Thanks to the generosity of my good friend Jenn, last weekend I attended Fan Expo. She gave me the passes as an early Christmas/Birthday/Next Christmas present, and was in no way motivated by a desire to have company for her Fan Expo adventure or avoid thinking up other presents for me.
We met for lunch before heading over on Friday, August 27th at around 3 pm. We thought this would be an easy task, as doors had opened for Deluxe attendees like ourselves an hour earlier, but alas, the line stretched around the entire north and east sides of the building when we arrived, and before long it was wrapping around the south side of the building as well.
Two hours later we finally got in and presented our tickets, at which time we were rewarded with wristbands, and that was it. No swag bag or anything. I think I’ve been spoiled by my experiences with Ad Astra and Worldcon. I put the wristband on, not realizing that it was the sort designed not to come of without being cut, and so I was less than impressed at having to wear the damn thing when I went to the bathroom, showered, and ran errands outside of the convention centre. Jenn had been clever enough to leave hers loose so she could slip it off.
We started on the exhibition floor, which was insanely crowded. This was wear tons of booths were set up selling all the things I ever wanted. GI Joe toys, classic Transformers, endless shelves of DVDs, and comics, and Star Wars everything. And I had no money to spare. Alack! Alas! But probably for the best.
We wandered over to the celebrity signing area, and were sort of appalled at the cost of autographs. I mean, I appreciate the need for these people to make attendance worthwhile, and since the lines were quite large I guess they didn’t need to worry about demand, but still… I would have liked an Adam West autograph, or James Marsters, or Tahmoh Penikett, or Michael Dorn, but I could barely afford one, much less all of them.
I did spring for a Guild photo signed by Felicia Day and Amy Okuda, since I enjoy their work and—like many people of the male nerd persuasion—I have a somewhat mild desire to groom Felicia, albeit in a totally non-creepy way. Really. And Jenn and I split a photo opportunity with Summer Glau, scheduled for Saturday at 6 pm. After that we went and got some of Jenn’s books signed by Kelley Armstrong.
At this point, we’d been on our feet for quite a while, so we wandered the floor some more before leaving a bit early. We were rather frustrated by the poor organization for getting us in, and for controlling the flow of people.
Saturday, we arrived a bit after 11 to find a line wrapped around the building once again. Thankfully, that line was not ours, but for people looking to buy a single day pass. We were able to walk past them and in to the reentry doors with no problem. There was nothing scheduled that early that interested us, so we went straight to line up for the Tron Legacy presentation to ensure we got seats. This was, admittedly, more my interest than Jenn’s, on account of Bruce Boxleitner—Tron himself, though I better know him as Captain Sheridan from Babylon 5—being a part of the presentation.
They started letting us in early, after security confiscated all our phones and cameras, and we got some decent seats. The presentation itself was kind of exciting. It was hosted by Ajay Fry and Teddy Wilson from the Space channel, and first there was one of the tie-in game developers to show off the game. Then, they brought out Tron Bruce and talked a bit before showing us the trailer and 7 minutes of footage from the movie itself—in 3D! I don’t actually care for 3D that much, but I appreciated the effort to make the presentation seem special. There was a Q&A thereafter, and then we were free!
To line up to get our stuff back, which Jenn did while I went to the can. So, line up to get in, line up to get out, all sort of poorly organized. By the time we were sorted out, it was already 1:20, so we decided to take in Tahmoh Penikett’s spotlight panel though it had already started. Apparently it had started late though, because it didn’t seem like we had missed much. He gave a pretty interesting talk about his work on Battlestar and Dollhouse, and seemed like a nice guy.
After that, I left Jenn to watch Felicia Day while I headed back up to the exhibition floor to try and get a free autograph from Boxleitner, as Babylon 5 is one of my favourite things ever. I had to line up to take the escalator, because they were controlling how many people were allowed on the exhibition floor. Rumors were circulating that even people with the 3-day pass weren’t being let in to the building because it was so crowded.
