With a magical ‘Willy Wonka’ theme, Baton Rouge area’s first CajunCon taking shape

Rule No. 1: You must have a golden ticket to get into CajunCon.

But what is CajunCon? It’s a first-ever, full-scale pop culture convention for the Baton Rouge area. And the save-the-dates? Dec. 6-7, 2025.

That may sound like an eternity from now, but convention promoters such as Scott Innes say the lengthy lead time is necessary to secure top talent from the worlds of TV, film, anime, wrestling and more. In all, there will be close to 50 personalities appearing at Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales.

“Everybody in the con world right now is booking for 2025. We just happen to be at the end of the season of 2025,” Innes explains. “They’re already booked up for this year.” 

Innes, a radio personality, event promoter, actor, writer and producer, travels to many of these pop culture gatherings around the country each year, signing autographs and posing for photos with “Scooby-Doo” fans. He’s voiced the characters Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy in films and video games since 1997. 

Area libraries host smaller conventions annually, but for larger ones, Baton Rouge fans have traveled to New Orleans, Lafayette or Shreveport in the past. So about a year-and-a-half ago, Innes and his assistant, Nicole Elmore, put their heads together and began formulating plans for something more local, something bigger — CajunCon.

“I’m a huge fan of the original ‘Willy Wonka (& the Chocolate Factory’). So, I’ve always wanted to reunite the kids (child actors in the film) and bring back that magic,” Innes says.

“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination,” Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka sings in the original 1971 movie.

Fifty-three years after the G-rated classic film’s release and eight years after his death, Wilder is as popular as ever thanks to the heavily-streamed 2023 Netflix documentary, “Remembering Gene Wilder.” 

With “Willy Wonka” as its umbrella theme, CajunCon has so far booked Peter Ostrum, who played Charlie Bucket; Julie Dawn Cole, who portrayed Veruca Salt; and Paris Themmen, the original Mike Teevee.

“We’ve got a few others that we’re trying to get who are in poor health, but if we can bring them, we will,” Innes says.

When asked about the actors’ ages now, Innes replied, “They’re up there, you know what I mean? But they still look like themselves.”

If you’re keeping score, Ostrum and Cole are now 66, and Themmen is 65. 

“We’re building a ‘Wonka’ set. Here’s what people don’t know. When you get to the ‘Wonka’ area for the kids, it’ll look like something out of the movie,” Innes says. “We have a crew building big candy props that’ll all be set in this area. And this just tickles me, maybe nobody else appreciates this, but in that area, they’re going to be dressed up as oompa loompas.”

Fans can start planning their own costumes now, but will have to wait until fall to secure a golden ticket. Innes explained that the tickets are free, and will likely be distributed at sponsoring businesses. Out-of-towners will be able to secure free passes online. Two hundred fast passes also will be sold prior to CajunCon. No tickets will be given out or sold at the door. All golden ticket holders will be eligible to win prizes, he added.

Marketing of the convention began just a few weeks ago with the launch of the CajunCon Facebook page, which already has 2,000 followers. Although the CajunCon website, cajunconla.com, is up, it only features a teaser to the event; the site will launch officially this fall. 

“We want to encourage people to go to Facebook and ‘like’ that so that we can keep everybody posted on what’s going on,” Innes said, adding that vendors can apply for spots at https://www.onescottshop.com/.

The promoters will release the full list of personalities and attractions scheduled, a few at a time, starting on Dec. 6, exactly one year out from CajunCon.

They did, however, reveal the following TV and film vehicle replicas that fans can expect to see:

• The Ecto-1 from “Ghostbusters” 
• “Starsky & Hutch’s” Grand Torino 
• The van used by “The A-Team”
• The General Lee from “The Dukes of Hazzard”
• Herbie the Love Bug from the Walt Disney film of the same name
• The cop car from “The Blues Brothers”

In addition, the original “Jeepers Creepers” haunted van will be on-site.

Joining the trio from “Willy Wonka,” Innes says, will be “45 other big-name stars covering all genres, from comedy, horror, Christmas, because it’ll be at Christmas so we’re gonna bring in actors from some of your favorite Christmas movies.

Those celebrities will include stars from the movies “A Christmas Story,” “Elf” and the Jim Carrey iteration of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

“Anime is the hottest thing out right now. We’ve got tons of anime, voiceover artists coming in, some of the biggest names in wrestling history. So we’ve really covered a big spectrum,” Innes said.

That said, Innes promises a truly fun experience.

“It really is gonna be pure imagination. I mean, because we’re gonna take people down memory lane,” he said.