So here I am after several days in
My first recollection of the whole affair is going to be fairly blunt: it was arguably the worst-organized convention I've been to (not that I've been to a lot) but I mean, it was fairly obvious that FanExpo (a combination of anime, comics, hobby-gaming, horror-movies, and sci-fi fan-event) has totally grown too big for its organizers. Volunteers didn't know what the hell was going on half the time and at least one competent staffer admitted to me that he was puzzled why there were line-ups formed before the con had officially opened (more on that later).
I think the whole visit crystallized with me when I got to the end of the first issue of Street Fighter Legends: Sakura and saw the ad for FanExpo. It seems that Udon Studios is home to several locals from around
After crashing at my cousin's home for the night, I woke to Saturday ready to roll (which was way more than I could say for the others). It was rainy out and the best we could manage was to go out for breakfast at a local tavern. We then had to wait for the rest of the gang - an assortment of friends and room-mates' friends. Finally, we were on our way to the con by about 1:30pm. This is not a great start considering the con was about half-over by then.
See, in my view, if a day-pass costs $20, and a full-access pass was $40, then the best bang for the buck would've been to attend for more than 2 days with the full pass. But life is just not that convenient. Admittedly, things would get worse and not just for me - I got off rather unscathed compared to my cousin.
After only a few moments inside the hall, my cousin looked down and discovered her badge was missing. As a group we decided to hunt down a security officer or a con volunteer for help. At the doors, we all got our re-entry stamps (because our badges were already validated when we first entered), and were then told we should ask at the ticket booth about getting the missing badge reissued. Instead, when my cousin arrived at the ticket counter, she was told she had to purchase ANOTHER pass!! When I heard this I was ready to strangle someone. How difficult would it have been for one of the volunteers to have escorted us to the ticket counter to testify on her behalf? How did she wind up INSIDE the hall to begin with? She must've had a pass at one point, right? Strike one.
In the meantime, for my part, I visited the Udon booth and met Omar Dogan, one of the talents and he signed my Street Fighter book. He also signed the two con-exclusive prints I bought (limited to a hundred prints, I'm told).
Then I rushed down to the autograph area (the larger area in the back for the VIPs) with my hardbound volume of Batman: Hush in an attempt to get it autographed by my all-time favourite penciller, Jim Lee. He was scheduled to start signing at 5pm but for whatever reason (ok, so maybe this might've been my own naïveté), I was already too late even at 4:15pm and the line-up was capped. I wandered the show floor a bit somewhat dejected (and determined to arrive earlier on Sunday morning). Then I met up with everyone to see a movie premiere upstairs.
The film was a Japanese romantic comedy take-off on the Beauty and the Beast theme: but with a geeky anime-fan and his well-adjusted "normal" girlfriend. I think it was called Densha Otoko (subtitled English as "Train_Man" - a nod to the on-line chat ID the main characters were fond of). The movie itself was easily the highlight of the convention for me.
But, oh, how hard was it to get the con-goers into the room?! My gang arrived about 4:45 hoping to get decent seats for the show (which was slated for 5pm, I think). But at the time, the previous event (an audience-interactive interview with Jeffrey Combs) ran over it's allotted time by at least 20 minutes. The security staffer let us in with what should've been only 5 minutes left on the interview - but we were kicked out when the interview was over! The volunteer told us a line had formed outside while we had been waiting inside ...and line that stretched around the corner and into a service corridor. Ugh. To make matters worse, they started the movie AT THE SAME TIME they started letting the audience into the room! Those of us at the end of the line missed the first few moments of the film. Strike two.
After the movie, we went out for supper before heading back to my cousins'. Dinner was nice and I recounted several oddball stories about life in
When we arrived at the con on Sunday morning (approximately 10:15am) we were shocked to find that the line-up for entry snaked around the lobby perimeter and into a neighbouring hall. And in the neighbouring hall, the line went up and down the length several times even. It was some 20 minutes later when a frantic volunteer (a rather comedic fellow with a dreadful lisp and odd accent) came running in and apologizing for the "mistake" while telling us to collapse the snaking line-up. So suddenly, 3 or 4 lengths of people became a single line up and folks who were hundreds behind me suddenly found themselves right next to me (or even in front of me). And the 3 volunteers who were directing us into there originally were nowhere to be seen... I haven't a clue was the "mistake" was but we got into the hall incredibly quick after that. By all rights this ought to be a third strike already ...but it's not.
I ran like a maniac over to the autograph area hoping to line-up to meet my comic-art hero, Jim Lee. I had my huge hard-cover in tow and my PSP fully charged ready for a good wait. And I arrived to learn that not only was the line-up capped, but that there was even a group of people in a "waiting line!" And for a noon signing, this wasn't even 11am yet. And I was not alone. A helpful event staffer (perhaps the only competent one in the place) explained to us that when he had arrived for work that morning at 9:45am, he had found to his dismay a line of over 200 people already waiting and that even he had no idea how they had gained access to the hall when the exhibition hadn't opened for the day. So he did the only thing he could do at the time: he allowed as many as he could into the queue without violating fire-hazard rules, then he ushered the rest into an out of the way corner where he issued up to 250 tickets that could get them into the signing if they'd be willing to wait. He also promised us that if it was physically possible - schedule permitting and of course, with Jim Lee's cooperation, those of us with the nerve to take our chances just might be able to be squeezed in at the end of the session.
Considering that I had already lugged my 3 pound book with me already, I decided it was worth my while to risk the slim chance to able to meet my comic book idol of 15+ years face to face. So I stood, sat, crouched and leaned on posts in the bay doors area next to dumpsters with a few other die-hard fans for 4 hours.
It started with "Jim will be signing for only 90 minutes; he has to leave by 1:30pm." Then it became, "turns out he's a huge Star Trek fan and is currently spending as much time as he can with fellow expo guests William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. He'll start his signing shortly." And eventually at one point became "he just got here so he'll only be signing for about an hour and a bit." In one particular instance, it was even "forget it guys, not happening, it's not worth the wait." In fact, the spill-over began to form in the line-up for the next artist due to appear next. And this is how disorganized the con had become. I kept up the hope that my guardian angel staffer would reappear and bring some good news and by 2:30pm - with only a few more minutes to go before Mr. Lee had to leave for his next interview panel - my faith and persistence paid off. The spill-over group had thinned to only a few left and that staffer came out from behind the curtain and announced that Jim Lee was willing to sign a few single items for those of us still waiting on his way out.
I spent the rest of the time after just shopping since I felt a little let down that after all that patience, that while did I finally have my signed book, meeting one of my heroes was rather impersonal. He was sort of in a daze when I stepped up (I can't say I blame him after meeting hundreds of fans in a few hours). I told him I appreciated his efforts to meet us all and I didn't even have the guts to ask him to personalize my book for me. I got to talk to Omar Dogan at the Udon booth again (not that he was likely to remember me from the day before).
And that was my experience at FanExpo. I'm really not likely to do that again.
In my leftovers list:Hooray - I found a dealer offering what I felt was a fair price for that limited edition Patlabor 2 set I wanted. Can't wait to sit down and watch it - this is one of my all-time favourite films.
And here's a 1/6 scale sculpt of Ayane from my favourite video game. A dealer offered me a discount coupon for his store (but I don't know if I'll get to use it before it expires). The ultimate irony is that although I had intended to display her with my Kasumi statue (which is the same scale), I'm reluctant to unpack her now that I'm due to move out in the next couple of months.
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