Wizard World--Toronto Comic Con

March 27 2009

Liz and I love most of the conventions that come to Toronto and we go to most of them as I really like to support them. This was a new one, Wizard World - Toronto Comic Con. First year for this Con so of course we went. Now we both laugh after we got our badges when the lady told us not to worry the line would move fast. There was maybe 50 people in line and we have been in lines with over 3000 in them and the wait was over 4 hours (San Diego Comic Con) so that made us laugh. The doors open and in we went. We walk passed all these old wrestlers who I loved and Liz was like who are these people lol. Some of the wrestlers were Honky Tonk Man, Kamala, Kevin Nash and about 6 lady wrestlers who I did not know. Then the walk past old TV stars and the most famous one was Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) but there was a lack of quality stars at this con. We then walked around their artist's alley and all the other booths that weere selling stuff. We got to the end and looked at our watches.....30 mins had passed and we had seen the full convention. WOW! We were supposed to be there for another 8 hours lol. Well clearly that's not going to happen. We decided to go listen to Max Brooks talk about zombies and how to survive a zombie attack. He was good and made me want to read his 2 books World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide which I believe Liz has. After Max we went to another panel about Reality TV. On this panel was a bunch of people from The Amazing Race, So You Think You Can Dance, Big Brother and Survivor and a few more.I t was okay. Johnny Fairplay from Survivor and Jesse the juice head from Big Brother were okay and made it kinda interesting. Next was the panel we wanted to see on the movie KICK ASS. The movie looks great but the panel SUCKED. All it was was a panel that showed all the trailers we saw on line and added nothing new. Big waste of time. After this I made Liz watch some live wrestling with some of the worst wrestlers ever and then we thought it was time to bail.

The Toronto Comic Con needs some work. I would say it was more a wrestling con then a comic con. They also need better guests if they want the big crowd as I think the crowd was a bit of a disappointment. People here in Toronto want the big stars but you can't get the stars to come without the crowds so it's kind of a catch 22. Will we be back YES. We had a good time but I am not sure the convention will be back as I suspect they did not make that much money. The fan expo was crowds so big they had to stop letting people into the building! I may have a hard time getting Liz to go next year but I'm sure if I offer her lunch or cash she will tag along with me.

First convention of 2010 only 4 or 5 more to go this year.

garry

Two hours at this con would have been more than enough. Although in the end we did find more things to keep us occupied than the itinerary suggested. The wrestling was entertaining (in a way that I don't want to be entertained too often), it was kind of like pantomines from when I was kid. And the panel of the reality TV stars was interesting. The part where we had to leave the hall because of a fire alarm wasn't much fun but I did see Ernie Hudson (of Ghost Busters and a million tv shows) being very lovely to a somewhat crazy lady with a Kermit the Frog puppet on her hand. Kudos for being a class act Ernie! So despite my protestations I have no doubt I'll be back again next year.
L