Fan Expo 2011 Day 1 – Line-up Issues and Unleashing my Inner Trekkie

Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Marina Sirtis greets fans.

While only half a day, I have to say that today turned out to be an enjoyable start to the Fan Expo.  However, it did not start out that way.  In a continuing example of the bad organization that plagues the convention, the lines to get in were quite confusing.  There was only a single volunteer on the corner guiding people where to go and I only wish that the expo at least set up some decent signage, marking the different lines.  However, the line moved swiftly after they started letting people in at 2:00 and I made it onto the show floor by 2:30.

For the most part, today can be called my main show floor day.  I didn’t have many Q&As planned, so it was a good day to explore the various booths, which including things, such as robots from the upcoming film Real Steel, green screen photographs, and video game stations.

Of course, one of the main highlights for me was the Celebrity Autograph Area.  Since, I consider myself to be a bit of a Trekkie, I lined up to get an autograph from Marina Sirtis (aka Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Ethan Phillips Q&A

The Star Trek theme continued with my first Q&A of the Expo, which featured Ethan Phillips (aka Neelix from Star Trek: Voyager). It was a very entertaining Q&A, with Phillips frequently giving off humourous one-liners.

Robert Englund

The biggest autograph line of the day, hands down, belonged to Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger).  I hoped to participate in a photo-op with him, but I found out that I would have had to have joined the line and purchased a photo ticket from his booth (with such a wait, I might as well just get an autograph).  Perhaps I will try again with getting a photo op with him or some other celebrity later in the weekend.

Lance Henriksen Q&A

The final highlight of my day involved going to a few more Q&As.  I caught the tail end of the Kevin Sorbo Q&A, which was interesting, but also demonstrated has hard it was to hear to un-mic’d questions from the crowd.

This was followed by the Lance Henriksen Q&A.  It was definitely the most entertaining Q&A of the day and an interesting habit Henriksen had was to call out at everybody who got up to leave.  It was definitely the best part of the day.

Well that was Day 1 of the Fan Expo.  Tomorrow is the first full day and it is poised to be a very jam packed on for me, with me planning to leave bright and early to try and beat the line-ups.