Fan Expo 2010...

[Cheers Ian]

Originally Posted by GMfan

It was a friggan mad house from the looks/sounds of it too.

Yesterday was nuts. Today was MUCH better. It was nice to actually be able to walk around and not have to push your way through.

I'm really disapointed that you now have to pay $40 to have a "photo op" with celebs. That's honestly ridiculous...I totally understand the bigger celebs like Adam West, Stan Lee, James Marsters etc but for some of the others it's pretty unessessary. It was never a problem in the past to get photos with people.

There was even a line to get out of the convention. That was retarded.

All and all it was a good time. Organization sucked, but it was a good time.

Cheers!
-Ian

[TMIIWonkoNemises]

Went there only for Saturday,and was forewarned about the whole change of FanExpo,such as the murderous line outside and the whole organization of Panel rooms (I wasn't able to go to Tommy Tallerico's Panel due to being full).The Dealer's Room was okay,though I was used to it being in the South Building of the Metro Con Centre.

I didn't get to meet up with damani_d (Sorry man,forgot to text you),but got Blaster as well,sweet looking toy.Got to get my Scrapbook signed by comic book artists/writers,went to meet up with friends such as Marvin Mariano and Alex Milne,and also got to hang with the Bakugan kids (Who aren't kids at all,but two young men,sweet) and overall,gained a cool experience.Wasn't as good as last year,but was alright for one day.Missed my chance to meet Lance and Johnny (And Nick Roche too...how?) and didn't find the TFCon guys either...regardless it was fun.

[Shockwave 75]

When my wife got home today she told me that the Fanexpo made the news for it's poor organization.

You know it's bad when the general media picks up on it and it's not just a bunch of geeks griping.

[Dragon Knight]

I ended up getting Brad Swalie's and Johnny Yong Bosch's signatures today

The JYB Autograph really dissapointed me. It was just sign and go, next person...we didn't even get a chance to ask him antything or talk to him.

Brad Swalie on the other hand, that was a great time...Brad's such a fun dude too.

[UltraPrimal]

My final day of Fan Expo. And I do mean final.

Last night was pretty fun. Check out the the Electric Playground/Reviews on the Run panel. It was...kind of fun. Then I went to Tommy Tallarico's Video Games Live panel, which was very entertaining. I really want to go to a concert!

Today started off bad, though. Figured I'd walk in with my VIP badge at about 10:15. Nope. Yesterday the convention opened at 10AM. Today, I'm guessing they didn't open until 11AM. I don't know. I couldn't find anything that actual said what time they open, or close, but I'll get to that. Anyways, I had to wait in line for about an hour. They let the VIPs in in handfuls, but that walk-ins did just that, walk right in past the people who paid a lot of money in advance.

Because of that, I missed my first panel. So I went to the dealer room and picked up a few goodies for some friends. Then grabbed brunch from the side of a truck and went to get in line for Johnny Yong Bosch's autograph. At first I thought the line was for Stan Lee, but nope it was for Bosch. It was HUGE! My "linemates" sucked. Ahead of me were 2 guys, father and son, who I'm pretty sure were in line just to get an autograph to sell on eBay later. Behind me was a big guy with a serious BO problem. And he kept breathing down my neck. Needless to say it was a loooong wait. Why couldn't I have gotten in line with C2 and Kallen? Johnny was a cool guy, for all 2 seconds I got to talk to him. Seriously, the Fan Expo staff were rushing people through there so fast it made my head spin. I gave him a WFC BB to sign for me and I gave him another one as a gift which he really appreciated.

After that I was just in time for Mohinder Suresh's panel. It was OK. Then I went to Johnny Yong Bosch's panel, which was hilarious! Seriously, the guy is a pro at working a panel. He knows how to deal with "those people" and everything. I'd love to him as a "Sunday guest" at TFcon.

And finally, watched the Upon panel with Ninjatron and Zodberg. Some really beautiful art there. Then they closed the dealer room at the same time the panel ended. Stupid. They know people are going to want to do some last minute shopping before they go. They could have had it open for another hour. Just goes to show how poorly run this show was.

