WonderCon Report 2006

WonderCon Report 2006: The atmosphere at WonderCon's 20th Anniversary was festive. It was not super hectic and it gave everyone a chance to talk, go to panels & see the guests. This years show was February 10-12 over the President's Day weekend. Attendance was good, and Saturday was Packed! I believe that there were 12,000 attendees last year? This year must have increased that number by a lot. There was a decent amount of stuff to do and see upstairs and down, including several free movie premieres. The Exhibits floor vendors sold Comics, Books, Art, Trading cards, Heroclix, Bearbricks, Sci Fi, Action Figures, Japanese Anime toys, plus DVDs of movies & VHS of old TV shows. The only thing missing was a games booth. It seemed like only 3 of the vendors sold a single game supply. Then it was only Heroclix or CCG cards. No gaming variations and no dice or counters. Even TCG card games need counters. Other than that tiny whine things went pretty smoothly.

The Programming panels were upstairs. There were some fine premieres and clips from upcoming movies, and several creators discussing their work and projects. For fun one of the panels allowed attendees to call out suggestions for their favorite robot. Who would win in a fight between Doctor Theopolis (& Tweekie from Buck Rogers) and Roomba (the vacuum cleaner). Gort and Robbie the Robot. The only rules for the game were that it could not be an animated robot. So the Jetson's housekeeper Rosie could not come out to rumble.

Masquerade had a large turn out. 27 entries crossed the stage to a packed room of about 600 spectators. Most of the 27 were well designed and the few that did a skit were clever. They were all good. My favorite costume close up was Zelda & Link. The stitching and detail was awesome, but you could not see it from the audience. The Firefly / Serenity movie group did a fun song and won a prize. "Bats" was another costume that required a close up look to know how much work was done. 21 of the 25 pictures are of costumes. Here is a link to some of them.

WonderCon was a great show and the weather was beautiful. The food at WonderCon is superior to other conventions. Inside the convention center and across the street at the Metreon Mall. The whole city of San Francisco knows how to cook. I can't imagine why anyone would attend an east coast convention in the winter when everything is so much better here in the land of the sun.

In case anyone wondered what took me so long to Post, Blog & get my pictures up, I'll tell you. I had a list of 20 things to do when I got home from WonderCon. Plus 20 more that were not even on the list, like pick up kids, unpack and take Aunt Mary shopping. Of the 20 things on the list only 4 could be done easily & in a short amount of time. 16 deadlines all begging for a Saturday timeslot is too much for me. I don’t see how the head of Programming does it!

There was a Freebie booth at WonderCon. It had a lot of great movie posters, most of them from horror movies. The best one was the Ultraviolet poster, Milla Jovovich and a beautiful silver sword. Several items were at the individual Booths, like DC, Newline Cinema or the Panels upstairs. The following is a list of all the free swag I know about. Here are two group shots of some of the many freebies.  

WonderCon Swag    WonderCon Shirts