Things were good on Friday considering it was a workday. Saturday & Sunday were so packed that they ran out of badges again! Friday & Sunday were pleasant, but Saturday was insane. The place was packed! As a friend pointed out to me, Saturday felt like someone had opened a can of Comic-Con and poured it over WonderCon. Supposedly WonderCon is a mid-sized convention, but it felt like a giant!
Moscone Center is a very nice place, but like every convention center, it has a few flaws. The inability to get from point A to point B, due to lack of signage is one thing, but poor design and layout from the building cannot be fixed with a sign. Sometimes Architects are too busy being fancy and should stick with functional. That being said, some people are just a victim of overexcitement and a Tunnel Vision attack. Where is the DC Booth? You past it as you came in the front door. Oh. Where is the food? You past it as you came in the front door. Oh. The reason I heard this so much is because I was standing still in the Games area at the corner of the Hall. Many confused people wandered over to ask the same questions over & over again.
Many comic-related writers & artists had wonderful panels. They also had tables in the Exhibit hall that I could get to pretty easily. There were very good panels to see upstairs on each of the days. The stars of Chuck and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles appeared. There was a great movie premiere at the Metreon for the Watchmen in its IMAX glory. The premiere of theWonder Woman animated DVD was held on site in the big Esplande room.
WonderCon held it's fifth Masquerade which I did not manage to see at all this time. Saturday was Hall costume day and Masquerade night. I have posted a picture link for the many Hall costumes (23), but I have none from the Masquerade. IF you see a picture of you or your group feel free to contact me for the original raw un-cropped jpeg(s)
The food at WonderCon is still superior to other conventions, inside the center and across the street at the Westfield & Metreon Malls. We had many a good meal that was not too pricey. I had Buckhorn for lunch each day because it is so Yummy! We found various places to eat featuring Japanese, Indian & Chinese food.
The Games section doubled in size this year and it is a good thing, because the players came out in droves. There were Tournaments going, demos being taught or attendees could bring their own games to play. The area in front of Games was often used by Costumed fans to take photos, which was only slightly annoying. The main problem were actually attendees trying to rest in the assigned seats area at Games. The Attendees had no way of knowing the table were all assigned times & dates. However if the Attendees would stop doing the Tunnel Vision thing and focus their eyes on the 5 signs stating "Games" they might not have had such a shock.
The Exhibits floor had lots of Artists, Small Press, a few big Companies and Vendors. The Artists & small companies were diverse. I bought a few things from several of them. The nice thing about WC is that a person has time to look at an item and talk to the person selling it without being crushed...most of the time.
Exhibits Floor Finds
WC Group A Exhibits Floor Freebies There were three Freebie tables at WonderCon for posters, stickers and buttons. Each company or artist seemed to have their own swag and several items were at the individual Booths or the Panels upstairs. The following is a list of all the free swag I know about.
The WonderCon website is jam packed with information. Go there directly or through the Comic-Con website at: http://www.wondercon.com/
Mary, marysgarage@hotmail.com