Well I went on Saturday for my first time at Fan Expo...
Let's just say it was not the best experience I've had at a con.
First off the drive to downtown Toronto took nearly THREE TIMES as long as it should have because of traffic backed up on the highway as soon as you got near T.O. There was also a Jays (baseball) game that day and the baseball Dome is right beside the convention center!
Meaning finding a parking lot that wasn't full was a nightmare! AND I almost got into a shouting match with the parking attendant because I couldn't understand where he was telling me to go- he wanted me to pull into a paved driveway then
park on the grass.
Anyway- I get the car parked (about a 15 minute walk from the convention) and go to get in line (by the way- I'm dressed in my Grayson Robin suit).
There were two lines to get in- pre-paid tickets (which I was not) and people who need to purchase tickets. Both lines were like lining up for the premiere of a Star Wars film!
Wookiemart wrote:
It was ridiculously crowded yesterday, at one point they had to stop letting people into the convention center, which meant there was a wall of humanity outside that got almost out of hand, to the point where the Toronto riot police were called in.
Yup- I was in that line. One guy said that the pre-paid people were going to be let in first, but security had to wait until
1500 people left the show before they could do that!
It really was unbelievable how unprepaired they were for a large crowd. I mean Dragon Con gets probably five times the amount of people and you have to wait in line for your ticket an hour at best.
I left my house at 11:30am on Saturday morning...
I didn't get into the Expo until
4pm!
Quote:
To be frank this is more of a tradeshow than it is an actual convention which means that they pretty much only look at the money and little else.
Yeah it's what I would consider a (
very) scaled down version of SDCC. And it was wall to wall in there! The relatively narrow isles were just shoulder to shoulder with attendees.
And forget in-out privileges- if you left the convention you wouldn't be allowed back in without having to line up all over again (or at least until more people left first)! A buddy of mine who is an exhibitor went outside for a few minutes and couldn't get back in at first! Security was ignoring him and he had a VIP pass!
Oh and the Conventioneers were there outside.
They were doing their usual interviews of costumed folk. Then they did a pan of the line (which I was in)...
I yelled at them
"HEY! DON'T YOU POINT THAT CAMERA AT ME!!!" "Huh?
"
I SAID DON'T POINT THAT CAMERA AT ME!!!! "Umm... Okay?
"
(Hate those motherf--kers!
)
SSgt Burton wrote:
As for the Fox booth- won't it be like the one held at SDCC? I would be expecting Fox employees (not fans) dressed as WY workers or Nostromo crew (poorly at best). I highly doubt they will be dressed as Marines in armour. But I hope to be pleasently surprised.
And I was exactly right!
Here are the "cryotubes" at the Fox Booth:
Attachment:
FanExpo 001.JPG [ 248.34 KiB | Viewed 14241 times ]
And here is their example of a Weyland-Yutani... uhh... Nostromo... uhh... guy in a jumpsuit with a bunch of Aliens related patches working at the Fox booth:
Attachment:
FanExpo 002.JPG [ 138.67 KiB | Viewed 14241 times ]
Okay enough of the bad- onto the good!
I did get to meet Burt Ward (the '66 tv series Robin) that day! He was really pleasent for a star- sometimes you get the standard "smile-handshake-thanks" but Burt made the effort to talk to me for couple of minutes. Really nice of him as he didn't have to go out of his way to make "me" feel comfortable (I tend to get a little tongue tied when getting autographs).
I didn't get a picture "with" him as you had to pre-pay for that (it wasn't such a big deal for me), but I "did" get a few pics of me with some hotties...
Attachment:
FanExpo 005.JPG [ 202.78 KiB | Viewed 14241 times ]
Attachment:
FanExpo 008.JPG [ 386.76 KiB | Viewed 14241 times ]
And I did get a some pics of the repro '66 Batmobile:
Attachment:
FanExpo 011.JPG [ 200.04 KiB | Viewed 14241 times ]
(There's more but there's a 5 pic attachment limit)
I also paid to get a couple of pics sitting in the Batmobile (which dressed as Robin was ultracool!
). They printed them off for me right there, but I'll have a digital version to upload and share here in a few days.
So this was a nightmare of a trip- but meeting Burt Ward and the Batmobile made it worth while. However I planned on going back on Sunday but decided it wasn't worth going through that all over again.
Kevin