When asked what I got up to this past weekend, I replied that I checked out the Fan Expo. The most common response to that was, "what's that?".
My usual instinct was to walk away from these 'normals' who knew so little of the world I love, but as they were cohorts, bosses, and friends of the girlfriend I patiently attempted to explain what it was...
"It is a celebration of speculative fiction" I would say, drawing blank stares.
"It's where like-minded people who enjoy sci-fi and fantasy go to enjoy these genres in all their glorious forms". Then a light bulb would go off and they'd reply "Ohh, a nerd fest". Ya, sure, a nerd fest.
But it was one of the best nerd fests I'd been to! Understand, for a city that is the set location for so many Syfy network shows and Hollywood films, we are starved for these kinds of Comic-con style conventions. We have a massive anime convention, Anime Revolution, coming up in August (standby for coverage), as well as several local scale comic-cons. But none of them could rival what took place last weekend. It was huge! This level of starvation of that which my people hold so dear became very apparent when we rolled up on the convention centre only to find a four-thousand person line-up!
Luckily, that human procession was only for those without advance tickets, and our dear friend Adam had the foresight to grab some...score!
Once inside there was much ado about all the celebrity cameos including Adam West, Kevin Sorbo, The Original Batmobile, Lou Ferrigno, and many more...
I myself went for completely different reasons:
1. Cosplay!
2. Artists!!
3. Shwag!!!
4. And an honourable mention has to be the Vancouver Convention Centre itself...
An unreal building with so many so many elements of speculative fiction elements about it. In fact several scenes from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol were filmed inside and out of this epic building!
I leave you now with a few shot of my favorite cosplay from what I can only assume is the first of many Vancouver Fan Expos!
