Soooo it’s that time of summer again when we get to ramp up the nerdiness and head to Toronto’s Fan Expo. I’ve been for the last four years, and I have to say that it was with great hope that I went into this year’s edition.
Last year, the Expo was a huge hassle, and here are a few reasons why: Taking place in the South building of the Toronto Convention Centre, which is the larger building, we had to wait over two hours at the opening hour to get in, as the number of attendants threw the Fire Marshall into a worry about overcrowding. The inside was still overly crowded and many people seem to believe they can follow the stigma that people who love nerd/geek culture don’t need to wear deodorant.
Anyways, this year the event was moved to the smaller North Building, despite last year setting record numbers for attendance. We waited over an hour and a half to get our ticket and onto the floor, despite having arrived nearly an hour before doors were to open. There were zero signs pointing out where the event had been moved to, and the staff of the convention centre were short and rude, asking us to tell other people ourselves that the event was not in the south building.
There seemed to be a shorter list of exhibitors this year for some reason, and the horror area definitely seemed smaller than last year. Most disappointing to me was the lack of ANYTHING from Marvel and DC Comics. You’d think the biggest two publishers would have something… but you’d be wrong. Marvel had ONE artist signing autographs in the four times we walked past, and at one point was allowing people to pose with a replica Captain America shield for photos. That was it. Oh, and a lame “Marvel Mix Tape” comic which had four previews of comics (three of which are already available in stores to buy).
DC had nothing at all each time we walked by. You can try and claim “It was the opening day though” but we all know that’s BS, you can’t act like one day doesn’t count. If you’re going to a convention of any type, you should be out there killing the crowd with amazing samples, artists, writers and more. That’s what we go for, and both companies flat out failed to deliver.
On the upside, the costumes were pretty awesome this year, one of our favourites being a huge guy dressed up as Thor. Somehow we managed to not see him outside of the lineup to get in though, so we couldn’t get a photo. The Tron display dominated the floor, the Alien display seemed a little low key despite being so big. I guess they’re just excited to announce it on Blu-Ray? I couldn’t say.
I didn’t see too many great deals, though there were some. I did enjoy the giant Galactus action figure they had, and was impressed that they’d already run out of them for the day as they were eighty dollars apiece. That’s commitment to toys at that price.
Overall, I’d have to give this a mere two out of five stars. I’ve loved the Expo for few years now, but I will be very hard pressed to go back next year if they don’t give it the adequate space and have the big companies busting their asses for the fans.
