Ronald S Woan's Blog

UPDATE: Pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/8502118@N08/sets/72157623912634590/ 

 

Overall I would rate it a decent neighborhood convention, if you went on Saturday; otherwise, I think it was a major disappointment.

The only reason to attend Friday would be if you wanted to avoid the crowds and chat with one of the celebrity guests that you knew would be there. There was very limited content on Sunday and most celebrity guests in the autograph area skipped out (I did see Melinda Clarke on Sunday though she was only scheduled Saturday on the website as the only notable exception).

More established local conventions (I don't know if there is one in the LA area, but I am thinking of the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle as an example) are much better organized from a programming perspective. This one had really had very limited panel content and very disappointing media programming especially given proximity to Hollywood. Of the panels, the only ones I really enjoyed were the Avi Arad/Stan Lee, Stan Lee, William Shatner and Ilya Salkind panels. OK I won out in the Stan Lee autograph raffle which was cool.

For a comic convention, someone made a good point that both DC and Marvel were absent presumably to attend the C2E2 convention in Chicago. For folks travelling like myself, C2E2 was definitely the conference to attend this weekend had I known about it.

Also I understand that guest schedules are always subject to cancellations, buit I have never seen so much churn for any convention. Virtually none of the folks in the ads that made me consider making the trip actually showed up other than Stan Lee and William Shatner. There were no announcements (other than names silently disappearing from the website) of the changes in lineup except for Irvin Kershner, leaving a bait and switch slimy feeling for the organizers. No Eliza Dushku, Kelly Hu, Juliet Landau, Lance Reddick... If Elizabeth Rohm showed up, I missed her. The only last minute additions of note were Shannon Doherty and Holly Marie Combs of Charmed.

In summary this was my first and probably last Wizard World organized convention.

See you all at San Diego Comic-Con which is just a mindblowing awesome experience every year.