Well, Fan Expo is done for another year and I am gathering my thoughts about how my 5th year at the convention went. For the second half of the weekend, I decided to take shelter from the crowded exhibition floor and actually check out some Q&A panels. I saw a quite enjoyable panel on Saturday morning by the Soska sisters (American Mary) and I would later get an autographed poster from them, during an autograph session on Sunday. Since I first became aware of the Soskas when they showed American Mary at Toronto After Dark last year, I’ve became more and more impressed with how exuberant and down-to-earth they are. They truly seem grateful that people have come to see them and for that I will definitely be interested in checking out whatever they make (their next film will be See No Evil 2 for WWE Studios). Now I will move on to the panels I saw in the main theatre in the North Building, which also leads to my biggest pet peeve about this year’s Fan Expo. On Saturday, I saw half of the panel by Todd McFarlane (Spawn), followed by the Q&As for Zachary Quinto (Heroes, Star Trek) and Colin Baker (Doctor Who). Then on Sunday I saw the Q&As for Karl Urban (Star Trek, Dredd) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy). I saw all these panels back-to-back and the reason for it was that the theatre was not being cleared between panels. This resulted in people staying in their seats, which made entering the room for the panels a difficult task, especially if someone popular was on stage. As such, once I got a seat, I figured that I should just stay there and watch multiple panels back-to-back. While it probably saved on last year’s worry of having to line-up for panels, it is definitely not fair for the people that wanted to see a certain panel. As someone who can now call himself a seasoned veteran of Fan Expo, I am somewhat divided on how I will proceed in the future. I can say that I still enjoy going to Fan Expo, but I am starting to wonder if it is truly worth it to commit myself for the whole weekend. I’ve made it no secret that I was not happy in how the price of a deluxe pass as gone up by $20 each year in the 3 years I’ve been getting them. Other than being less expensive than four single-day passes, I don’t really believe I’m getting that much bang for my buck. However, the ultimate conundrum is that while four days may be too much, one day is too little. I’m not sure how I’ll tackle Fan Expo next year, but there’s a very real possibility that I might only see half of the convention or less. This will definitely be the route I go if prices keep going up. Seeing celebrity guests is nice and all, but it’s not worth paying hundreds of dollars for a whole weekend. As always, I will be taking a “wait and see” approach and see how Fan Expo attempts to improve itself in the next year. If next year’s line-up looks enticing, I might as well take the plunge for a sixth year. Now, to conclude this wrap-up with my multimedia portion. As always, I took photos all weekend and this is the second year in which I also made a highlight video. Keep an eye on my YouTube channel in the coming days for some extended video clips. Fan Expo 2013 Video Highlights Fan Expo 2013 Photo Gallery
Fan Expo 2013: Second Half and Wrap-Up
Affiliate Ad