For the love of Zod today was long and tiring. I got to meet a LOT of new people that I welcome to the site, and lots of current readers that I finally get a chance to put a face to a screen name.
The Fan Expo this year had record attendance even to the point that they had to lock out many patrons to avoid the wrath of the fire marshal. The event floor was packed and it was difficult to move up any of the aisles.
We were going to leave the building for lunch (the food vendors were raping you so we refused to eat in the Convention Center) but we were told by security that getting back in would be difficult because the people being held outside would not likely let us by.
This was when I looked at the bank of glass doors and saw the mobs outside. I am told at one point nerdrage met a peak as some patrons stood on garbage cans and started rants asking to be let in, and screaming that the organizers refund their tickets. Ironically if they had been let in, they would not be able to move anyways.
The angry mob of anxious patrons pressed against the glass looked like the beginning of a zombie apocalypse. It was quite unnerving.
The Expo did not oversell the tickets, there just happened to be a point in the early afternoon that many of them showed up at the same time. To make up for it, the Expo stayed open an hour later to accommodate those late to the game.
Crazy day.
Anyways, here are some of the sights at this year’s Fan Expo:
Stan “The Man” Lee – diety of modern comics and really cool guy. He wasn’t even charging for autographs. Real class act!
The Batmobile. Not a replica. This was THE Batmobile. Burt Ward, Adam West and Julie Newmar had a reunion with the car, and are doing a photo op Sunday.
A cool Superman
The car from Supernatural
A hanging 5ft diameter Millenium Falcon
Hasbro had a pile of these dioramas made with the action figures.
And a neat photo op where you could make yourself look like an action figure in a blister pack.
Michael Dorn comes face to face with an action figure brought for him to sign.
Ernest Borgnine (McHale’s Navy and upcoming RED)
Peter Mayhew – Chewbacca. I could tell you just how tall this guy is, but experiencing seeing him in person is uncanny. He is just shy of 7’2″
and yes, he walks with a cane that looks like a lightsaber!
James Marsters was as charming as ever. Very nice guy.
And of course the very infectious and beautiful Felicia Day with her Guild co-star Amy Okuda
We are back at the booth for one more day then packing up and headed home.
There will be more to report later!
yes the tickets were oversold I was one of the volunteers and overheard several of the cahsiers were given orders to ‘keep selling’. The only reason the Marshall came was because it was oversold. The organization had an agreement with the fire dept but went against it. sorry to burst your bubble. I cant give my real name Gupta would kill me!
I have to agree with the other posters. Sorry Rodney. I spent about 2-3 hours waiting to get back in. I picked up a ticket for my friend on Friday to try and avoid the huge line ups and he never got in until 5:30 pm. We got screwed.
I agree with both Carel and Leia. The lines were horrible. When I finally got to the Dealer’s Room, I couldn’t even get close enough to the stands to see what I was buying! The Expo staying open an hour later didn’t really help me, I wanted to go see a panel and couldn’t get inside in time to see it. I was waiting outside for an hour. That should have been plenty of time to get in and get to the panel. All in all I was very disappointed this year. At this point, I won’t be back next year.
Who ever wrote this article must either be directly involved with Fan Expo or is being paid by them, the reason is simple this article is bias and full of misinformation….
The Movie Blog is not associated with the Fan Expo other than being a first time exhibitor at this year’s event. Be assured that they too feel the frustration of the logistics of the 2010 event, and are in no way trying to make excuses for the event coordinators.
With this in mind please note that the largest complaint of the event being oversold is inaccurate. An event such as this is not a limited seating like a movie, where there are only so many seats and if you don’t get a ticket you can’t get in. You have to look at it more like a bar or restaurant, people come and go all day long and once the building reaches capacity, you have to wait in the line for your table. If you only ever sold the amount of seats you have, your restaurant is going to be very empty for most of the day.
How they handled the fans is another matter entirely. The largest problem was that the whole building was considered the event floor. In the past, when the event was held in the other building, there were several levels and landings that people could go to when they wanted to hang out, eat, rest, get into costumes etc etc. Attendance for the event was monitored at the actual show floor doors, one person in for every person out. Since the hall this year had multiple doors in and out, people who went downstairs to eat and hang out, were still considered to be on the event floor and it restricted access to those outside who were there to see the show. I don’t fault anyone for not leaving the building; I do fault the event organizers for the planning/setup/execution as this is what the reason was for many of the issues.
