Salt Lake ComicCon 2013

This weekend I was lucky enough to make it to SLC ComicCon.  I've never been to a convention before, so when purchasing tickets I only nabbed Saturday tickets thinking that I wouldn't want to be there more than an hour or two-but I was so wrong!  We were there from about 11am to 9:30pm on Saturday, and after attending panels and learning things I found myself wishing that I'd been there all three days-though I still think they should have done it Fri/Sat/Sun instead of Thurs/Fri/Sat, but oh well-it is Utah.

We arrived and stood in line for about 45 minutes.  The lines were a MESS, mostly becuse they did not expect that kind of turn out... But once we got in it was a blast seeing all of the cosplay, walking around the artist's booths, interacting with a few choice celebrities, and going to panels.

There were only two celebrities I had any desire to interract with. (Personally I hadn't gone in thinking I'd have any desire to get autographs or pictures, and while I didn't get autographs I did get two pictures with Celebs that I now love more than ever.)  I know the big ones were there (Shatner, Adam West, Stan Lee, etc.) but really didn't care enough... Kristina waited for an hour and a half to see Stan Lee speak for 20 minutes and said he was actually really rude to his fans the whole time... Which leaves quite a bad taste for him now... They said Adam West was funny and personable, but Shatner seems to be stuck on an endless loop of self promotion and senility. lol

First we stopped to see Nicholas Brendon.  It was only $10 to get a photo and they said we could all be in it.  First thing he did was step up and ask me if I wanted a hug-UM YES! So I hugged him, and then I told him that we weren't going to mention Buffy, but instead Josh wanted to commend him on Psycho Beach Party, and I'd like to tell him that he played a very convincing crazy rapist on Private Practice.  He laughed and thanked us.  He had the ability to make every photo look like he was just hanging out with his friends.

The second was Manu Bennett from Spartacus.  Not only is he attractive (um yes, cuddled up against his muscley chest there was amazing!) but he has a sexy Australian accent and he was SO nice.  He took time to stop and tell us how going from Spartacus to Arrow was like moving from playing classical piano to being a pop star-but that he had enjoyed both of them for their differences.

Here are some fun cosplay (and other) photos from the convention:

 I also have to send a shout out to Geek Lee Tist, who I followed on Instagram prior to convention, and when we stopped to talk to him I realized I did-and told him so.  He handed me his phone and said "Hey, make me follow you back" so I found my IG from his phone and now he follows me.  He was awesome, and his art is both nerdy and snarky-I love it.  Oh and the guy from Unicorn City-didn't even charge for this photo-he was so nice! Emily just hopped up there and he posed!

 By the time I figured out what panels were I made it into the Skinwalker Ranch panel and then tried to catch the JJ Abrahams Rebooting Star Trek panel but when it was too full we made it into Effective Horror which ended up being so boring that we snuck out after 20 minutes.  I was pretty bummed I missed the Spartacus panel which Josh and Doug went to and thought was amazing!  We also watched the last hour of a fantasy movie (that was horrible, but at least pretty) and then caught the world-premier sneak peak of Skinwalker Ranch (which is made locally. During the Skinwalker Ranch panel I let Kaylee do some nail art on me to keep her busy, and she was actually really good!  It's a tree!

It was also nice to get dressed up... I just wore my Wookie shirt, but I did my makeup and nails pretty!

A few fun facts I learned about Salt Lake City's first ever ComicCon:

• They planned on 13,000 people but when they sold nearly double that in the first few hours they had to move it from the South Town Expo Center to the Salt Palace.
• We actually had 70,000-80,000 in attendance-making SLC's ComicCon the first in the nation to have that many people attend in the first year-setting a new record.  This also put it on par with regular attendance in cities like Las Vegas.
• This was the biggest convention of any kind Utah has ever seen.  There's another record.
• The Fire Marshall shut it down 3 times during the entire process for violations and the amount of people.  This set another record, as it's the first convention in Utah to ever be shut down. Record.
• Next year our estimated turn out is expected to rival that of San Diego, which is the largest. WOW.

How was your weekend?

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