Last weekend my wife and daughter along with my son and his girlfriend (although they went down on their own a day early and were doing their own thing most of the weekend) attended the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. What a great time.
We saw lots of cool stuff, like the Bat-mobile from the 60's TV show, and the DeLorean from Back To The Future. Had our pictures taken with some members of the 501st Legion who where there fundraising. We saw all kinds of cool comics and collectibles at the many vendors. Bought a few cool t-shirts and ate some overpriced food. My Daughter was happy as she got to see a few of her favorite actors including Mr. Adam Baldwin (she is a huge "Firefly" fan), and I got some time to myself to cruise the artists area.
Saturday was a little bit out of control because attendance was way more than they had anticipated. It go so bad that the Fire Marshal stopped letting people in which really sucked for some, because staff where telling some people to go outside and around the building to bypass the congestion. It really, really sucked for the husband of a woman in line behind us whose husband was trapped outside because he was trying to get to the photo op for the entire cast of Star Trek: TNG (Cost of photo op ticket: $495 ). Even after explaining this to the people outside, they would not let him back in.
According to the organizers of the event, it wasn't that they oversold tickets just bad timing as much of the congestion was around the ST:TNG events. And I have to agree. I mean, I am a huge Star Trek fan, but even I took one look at the craziness around all the ST:TNG cast and thought to myself, "There is no way, as much as I would love to get an autograph from Sir Patrick Stewart or Johnathan Frakes, that I am wading into that mess." And the lines they had for some of their guests were woefully too short like Wil Wheaton (his line was quite short. I don't think they took into account his new found popularity thanks to "The Big Bang Theory"), as was the autograph line for James & Oliver Phelps, aka: Fred & George Weasley (never underestimate the insanity of Harry Potter fans).
Luckily the promoters did their best to honour tickets from Saturday on Sunday as much as they could and you can still get refunds on their website till the end of May. At the end of it all, I think they handled the overflow as well as can be expected. Even with all the congestion and the standing forever and long days our family had fun. and we even found the time to visit our daughter who lives in Calgary. Best of all, I had a chance to meet and get a picture with Mr. Stan Lee. All in all a fantastic weekend and we can't wait till next year. Excelsior!