The fan expo dropped the ball on handling the large volumes of fans who tried to access the show at the same time, that mixed with the fans trapped in the building (yes, trapped, I didn’t leave even though I wanted to for fear of not being able to get back in) with no place to go and still counted as being “on the exhibit floor” all lead to this giant disaster. This is the point Rodney is trying to point out.
As for the bat mobile, I was told by one of the guys at that exhibit that it was the actual car, so I assumed he knew what he was talking about. I chalk it up to someone having no real clue what they are talking about or wanting to impress me with the “real deal” as he called it. Oh well.
The show floor layout was also a horrible nightmare, for both patrons and vendors alike.
I can agree with you somewhat. I do agree that there are a bunch of people that will come to the event for a few hours and then leave, etc.. But my big problem is that they further compounded the problem by selling tickets while people were stuck outside.
I agree with you there as well. When the building was in “lock down” the event organizers should have at least warned people that it was going to be a few hours before they would be able to access the show when they were buying the tickets.
Like I said, it was how the show was organized and executed that caused all the issues. If people were not counted as being “at the show” that were in panels, in gaming rooms, in the landing area resting, more would have been allowed to access the floor. If the floor was not set up in some sort of crazed Sim City nightmare where only the two main aisles seemed to have ALL the traffic, it would have been nicer to walk around.
At this point in time I can only look forward to next year when they return to their original location and things go back to normal.
I agree with Carel.
It was oversold.
If it gets to the point where the fire marshal is there, and theres almost a 45 minute wait within a mob just to get up the escalator…I’m pretty sure its oversold. I thought I was going to faint in that mob. It was nothing short of a sweaty, geeky hell.
There “just happened to be a point in the early afternoon that many of them showed up at the same time.”
Thats a weak cop out. Its a three day Convention and they completely expect Saturday to be busy, they up the price by 10 bucks for gods sakes.
They’re should have been a point where they stopped selling day passes instead of locking people out who’ve already paid a pretty penny to get in.
That was ridiculous, and I will not be returning. Not if its run like that and especially if its in that kind of venue.
Next year they are returning to the North Hall which will allow for wider aisles, and better locations of booths. (and better access to the building) Ours was hidden away behind a giant Fox booth (which was WAY too loud) and many people who actually knew we were there could not find us.
Ernest Borgnine is still around?!
Yes he is! And quite spry for the ripe age of 93!
He was super polite and a great guy.
“The Expo did not oversell the tickets, there just happened to be a point in the early afternoon that many of them showed up at the same time. To make up for it, the Expo stayed open an hour later to accommodate those late to the game.”
They didn’t oversell? I arrived at 11am when it was still somewhat walkable. Went outside to grab food at 1pm and the line for reentry was stopped…people with deluxe & VIP had been waiting to get back in for 2, 3 hours. None of the staff said anything about it as people were leaving. Meanwhile, they were still selling day tickets and letting people in that way. Why did I bother to buy an all days pass in advance if they werent going to regulate traffic fairly? Don’t tell me it wasn’t oversold.
That they were not honoring existing entrants re-entry had nothing to do with how many tickets they sold. And people buying one day passes at 1pm were not granted immediate entry either. They sold just as many advance tickets as last year and had record on site sales.
They did a number of things poorly but selling tickets wasn’t one of them
Sorry, but I don’t understand how you can say that the event was not oversold. When Disneyland reaches capacity they STOP selling tickets. SDCC did the same thing a few years ago when the fire marshalls threatened to shut down the place. Fan Expo continued selling even though they hit capacity. How could you not say that was not overselling. Also you say they sold as much tickets as last year, but they were also at a smaller venue this year, so YES they did oversell.
Continuing to sell and not letting people in is different from overselling. Everyone who bought a ticket DID get in. Overselling would mean they sold tickets and then wouldn’t let you in.
The issue was how the handled the number of people that showed up all at once. And north hall is”bigger” but it’s layout is different which does not accommodate for traffic flow or side events as well as south hall.
In the big picture there was maybe 3-300 people outside with delayed entry. Considering the60k that showed they were in the minority
You are right about the food. $8.25 for a hot dog and a bottle of water..the bun was dried out way too much and I ended up tossing it.
You are wrong about the Batmobile, that in fact is a replica and not original. I spoke to the creator (some what larger guy) who hails from the GTA and the first question was “is this the real batmobile from the show” he responded with “no it is my creation, that I even drive around”.
So you might want to alter your description or at the very least confirm this yourself with the gentleman selling photo ops of his car towards the back of thoe batmobile.
We were informed that it was restored from the original car on the show. This information turned out to be incorrect.