I won't be back next year. Well, maybe to get some exclusives and free swag. And to renew my Marvel online comic subscription. Now if you'll excuse me, I have 10,000 Marvel comics to read. Where to start? Where to start??

[Dragon Knight]

I had to line up 2 hours in advance for JYB And Brad Swalie...

[Ninjatron]

Good to see my boys Zodberg and UltraPrimal today. Otherwise, ehh. The convention people have a lot of work to do if they are going to win back my confidence. I've gotten used to being treated like human cattle at this convention over the years but this was a whole other level. To many people in too small a space, overpriced for the programming being offered, too much confusion all around.

On the bright side, Yesterday's Avengers cartoon preview panel was AMAZING. Marvel fans are going to go crazy for this when it airs on Teletoon in October.

Sayonara.

[Magnimus]

I was covering as media for Horror in the Hammer and my blog The Zed Word zombie blog, so I got to observe how crazy it was.

The organizers were plainly not prepared for the number of people (even those who had bought tickets) and the entire management of the lines was bungled from the very beginning. Most unimpressive.

[damani_d]

That is all good...it was madness anways to meet lol...were were either stuck in the EP Daily line on Saturday or Batman reunion....the creator for one of the video game websites I write for was able to get a question answered by Victor Lucas so it was worth attending the panel, not to mention those guys were grounded and down to earth...

The organizers seem to just care about ticket sales vs catering to VIP or Deluxe holders...which has been verified by facts on the Facebook page...I personally did not run into any problems other then a few cocky volunteers who I reminded to treat people with respect and if they couldn't maybe working in such an environment is something they need to reconsider next time lol...

I didn't bother with Tommy's panel or what not, as I knew it would draw a huge audience and with the idiotic decisions to put popular panels right next to each other in terms of when they started that was well retarded to say the least...

Anyways other then a few things that bugged me this was a successful three day expo for me...first of this magnitude...Some celebs need to swallow their pride however...they were charging an arm and a leg for autographs...

Originally Posted by TMIIWonkoNemises

Went there only for Saturday,and was forewarned about the whole change of FanExpo,such as the murderous line outside and the whole organization of Panel rooms (I wasn't able to go to Tommy Tallerico's Panel due to being full).The Dealer's Room was okay,though I was used to it being in the South Building of the Metro Con Centre.

I didn't get to meet up with damani_d (Sorry man,forgot to text you),but got Blaster as well,sweet looking toy.Got to get my Scrapbook signed by comic book artists/writers,went to meet up with friends such as Marvin Mariano and Alex Milne,and also got to hang with the Bakugan kids (Who aren't kids at all,but two young men,sweet) and overall,gained a cool experience.Wasn't as good as last year,but was alright for one day.Missed my chance to meet Lance and Johnny (And Nick Roche too...how?) and didn't find the TFCon guys either...regardless it was fun.

[TMIIWonkoNemises]

Originally Posted by damani_d

I didn't bother with Tommy's panel or what not, as I knew it would draw a huge audience and with the idiotic decisions to put popular panels right next to each other in terms of when they started that was well retarded to say the least...

I found it quite in bad taste that the Panels of both Electric Playground/Review on the Run and Video Games Live were side by side,considering that Tommy Tallerico and Victor Lucas are known in the video game world and are popular by fans from either three of the shows.I am a Fan of them both and was lucky to meet and interact with them personally before FanExpo '10 (Met Lucas in FanExpo '08 and met Tallerico in Video Games Live in Toronto '08),so I didn't really mind missing Tallerico's Panel on Saturday.It would have been well-planned out if the Panels were either a few hours apart or Hell,a Panel of Lucas and Tallerico (As well as the new EP/RotR crew) should have been held for Sunday (There was a history of Video Games Panel on Sunday held by G4,I'm not sure if Tallerico participated on it since he is a video game composer).Overall,the new organization was pretty weak this year and hope that there was feedback in the end in regards to line and panel organization...otherwise,I wouldn't mind to go to FanExpo for one day in 2011.