As I sit down with con flu at my little shitty laptop, I am only filled with positive feelings about Fan Expo Chicago.
My first con in ten years, I was so happy to be in the same room as so many artists, cosplayers, and actors who made me feel like I was home. I have always been a nerd, from the day I was born up until now, I have 33 years strong of being a dork, collecting Marvel trading cards and closet cosplaying Buffy characters before I found the beauty of the internet and was able to get screen accurate pieces. Going to cons was always something I wanted to do. When I went to Wizard World in 2014, I remember being blown away; I met actors who changed my life before, I talked to cosplayers and figured out how they pulled together their outfits, I made friends with the people waiting in line. I knew this was where I always wanted to be.
Then I graduated college and “the real world” crashed into my life and I forgot all about cons. I spent my time struggling and feeling stressed and left out as opposed to working towards my goals. So when Fan Expo appeared on my Instagram feed as an option, I knew I had to go.
And I will say, the magic was still there. I got to meet childhood heroes and meet cosplayers who loved Lisa Frankenstein. People wanted to take pictures with me in my cosplay, and it made me feel good — I was making people smile through my creativity. I laughed a lot, I smiled non-stop, and at the end of the day I was exhausted but I felt good. To me, this is how work should feel, and this weekend really solidified my need to make a career of going to cons and writing for a living. There were lots of positives, but that was the ultimate one. Now for a more technical breakdown of the good versus bad, without all my pesky emotions in the way.
As stated earlier, there were a lot of cosplayers there. As a cosplayer myself, this was really important to me and was a huge bonus to attending. However, they definitely oversold and it was very overstimulating and sometimes difficult to get around or find where to go. There were plenty of people who wanted to talk to me who got pushed out of the way by the moving crowd, which was frustrating when a lot of people use these events to market and connect. Talking to certain celebrities was ultimately impossible, and sometimes required waiting in line for 5+ hours just for you to get told you were getting cut off and not going to meet someone. This then led to people turning on con volunteers, or sometimes the celebrities themselves.
This also was exacerbated by the VIPs and how they ultimately clogged up lines even more. We were waiting in a line for an actor for 2 hours only for us to miss the opportunity to meet him because a VIP would just walk up to the booth and be able to cut us off. The system really creates an us versus them mentality, which didn’t aid to a positive environment when we are all stuck waiting in line. There were many people I talked to, particularly in the Matthew Lillard and Charlie Cox lines, who were in tears because they had spent their whole con day in line only to get nothing out of it. While VIPs are not a rarity at any con, there are ways to handle it better — for example, Horror Hound has VIPs but they are only allowed to skip a line total of 2 times. Not whenever they want, which I think creates a better experience for everybody. I don’t know how easy that is to maintain when you oversell a con, but it’s a good idea. Wizard World also used to let people get VIP but for specific people, which I think again is a better way to handle it. You can also have designated hours for VIPs to get autographs and photos, or aa variety of other solutions that isn’t punishing people who want to enjoy the con and not wait in lines all day.
This was the main negative take away that I had, though communication was also an ever present problem at Fan Expo. This also includes some volunteers who had decided they had had enough by Sunday and were verbally trying to start fights with confused guests in the celebrity photo op area. People are tired, they have been waiting in lines for three days straight, the last thing they want to deal with is another line that is essentially being run by tape on the floor and a mic that can’t be heard by half the crowd. They want to say hi to their fave celebrity and go home. It was never clear where to go or where things were, and I saw many frantic Mark Hamill fans, who only found out after fighting their way to the front that Mark was taking photos in another section of the convention center. Panels that weren’t in the main hall were also difficult to find, and signage wasn’t clear.
However, despite these negatives, I would go back. Con really invigorates the creative in me, and no amount of momentary confusion could outweigh the positives of laughing with people, making new friends, and making connections. I’m excited to go to Horror Hound in a few weeks and compare the experiences, seeing if more horror centric cons will solve a majority of the issues I had with Fan Expo. Either way, I had a fun time, and even with a sore throat, I would absolutely do it again.