FANeXpo 2012: highlights from day 3

It's Day 3 of FANeXpo 2012!

And while I wish I had way more to tell you about today, I don't. For me, Saturday was a bit of a wash.

Why?

If I could describe FANeXpo on Saturday in two words, it would be this: LINES...

and CROWDS.

Here...

there...

... bloody well everywhere.

FANeXpo has worked very hard to become relevant in today's society. And one can hardly argue that they haven't done a great job of it. They have turned the event from something only hardcore genre fans would show up to to something that just about everyone wants to be at.

But...

The crowding issue today was way out of hand. In a move that had some recalling the fiasco of 2010, they had to hold crowds out of doors in the heat (and a good number of them in costumes that were far from comfortable in 30 degree weather) because they were getting too close to being dangerously overcapacity.

But once you got indoors, it made you wonder why you bothered trying to get in.

It was incredibly difficult to move around given the size of the crowds. Anything that one wished to do involved lines that went around the block, making it even more difficult to move around because they often would block areas in which people wished to move. It was a hazard to stop anywhere because chances are you'd cause a proverbial traffic jam.

At this point, it wasn't spectacle or fun or enjoyable. It was tiresome, painful and incredibly frustrating to be there.

And to further the problems of planning by the group, the convention sold out of tickets for Saturday at 1PM ... and failed to inform all the fans in line ... until they got to the front of the line after waiting for hours to get there.

(To a point, the security guard was probably within his right in saying that he wasn't about to tell close to 4,000 people that has been in line for a few hours already that they're all sold out of Saturday tickets)

I have had plenty to say about HobbyStar and how they have marketed and ran FANeXpo. After four years of volunteering there and several more as a general attendee, I can probably provide a complete expose on how they deal with fans, retailers and the whole she-bang.

But today should be a sign to the convention to rethink their floor plan. Within the confines of the convention, there is not enough space for all that was going on. Everything was jammed much too closely together and too much of the marquee events were happening on this one day.

DAY 3's DEALERS ROOM PICKS

The first of today's selection comes courtesy of Reboot (an awesome Canadian television series and one of the first ever computer graphic animated series).

I grew up on Reboot, and have been a big fan of its show ever since and even now. So the last two conventions I've been to, I've seen person after person wearing a Reboot button and I've been dying to figure out where they got it.

And then I found it.

Gavin Blair, one of the co-creators for Reboot as well as his partner in crime who was a designer for the show was selling these awesome buttons for $6 dollars. They are well made, poly-ethylene so they are soft and pliable with a two push-pin backing to allow for a straight and easy application on any accessory or piece of clothing you wish to apply it to.

Unfortunately by the time I got there they had ran out of the normal white buttons, leaving only Hexedecimal (red), Viral (green) and Guardian (yellow) buttons. So myself and a friend bought to Guardian ones, as a means to support the cause to bring Reboot back!

The second item of the day is one that I feel lucky to have found. It is the FANeXpo exclusive Big Bang Theory Flash t-shirt and Sheldon stuffed doll combo for $30 CDN.

I have coordinated with the guy friend of mine to purchase this before the convention as he could have the shirt and I could keep the doll. But to ensure that we could get a shirt that fits him, we didn't decide to purchase it until Saturday. Which was our first mistake.

The first booth near the front we found only had Xtra-Large, which was too big for him to wear.

So we had basically given up on that when near the back of the convention behind most of the big tent events I found another booth selling convention exclusives. Hurriedly I rushed over and asked if they had a Large or a Medium.

They had both.

We settled on the large size (which fit my friend perfectly) and I got my doll. And that my friends, is how I got this awesome doll.

Want to see the cosplays on Saturday? Click here for the post!