Rat taxidermy classes that sell out for up to $300 and vendor booths stacked with lamps made of bones filled Milwaukee's Baird Center this weekend as the World Oddities Expo rolled through town. The traveling convention, which bills itself as a marketplace for unique items and experiences, came to Milwaukee in 2026.
The expo ran September 26 and 27 at the Baird Center, according to WTMJ, filling the venue with vendor booths, live performances and hands-on workshops. Beyond the bone lamps, sellers offered handmade candles, art made from insect wings, and pop culture paintings, giving attendees plenty to browse between shows. Near the entrance, multiple tattoo artists worked from hundreds of pre-drawn designs, letting guests purchase and receive a permanent tattoo on the spot.
Stage Shows
That stage stayed busy throughout the day with a rotating lineup that included circus sideshow acts. Kyrstal Younglove, the expo's assistant entertainment director, said the audience draws in curious people who may not otherwise have access to concentrated unusual attractions in one place, the outlet reported.
Taxidermy Classes Draw a Sellout Crowd
Taxidermy vendor TJ Burdette said the craft lets people see animals again after death, offering a different kind of preservation than most people expect walking into a convention hall.
Attendees in the rat taxidermy class received supplies and instructions to mount their own rat and left with a finished art piece to take home. The classes cost between $200 and $300 and often sell out, and Jess Burdette said the taxidermy classes and shows have sustained the business full-time for almost a year.
First-time attendee Valorie Achtor skipped the rats for a butterfly-pinning class instead. Achtor, who said she is interested in weird things, wanted to make a pinned butterfly herself and said the process preserves the creatures rather than simply discarding them.
How the Expo Fits Into a Bigger Scene
The scrutiny around oddity commerce has an added edge in Wisconsin this month. Fond du Lac County prosecutors in September charged a Wisconsin man with multiple felonies after investigators discovered human skulls and skeletal remains in his home, and investigators found that most businesses listed by the suspect had no sales record, were closed, or were legally prohibited from selling human remains, per FOX6 Milwaukee.
Earlier this month, the Oddities & Curiosities Expo held an event in Las Vegas with taxidermy classes and sideshow performers.
Milwaukee's Baird Center was able to host the high-capacity, multi-day expo thanks to a $456 million expansion completed in May 2024 that doubled the venue's footprint to 1.3 million square feet and added 300,000 contiguous square feet of exhibit space, per GRAEF. The renovated venue also earned LEED Gold certification in February 2025. The oddities crowd shared the building this weekend with an entirely different audience, too: the Baird Center's North Building offered free public tours as part of Doors Open Milwaukee 2026, giving visitors access to its rooftop ballroom and 50-piece local art collection.
