FanX Report – 2015

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 2, 2015

I spent the weekend at the Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience – sort of an offshoot of Salt Lake Comic Con. As far as the differences between this and the full-fledged Comic Con, it felt like there were fewer panels, and the celebrities were pulled from media outside of traditional geek fandom. I guess it’s supposed to be more of a “pop culture” thing. This year they deliberately reduced the size of FanX to 50,000 attendees (last year it hit 100,000, and Comic Con hit 130,000). It was hardly intimate, but it felt a lot smaller than the previous events.

As I was at a combined table for Xchyler-published authors. We didn’t think that sales were as brisk as they’d been at similar events, and I don’t know why that was the case. We heard similar things from some other authors, but I don’t know how the rest of the vendors fared. We may need to think about another approach for these conventions. I missed the last couple of hours on the floor, though, and typically that’s where the big flurry of buying happens. (I know that’s how I do it… I window shop until the final day).

Compared to my running a game booth for Frayed Knights at Comic Con in September, this was much, much more relaxed. I actually got to play regular attendee about half the time. I got to see Billie Piper and Carrie Fisher. (In a very meta- type photo, I took a picture of Billie Piper getting her picture taken with us. Although – I also got other people snapping pictures, so one could argue that it is a picture of people getting a picture of Billie Piper getting a picture with us….)  Billie Piper was very down-to-earth. Carrie Fisher… not so much. But she was very fun. She smooched the first guy to bring her a Coke – we’re talking serious, 15-second kiss here – so he’s got a story to tell about how he made out with Princess Leia.

A panel on “The Science of Interstellar” – all about the current scientific theory that the movie was based on – was absolutely fascinating. The panelists did a great job, and seemed to know their stuff (they had one physicist among them, at least, who works with a little bit of what they talked about in the movie on a daily basis).

The costumes were – as usual – half the fun. My favorites included a woman dressed up as Idris from Doctor Who – but her dress was clearly (if understatedly) a Tardis. Clever! Also, there was a girl in a Toothless costume (from How to Train Your Dragon) who was amazing (although – especially when she walked on all fours – it looked exhausting). There was also a couple dressed as Thermians from Galaxy Quest who were pretty amazing. I wish I’d taken more pictures – I was way too slow to pull out the ol’ phone or tablet.

The exhibitor floor was also very nice – as usual. While there were plenty of regular shops selling the standard geeky wares, I was personally impressed by all the local talent on display. Particularly the artists (because their skill is on display) and craftspeople. It was also a small enough event this time around that I was able to run into a lot of people I knew, even though it was still far too big to run into everyone I’d hoped to see.

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