needed to learn in regards to the viability of the wordmark “Hauntcon”, started the process to withdraw my application. I sent an email to Doug Sheldon at scaremichigan@gmail.com letting him know of the conflict and that I would be withdrawing our inquiry with the USPTO. (N)
Believing the I had finished the process, I had filed away the HauntCon business opportunity and continued on with my own nonprofit as well as the Chamber. In fairness, beyond typical government inefficiency, I could not predict the inevitable delays and the government shut down in what was then would be the very near future.
On February 6th, Doug Sheldon contacts me via FB asking why I “would try to place a trademark on my company?” And further “Why did you try to trademark Hauntcon when you knew i owned it and still have it.” (B2 )(O1)
He then went on an emotional tirade “I have been working on due process and then I see that you tried to take the name, I am curious.. you know I own the show, you went to the show, you asked me about the future of the show. Why would you try and claim a trademark on the show. I have a copy of my purchase from Clarion that shows that I own the show.” And further “I reached out to you to talk to you before contacting my attorney in the morning. I wanted to make sure this was not done in malice. If it was a mistake that is fine.” (O1, O2) Not wishing to engage, I thanked him for the advanced notice of potential legal action and continued my dinner with my wife.
Further, with the threat of attorney involvement, it would have been disadvantages to continue to have a conversation in this matter with Doug Sheldon. When Attorneys get involved, only contact with the attorneys is usually recommended, and therefore, I waited for his attorney to make contact.
On February 11th, Doug Sheldon sent me the following statement on FB: “Hi Josh, I wanted to reach out directly regarding the HAUNTCON trademark application you filed. As you know, I acquired all rights and goodwill associated with HAUNTCON in 2022, and the mark has been in continuous use in connection with the event. Because of that prior ownership and use, your application raises issues that may ultimately require formal opposition. I wanted to give you the opportunity to voluntarily withdraw the application, which would resolve the matter without further time or expense for either of us. Please let me know how you’d like to proceed. My email is Scaremichigan@gmail.com if you would prefer to communicate by email. Thank you, Doug Shelden CEO HAuNTcon” (O2, O3)
Doug Sheldon made many assumptions in this message which were factually incorrect. First, he did not acquire “all rights and goodwill associate with HAUNTCON”. He failed to transfer the wordmark into his name, or the name of his corporation, at the time of the finalized sale- or at any point after. The name Hauntcon may have been in continuous use, but the mark was dead and cancelled in 2024.
Threatening me with “formal opposition” and the fact that this was an ultimatum and not a formal Cease and Desist letter from an attorney, said to me that if he did speak with an attorney, the attorney told him that legally there was nothing he could do because he didn’t have a legal right to the name beyond local copyright protection in his jurisdiction- which would only extend (at most) to the state lines of the headquarters of the event- in this case, Michigan.
I pointed out to Doug Sheldon that he had not done his due diligence (O3), as I had rightly believed my application had been withdrawn in October, and further, it had been suspended so HauntCon could not be registered by anyone pending the outcome of the Haunt Fest, LLC application. (L)
Checking the website that afternoon I saw that, in fact, it had not been withdrawn and I took immediate steps to understand what had happened and to re-start the process. The process was completed shortly after, with confirmation. (P)
These are the facts, as supported with available evidence. Should anyone have any questions I will always be available to them for honest inquiries.
I would like to take a moment to address some of the particulars I have heard in the rumors which have been circulating regarding this situation. And further, it behooves me to address, in part, what looks like an attempt by a small and isolated group of two individuals to ruin the reputation, and possibly even “Cancel”, an organization which had nothing to do with the alleged wrongdoing those two individuals were indignant over.
First, no one tried to steal HauntCon. As I have made it quite clear in the above statement, with the supporting evidence, the asset search was conducted as part of a the process of buying HauntCon and nothing more. Whoever has propagated that particular lie, and those who have continued that particular lie, have done so for their own purposes without any supporting evidence.
Second, as I have stated unequivocally the business transaction did not happen in conjunction with the Chamber of Haunters, and certainly did not involve Chamber funds. At the time I had consulted with Robert Nulton, then the President of the Chamber, on Doug Sheldon’s character and business practices, as well as the asset searches. Many of our conversations were on the phone, but some were via messenger. (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) To further this point, although the CFO at the time, I had no access to the bank account other than to see statements. Rob Nulton was the only signer on the account, and he had the only debit card for the Chamber. The Chamber did not have checks or other payment/money transfer gateways (like Zelle, Paypal, CashApp, etc.) at my disposal. There was simply no way I could have utilized Chamber funds without Rob Nulton authorizing and initiating the payment.
Unless the accuser meant to implicate Rob Nulton in theft from the Chamber funds in order to register the trademark, I can say- despite his great many faults- Rob Nulton did not use, or authorize to use (which would require him paying for it) Chamber funds for either the trademark or the purchasing HauntCon.
Third, the post from Troy Criv (Crivellone) (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7) on Facebook was a blatant attempt by someone at character assassination via “vague-booking”. Troy Crivellone clearly took whoever it was at face value with no supporting evidence (or else he would have had no problems naming names, and not just locations) and decided to champion a cause. The claims he made were so factually incorrect, if he hadn’t mentioned Florida and trademark I would have had absolutely no idea what he was referring to.
It is clear he was lied to about the situation, and had no real data to go off of. So why did he do it? Who knows. What I do know is that a former Board Member, Sue Jones-Grey, for the Chamber of Haunters had no problems commenting (R2) and then directing attention the “organization” with Troy Crivellone towards the Chamber (for those who knew Sue Jones-Grey to be a member or former member of the Board) (R7).
Further all evidence points to the appearance that Sue and Troy are embarking on a social media smear campaign involving vague- booking (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7) (S1, S2) and indirectly contacting individuals associated with the Chamber of Haunters and informing them that “… he may need to do a little recon work” (S2)
If they had any real evidence or factual information, they would know the Chamber of Haunters did not have anything to do with this business deal. I did. Troy has not bothered to approach the Chamber or myself asking for clarification. He has simply embarked upon a campaign to support to smear a fantastic, and innocent, organization- one that is currently in process of rebuilding itself after a series of almost catastrophic failures handed to the new Board from the old leadership.
Sue, on the other hand, on March 18th, in response to a request from the President of the Chamber of Haunters for the peaceable return of the Chamber’s corporate records and other property of the Chamber’s Sue still had in her possession via text message, did ask Kimberley about the rumor (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7). Kimberley made it very clear that it was just a rumor and was patently false (T2). Sue then pulled an old screenshot of the USPTO Trademark Search website (found HERE)from her phone and sent it to her (T3, T4). This was clearly an old screen shot that she had been sent (and carrying around on her phone) as the updated information (U1) clearly shows Doug Sheldon has the only active application for the Trademark HAUNTCON.
She applied an interesting tactic and stated that “Just saying none of this looks good especially now that you have Leonard (Pickle) teaching (a Lunch and Learn for the Chamber) (T2, T6). She would not elaborate on why this was problematic (T6, T7).
On March 30th Troy Crivellone posted on a Chamber of Haunters post a rather bombastic demand for comment on the Chambers “involvement or non involvement” (V1) where he clearly demands they “just tell the truth, cause Hauntcon already isn’t”. I do not personally know what Hauntcon may or may not be lying about (as his accusation implies)- but if it has to do with ownership, it appears to still be in Doug Sheldon’s hands (U1).
The President of the Chamber of Haunters posted a reply shortly after (V2).
