Fan Expo 2010

August 27th to 29th, 2010
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Toronto Ontario


Fan Expo 2010 would be the year of hell for fans and Fan Expo itself. Unable to book the South Hall at all due to another event locking it down for two weeks. I must admit the folks did their best at trying to make the best of poor situtation to start but crowd numbers easily outstripped the best laid plans.

Friday 8:30am London

I got on the second bus heading to Toronto in time but not in time to get a coffee at Tim Hortons. Mega :( There were many fans on the bus including one with her Zombie Bag. Doesn't hurt to be prepared. This ride still going to suck without my Timmies.

11:00am Somewhere on Lakeshore

For what time we made up taking the toll road, we lost taking Lakeshore rather than taking the QEW. Things speed up pass the Ex. Onto Royal York...

11:30 Tim hortons by Royal York

tried to connect here but no luck. Finish my coffee and head over to MTCC

1pm

   

The line for registration went on for blocks.

Line ups from hell but it's nice outside. Plenty of pictures but the line for registering never moves. :(

   

More photos from the line in our gallery.

The girls from TRON booth posed outside for the crowd.

Girls from Tron booth were working before the show started by posing for the crowds. I thought that was a nice touch for the fans. If any year, Fan Expo needed to take it's act outside it was this year. Being nice weather it was perfect. There were several of rebuilds of classic movie cars parked on Front Street as always. There was also companies doing prmotions along the line up. Got a free Vitamin drink on Front street as part of a promotion. Thanks Guys.

   

fans broke out the cards or simply found a place to sit waiting for the line to start moving.

Banded ...branded?

Registration was another mess though I managed to buy an extra pass of someone who friend cancelled. That sped things in the line up. Though I was cussing at this years choice of replace the standard neck band pass for wristbands. it made for hell for showering the next day.

Branding included free episodes of Doctor Who on iTunes which was useless for myself as I had nothing to download them onto. I did take the card for my friend back home.

Hanging out? Roger that!

 

The Rogers booth became the new place for fans to sit down and take a load off their feet though it was the floor. Later years they would expand the caffeteria areas with tables and chairs. However, space this year was at a premium in the North Hall.

TRON and LEGO

TRON took center place at Fan Expo with extensive display. On the other hand, LEGO scaled back with a smaller display. Of course, space there wasn't.

 

Games at Fan Expo

Gaming was at Fan Expo this year though limited but what wasn't. The big game that stuck out for me was MicroVOLTS. The game theme was first person shooter but in a toy perspective. The ablility to custom your character to match most anime character types was very interesting. I did get a beta copy for playing but on my netbook it barely ran.

 

 

GO play GO


Artist Alley

Jack Ward and friends at Decoder Ring Theatre booth

I collected artist alley cards on Friday as well as photographs.

     

Artists love to cosplay ... well some.

Saturday

 

After waking up late for breakfast, I simply grab a drink and headed to College Street. Along the way I saw many of the sights I passed up seeing the night before. Stopped by a community yard sale, nothing interested me. I made pit stops along many of the computer stores along college. Eventually I bought a Bluetooth adaptor for my netbook but in hindsight, I should have picked up a headset as well. I stopped for Tim Hortons the entered the MTCC.

Today I was able to take more pictures than I did Friday. With collecting the Artist Alley cards out of the way, I was set to do 4 Koma challenge but where in heck did all these people come from?

 

During the afternoon, I made the mistake of stepping out for a coffee and a hotdog. A grave mistake. The fire marshall had locked down the entire building and even at one point the adjoining hotel.

   

The line to get back in was intensely long. Along Front Street, towards Union Station then down under the Gardner Overpass. I amoung others were not happy. My stuff was at a friend's booth and they were leaving for concert at 6:30pm. With some insane luck I managed to get back in time to collect my gear.

 

The cars of Fan Expo

Car from TV show, Supernatural

Cars in movies and shows were prominate at fan Expo this year as always both inside and out.

   

Back to the Future DeLorean

 

Blues Brothers car

The car that got the most attention was still the batmobile from the classic 60's series.

       

Batmobile

Even though Fan Expo extended the hours to 8pm, after 7pm, the crowds thinned out.

Ashlynn Handy

   

Ashlynn Handy memorial at Fan Expo

Sadly weeks before this year's Fan Expo, Ashlynn Handy died from a fall. Fans, cosplayers and photographers like myself and others; were devastated at a lost. Super Kawaii magazine had a memorial to Ashlynn which still brings a tear to my eye to this day. Even my blog post remained in the top 10 pages viewed on Anime London website for months and years afterward. Everyone connected with Ashlynn and her death profoundly impacted us all.

Ashlynn Handy - March TAC 2010

Masquerade

     

Breezed by the lineup for the masquerade

I made it to the masquerade. The staff were gracious to allow videographers their choice of setting up to cover the masquerade. Camcorders have become the accepted means of covering the masquerade and I'm glad that the staff gave all of us heads up on the program.

Stage for the Masquerade

After the masquerade was the Steam Punk fashion show, sadly something like this should have ran before the masquerade. A brief tribute to Ashlynn Handy before I had to take off to catch my bus back to London.

Sunday

Home around 3am is not fun but I managed to do some stuff before crashing. I got the photos of Saturday up later. Artist Alley cards would take much longer.

Aftermath

I heard that Sunday was a lot better than Saturday but the damage of Saturday was done. For most, MTCC north hall could not handle the record numbers. Some lay blame that more tickets were sold than the MTCC could hold. Others see it as a trend since Comic Con in Sa Diego suffered the same fate as well.

We head back to south hall next year but will it be any different? Last year, the dealer's room was locked out for 3 hours by the Fire Marshall. Having everything under one room is no longer fesible. The problem is where could Fan Expo grow? Definitely not at the Ex. If not on, it's tied down with setting up for the Ex. Hobbystar needs option of grabbing more space if needed. No doubt it will take over the entire MTCC in time. Maybe sooner than we or Hobbystar thinks.


Domo arigato, Fan Expo fans.