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This con took place between August 27th to the
29th. I went on the Friday & Saturday.
The con had a huge, huge turnout. Everybody was
crammed like sardines the entire con. It felt like
double the people that came last year. Next month
I'll have the actual con stats and a more detailed
report.
The big news story on Friday was a booth got
busted by police. It was a regular booth that sold
knives, swords, ninja stars, (real ones) etc..
apparently some of that stuff is illegal in
Canada. Weird how the booth had been around for
years but just now got dinged. Anyway, there were
a number of police there taking statements. Yellow
police line tape was all around the booth. I over
heard people telling the police that they were
from Mississauga and yes, the weapons could be
dangerous if used to attack people. A number of
people were taking pictures, myself included. A
woman from the booth walked up to me and told me
to "Get Lost, Please." Come Saturday the booth
wasn't there. It was replaced by some guy selling
T-Shirts.
Saturday was jammed. The big story there was the
featured guest Patrick Stewart wasn't going to
show. Instead, the con was able to get LeVar Burton
(Geordi) and Michael Dorn (Worf) to come in his
stead. I was around for a bit and the Trek fans
seemed to be happy with them. The two really
entertained the crowd. Patrick Stewart said he
would come to Toronto and honour his agreement in
a month or two. It will be a special event when he
comes and everybody who got a ticket to see him
here, got a rain check for that event. Other Trek
people that were around was George Takei (Sulu),
Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
and Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Travis Mayweather).
There were other sci-fi people as well.
Also on Saturday were some Panels, I sat in on
George Perez drawing Avengers and the Cup of Joe
with Joe Quesada and C. B. Cebulski. Both panels
were done really, really well. They were
entertaining and afterwords everybody posed for
the camera and chatted informally with the fans.
There were a lot of people dressed up in costumes,
but probably not as many as last year. That said,
I actually saw some Superhero costumes this year.
Among those were Spawn, Wonder Woman, Lobo, Death
(from Sandman) and Rogue.
The con added a 4th element to the mix, that being
horror. There was an interesting display of a
dead corpse. That had to be censored come
Saturday, because it was a full figured female
body with breasts and pubic hair exposed. I got
pictures of the uncensored version, it will be up
next month. Home made horror movies were being
sold. This of horror, but there was some guy
selling a 13 minute Punisher vs. Wolverine movie.
He had it running on a loop and it was about as
good as the fan made "Batman: The End."
There were people promoting the Blade III movie.
X-Box had a line up of machines to play in
promoting a game. Somebody was selling their
animation software. Anime was a huge part of the
show, it was the general feeling among the comics
crowd that they were taking over. Only a few local
comic shops are showing up to the show now. Some
of the dealers I talked to said they had a bad
con, but most of them said it was as good or
better. Everybody liked that there was more foot
traffic but wished it translated into more sales.
Different this year was the scattering of stars.
Usually they are all in the back area, but this
Time, they were all over the place. In some cases
this made for bad foot traffic. I noticed Ty
Templeton moved from where he was sitting (a bad
spot) to where the rest of the artists alley was.
He may have moved though just to make room for
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and ACTOR who were
sitting next to him. George Perez was doing
signings/sketches for ACTOR and there was a long
line up for him.
It was a tiring con experience and was happy to be
home Saturday night. You had to spend the entire
time fighting through crowds to get where you were
going. Artists struggling in the alley section
were telling me they felt sorry for us on our feet
all day trying to slug out way through that mess.
Usually I want to be there Sunday for the deals,
but I already got good stuff for a good price on
Friday and some of Saturday.
Anyhow, next year they *really* need more space.
Both upstairs where the booths were crammed,
and come afternoon the downstairs where anime
autographs, movies and panels were was just as
crammed. With that many more people there they
should be able to afford to hire the staff to
handle the extra people. They need to move the
lineups quicker and just generally need more space
around the booths. I think this con just took
everybody by surprise in the amount of people that
showed up.
Anyway, I'll have much more details and pictures
in next months issue.
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