FanExpo 2009 Closing Thoughts.

Bigger than ever.  That is a thought that I have of this weekend.  In all the years that I’ve been going to this convention never seen it as crowded as it was this year.  It is no surprise to me that Hobbystar (the company behind the FanExpo) is reporting a 22% increase in attendance this year, with 59,000 people in attendance.  

On Friday, there was a Preview of the upcoming Tron Legacy film.  It was an interesting presentation that showed a bunch of concept art for the upcoming vehicles and city in the film, as well as, some footage of a scene that they had worked out for the film.  It did look impressive and we did get an idea of the vision that they had for the movie.  But they just didn’t give away any of the plot or story of the film other than the fact that this film happens many years after the first Tron film and will show us a much more mature version of the city we saw in the first film. 

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to take a friend of mine that had never been to a convention.  So knowing it was her first time I decided to try and minimize the lines and just go for the panels and other things that make this convention great, as I didn’t want to ruin her first experience. And besides, I’ve kind of grown a bit out of all the waiting.

But, the first thing that stuck out to me on Saturday was just how many people had come down to the convention.  Saturday typically is the highest attended day of the convention and this year it didn’t disappoint.  There was a line going out the door of the convention and around the block. 

The first panel we attended was the Avery Brooks Q & A session.  It was amazing to listen to him as he is a great speaker that can articulate his ideas wonderfully.  And well, we did get him to sing a song (I’m sure someone will upload it to YouTube). 

Later in the day we decided (well I did) to go to the Heroes Preview of the season 3 box set.  In the preview, they showed as one of the Featurettes which show how they put together some of the action scenes for the season.  After, we were had a Q & A with actor James Kyson Lee, which was pretty cool.  I didn’t know all the work he does just to speak Japanese for the show.

We finished the night by watching the Masquerade.  Now this was for both of us the first Masquerade that we have been to and it was an interesting experience.  The Host was great and the costumes thatthe contestants put together were very well done over all.  I would have more pictures of them, but my camera isn’t the best in low light levels. But in any case just take my word for it, the Masquerade is a great experience,  just make sure to be ready to be there for a few hours.

Sunday pretty much was used to finish any business that we had down at the convention.  Traditionally Sunday is the shopping day as many retailers drop there prices close to the end of the show to try and get rid of most of their stock. But unfortunately, I was a bit broke this year, so there wasn’t very much in the way of shopping.  But I did manager to get an Autograph with Bruce Campbell.

So over all the convention was a great experience for me and I look forward to going next year.