1. Divorce Fair Because some marriages go bad faster than egg salad in the Sahara, this two-day expo in Vienna, Austria, features lawyers, real-estate agents, and therapists, as well as private detectives and DNA labs offering paternity tests.
2. DragonCon Between sessions on ghost hunting and battles pitting homemade robot warriors against each other, this sci-fi and gaming convention features the Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant.
3. DefCon One highlight of this show for computer hackers is Spot the Fed, a game where attendees are challenged to flush out the real government agents lurking among them.
4. Nakshatra Named for a section of the sky in Hindu astrology, this New Delhi, India-based show features yogis, numerologists, palm readers, and renowned astrologers who warn attendees about the dire fates awaiting them.
5. Midnight Sun Witchcraft Conference You can sit — but not cast — a spell at this show in Finland, which focuses on current human-rights problems examined through a historical prism of witch hunts and torture.
6. Machine Gun Shoot Held near Fort Knox, KY, this weapons expo lets its 10,000 attendees shoot everything from Civil War-era Gatling guns to flamethrowers aimed at towers of tires, junkpiles of cars, and barrels of fuel, which show organizers boast create “fire balls from hell!”
7. BlogWorld & New Media Expo To poke fun at the image of bloggers pontificating from home in nightgowns and underwear, this show’s inaugural conference in Las Vegas in 2007 hosted the World’s Largest Pajama Party at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
8. Fetish Con With more latex than a surgical-glove factory, this annual convention for alternative passions features exhibitors such as Canes4Pain.com, and educational sessions that include Pony Play Fun
& Games.
9. The Satan Show Only 666 attendees are allowed in at the official trade show of the Church of Satan to raise hell and visit exhibits for consecrated candles, ritual robes, and “Devil With a Blue Dress On” cocktail wear.
10. Spam-a-Lot This convention for bulk commercial e-mailers hosts exhibitors who generate the 62 billion junk e-mail messages that flood your inbox every day, purportedly from bargain-basement pharmacies, hair-loss clinics, and penile-enlargement research centers.