After visiting the Pure Pwnage booth to say hi to the guys (who have a Gemini nomination, by the way), I got to the Tron booth a bit after 2 pm. He was scheduled to be there at 2:30, and I thought I was in luck—there was hardly anyone there! Then I asked, as was told the line was around the back of the booth. And across the aisle. And around the back of the Marvel comics booth, and along one side.
On the upside, from my spot in the line, I had a good view of the Hasbro booth, which had some pretty sweet Star Wars displays, and I could watch the Marvel preview videos. Eventually, Jenn showed up and joined me, flitting in and out to keep me and herself entertained. As we neared the front of the line, she decided she was in the line, too, and so we both got free Tron Legacy posters signed by Bruce Boxleitner. Sadly, he didn’t have time to personalize them, but I’m not complaining about free.
We figured the James Marsters session would be full, so we sought out food instead. (We later found out we could have gotten in—oh well.) Food turned out to be another lengthy lineup. And then we went to line up for the Summer Glau discussion session. She seemed quite shy, but had a few good stories to tell from being on set for her various science fictional shows and movies.
Guess what? After that we went to line up AGAIN for our photo op. The line went all the way down one hallway and across another, and continued to grow behind us. But our line was dwarfed by the Stan Lee line, which I don’t think was pre-paid like ours. And once the line started moving, they were able to process us quite quickly. Our photo op was at 6 pm, and we were done by 6:30. I look forward to seeing the resulting photo.
And that was the end of that.
Sunday morning we met at 11 (after I had a Cinnabon for breakfast). This time there was a significant line of people with armbands waiting to get in, so Jenn and I took a spot in the shade and waited for the end of the line to reach us. (It is possible that we may have filled in a large gap instead, but I fell no guilt about that.
We decided to stay away from the exhibition floor, and went on the spur of the moment to a Space panel with Ajay Fry, Teddy Wilson, and Natasha Eloi, along with two surprise guests: David Blue from Stargate Universe and Ryan Robbins from Sanctuary. They were quite funny playing off each other, had incredibly hard questions for their giveaways, and ended the event with David Blue signing Ryan Robbins’ ass. It was an unexpectedly fun time.
From there, we went to see William Shatner speak, and not in just as he was starting. He was in the largest panel room, so we were able to get seats, albeit far from the front. Shatner was… funny. Really funny. He had tons of funny and interesting stories to tell, poked fun at his cohosts and the audience, and worked the crowd well. This was also an unexpected delight. However, I was not crazy enough to try for an autograph after the fact.
From there we switched rooms to see Sendil Ramamurthy of Heroes fame/infamy. He played Mohinder on that show, one of my favouite characters of the first season, who the writers made progressively more ridiculous as the series wore on. He had a lot of interesting observations about his time on the show, and working as an Indian actor in general.
After his show, we were pushed out of the room to line up to come back in for the Michael Dorn panel. I went to this mostly out of curiosity, to see just how geeky a Star Trek panel could be. It was pretty geeky, but Dorn worked the crowd well, was happy to play to his Star Trek fans and discuss Worf in detail, and had funny stories to tell from the set and the things he’s managed to do as a result of his fame—specifically, riding in a lot of military aircraft.
By this point is was 4 pm, and our day was winding down. Jenn left at this point to do some other shopping, and I wandered the exhibition floor one last time before heading home.
Overall, it was a fun experience wrapped in boredom and frustration. It had an extremely commercial vibe about it, unlike Ad Astra or Worldcon or other book-oriented events, and all our 3-day pass guaranteed was getting to the exhibition floor—everything else we had to pay extra for or line up for. As a result, there were a number of panels that we missed because we were lining up for something we wanted more. I’m not sure I’d go back again, unless one of the following comes to pass: a) they have a guest that was a must-see for me, b) they seriously improve their crowd control and access issues so I don’t spend half my time in lines, or c) I have a ton of money to blow on the exhibitors. If I can optimize the fun stuff though, then maybe….