Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Two cities. That is how the biggest traveling oddities show on the planet started back in 2017. One of them was Tulsa. The other one was right here, Denver. Most people do not realize that when they walk in the doors.
And the doors open at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 3 and Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, at the Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th St. downtown. This is the Oddities & Curiosities Expo, and Westword is billing this weekend as a celebration of dark art, hands-on preservation and countercultural community. Which is a lot of words for taxidermy, bones and a live sideshow. Buckle up.
Let me tell you what you are walking into. Hands-on taxidermy workshops where you do the work yourself. Live sideshow performers on the stage all day long. And a whole museum section of rare, one-of-a-kind oddities that you are not going to see twice.
The organizers say the typical wares run the full spectrum. Taxidermy. Preserved specimens. Antiques. Quack medical devices (yes, the old fake-cure machines). Creepy clothing. Odd jewelry. Animal skulls and bones. And funeral collectibles, which is a category most people did not know existed until right now.
Here is the part that surprised me. This show has rules. Real ones.
The expo strictly bans four things. Drop-shipped items. AI-generated artwork. Human remains. And real bat specimens, which they cite over critical conservation concerns. So no, you are not buying a framed bat this weekend.
And this is not a wink-and-nod policy. Every single business that applies to vend goes through an extensive annual review. The organizers audit supply chains. They audit sourcing methods. If a vendor cannot show you where something came from and how it got there, they are not setting up a table. In a world where you can drop-ship garbage from anywhere and slap an AI image on it, that kind of vetting actually means something. It is the whole point.
This is where it gets local. You are going to see work from Rob Israel, Diedra Olin and Dan Moran Art. The bone compositions are a category all their own, and the ones to watch come from Leaf and Marrow, Gather Your Bones and Bone Babe.
And if your taste runs more toward the gothic-plant-on-your-windowsill side of things, the macabre botanicals show up through local staples like The Terrarium Shop and The Learned shop. Hayley would walk out of there with something in a glass dome, I already know it. That is a danger zone for us.
Here is the human story. The Oddities & Curiosities Expo was founded by a married couple, Michelle and Tony Cozzaglio. They met in Tulsa after Tony rolled through town touring with his band. So this whole empire of the strange traces back to a musician passing through Oklahoma.
In 2013 they launched something called the Punk Rock Flea Market, and they did it with two events right out of the gate. One in Tulsa. One in Denver. Same two cities from the start.
Then in 2017 they ran the first show under the Oddities and Curiosities Expo name, again just two shows, in those same root cities, Tulsa and Denver. A year later it quadrupled to eight cities. Early shows were already clearing more than 6,000 visitors, and today it is billed as the largest internationally traveling oddities and subculture event in the world. And Denver was there on day one. That is not nothing.
Now the money, because this is where people get burned. Historically the Denver show has charged about
But here is the thing. Resale and secondary listings for these 2026 dates are already starting around
One more heads up, because Denver is apparently big enough to support two oddities shows and people mix them up constantly. There is a separate, competing World Oddities Expo that runs at the National Western Complex, 4655 N. Humboldt St., with
The timing is not an accident. This lands right before Halloween, when Denver is already leaning into the weird, and it gives you a curated, ethically vetted version of it instead of whatever a random online shop ships from who-knows-where. You get the skulls and the sideshow and the funeral collectibles, and you get to know where all of it came from.
Ten a.m., both days, downtown. Bring cash, bring somebody who does not scare easy, and maybe leave a little room in the car for whatever comes home in a glass dome.