FanExpo 2010 Report

Or should I say FailExpo 2010.

Personally I would love to tell you how much fun I had this year at the convention, but the truth is my weekend got a bit messed up, and so, I’m still a bit raw and angry about it. So you may see that coming through as I do this report. Sorry about that.

Day One

Day One of the convention actually didn’t go to badly although it got off to a late start. On Friday, those that bought a deluxe ticket in advanced were supposed to be allowed to get in at 2pm, 2 hours before the actually event opened to the rest of the people. That unfortunately didn’t happen as I got in around 3:30 pm, which wasn’t bad. In years past, the convention never use to get started on time, and so I was used to having to wait a bit longer than the normal starting time.

Once inside the convention I spent my time walking around to get the lay of the land, as there weren’t any really interesting panels going on that evening. At least there weren’t any panels I was interested in seeing. But one thing I picked up on was the fact that we might have some problems on Saturday with overcrowding, as it was evident that there were congestion issues starting to happen.

Saturday typically is a big convention day as most of the panels and guest are there on Saturday, so I was a bit worried that the convention might get shutdown this year. I took a picture Friday evening of the convention which you can see below.

As you can see there were a lot of people already there on Friday evening.

Day Two

Day Two of the convention started off well enough, but it unfortunately turned for the worse. I arrived at the convention around 11:30 and began to line up for the Tron Legacy preview, which was awesome I might add. The Tron Legacy preview was a bit of a commercial for their upcoming games, as they had one of the producers for the game come down to promote the games. Following the game demos, we had the opportunity to watch a couple of trailers for Tron Legacy and view a scene from the film in 3D. For those interested the scene showed what happens to Sam Flynn when he first enters the Tron universe. It was a quite impressive scene that showed some of the expansiveness of the Tron World. After the clip, they brought out Actor Bruce Boxleitner for an interview and Q&A with the guys from the Space channel’s Inner Space as moderators.

Following the Tron Preview, I headed to the Stan Lee Q & A, which was a very interesting panel, as Stan Lee can be quite a personality.

After the Stan Lee Q & A the trouble started. The convention volunteers wanted us to exit the hall since there was a Adam West & Burt Ward panel happening in the same room afterwards and because of this there was already quite a big line waiting to come in. Once outside the hall I realised nothing was moving. This was a bit of a problem as we were on the basement level and had nowhere to go. I started to think to myself that if anyone started to panic this could become a bad place really fast, as there was probably a crowd of around 100 or more people going nowhere all confined in a hallway. I tried to go through into another convention hall when I saw a FanExpo employee came out and he kind of pushed me back. (Which wasn’t really cool.) He was however nice enough to inform me that they weren’t letting anyone go upstairs.

When they finally starting to allow people to leave the basement, I remember looking outside and seeing a bunch of people pressed up against the glass wanting to get in. It looked like something out of a zombie invasion. As I went outside to give my friend his pass which I had bought for him on Friday so that he wouldn’t have to wait in line. As I exited, I was never told what was going on. Apparently the convention had reached capacity and thus they were not letting anyone in. So when I exited I was stuck outside, regardless if I had paid. I ended up waiting outside for about 2-3 hours to get back in. My friend who had a day pass never got in until 5:30pm even though the convention was supposed to close at 7 pm. I missed all of the panels I wanted to see in the afternoon and my friend missed seeing Stan Lee, who he came specifically to see. All in all, we were really disappointed at this year’s convention. The extra hour they announced that the convention was going to be open for did not help us out in the least.

Day 3

Day 3 was a slow day, as most of the big panels happened on Saturday. I attended the Sendhil Ramamurthy and the Micheal Dorn Q&As as well as the Udon 10 year panel. All in all, it was a nice way to end the convention.

As for whether or not I will return next year to the convention. That all depends on what Hobbystar (the company behind the convention) decides to do about what happened to me Saturday and what changes they decide to make in the future to prevent Saturday from happening again.

Off to the Fan Expo

Hey guys. I’ll be heading down to the Fan Expo this weekend.  For those that don’t know the FanExpo is a large comic book, Sci-Fi, Anime and Gaming expo that takes place in Toronto each year.  I’ve been going there now for maybe close to 10 years and I’ve watched it grow from a much smaller convention to the massive convention this year.

For those that are interested there are a great number of guests coming down from Felicia Day to Stan Lee to Adam West will be down there this weekend and I hopefully will get the chance to meet some of these people. 

In any case I hope to put up a post next week about what I saw down at the Expo.

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. 

FanExpo So Far

Hey guys.  I just got back a little while ago from my second day at the FanExpo and I had a blast.  It is by far the biggest that the convention has ever been and there is a lot of great stuff that is starting to show up at this Expo.  One being special previews of up coming Films and TV shows. 

Friday, I was able to sit into a preview for the upcoming Tron film that was just great.  From the limited stuff they showed I have great confidence in there vision for the movie.  Whether they will be able to achieve their vision for Tron we’ll have to decide when the film comes out. 

Today, I was able to see a preview for the next series of Heroes.  This season looks awesome.  I have always been a fan of the show, even as it did go down hill for a bit.  I do hope that the series will final start to get back to what made the show great in the first place.

In any case I hope to post a more thorough write up on Monday.  So till then, have a good week end.

Off to the FanExpo

Hey guys.  I’m heading out to the FanExpo today.  I be trying to put up some stuff each day I’m down there.  But in any case, I hope you all have a good weekend. I know I will.