Author Topic: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019  (Read 1747 times)

Offline hikanteki

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FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« on: July 12, 2019, 08:05:44 PM »
I'm going to this for the first time this fall. But I was just notified that Southwest cancelled my flight due to the MAX 8 fiasco.  >:( (I even checked my flights before booking to make sure they weren't MAX 8's, but that didn't matter since I guess it threw off the rest of their schedule.) The new flights they recommended didn't work for me (they either were a different daypart, or required a layover) so I just went with Delta...which ended up being the same price (though without the checked bags.)

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Offline AzT

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2019, 11:43:51 PM »
Quote
uccdistributing Hey everyone!! We will be at @fanxsaltlake next weekend with a ton of Convention Exclusives! We will be located a booth 1329. We will also be giving out FREE JUMBO UCC BAGS with all purchase to carry all your Loot. We can’t wait to see everyone

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #2 on: Today at 12:21:29 PM »

Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2019, 02:44:50 PM »
Just got back from Salt Lake FanX Comic Convention and we had a great time! This convention was a breath of fresh air -- in fact, it reminded me of Emerald City circa 2012-2015 with their excellent guest lineup, occasional indie studio panel or film screening, music panels, and focus on local content -- all things that ReedPop has mostly wiped away from ECCC.

The celebrity guests/actors are the main focus of this convention...the biggest name was Tom Holland, and other guests included John Rhys-Davies, Christina Ricci, Keifer Sutherland and Jason Patric, Jason Isaacs, Lindsay Wagner and Lee Majors, Dolph Lundgren, Pearl Mackie, Ming-Na Wen, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone (lol) and others. That said, FanX is a good name since there isn't much comic content. In addition celeb guests, they also had a pretty significant Authors & Writers section (mostly local-ish, but also some national names such as Timothy Zahn, Kevin Anderson) and a very good Artist's Alley. The dealer's room however was big but a lot of filler. The most prominent exhibitor was UCC Distributing. The local CW/ABC network had a booth where you could spin a wheel to win prizes, and everyone got something. There weren't any exhibitor exclusives -- just FanX merch and the selection was limited, although they had a couple interesting items such as high-quality FanX branded coins. A lot of good cosplay too and many that are different from the usual west coast conventions.

The panels did not disappoint. Most of the celebrity guests were in the Grand Ballroom with a capacity of 4,500 and nearly all of them you could walk in during the panel and still get a seat near the back. Twisted Toonz was a blast, with Jess Harnell, Susan Egan, and Billy West, and very amusing guest appearances from Jason Isaacs, Chris Kirkpatrick, and John Rhys-Davies (who ended up stealing the show!) The Tom Holland panel they did a lottery for, and it was very well organized. It started at 10, but the lottery winners were assigned a line-up time and place (in 15 minute increments from ~8 to 9...we were lucky and got 8:45) and when we got there, staff was holding up big signs with the line-up time to mark the area. Everyone who got selected and lined up by 9 was guaranteed admission (i.e. if you got an 8:30 time and didn't get there until 9, you could still get in the back of the line as long as it was before the stand-by line went in.) They also had a stand-by line which they started letting in at 9:15, and I talked to people who got in the stand by line at 9 and easily made it in.

They had a ton of smaller panels, but most were fan-run which aren't my thing. However there were still a handful from local-ish studios & properties, and we checked some of these out. One was for a BYUtv show called Studio C with the cast and director, where they showed a few sketches from the upcoming season. We hadn't heard of them before but they were laugh out loud funny and ended up being a pleasant surprise. There was also one for CW's The Outpost...the panel was entertaining though the show itself looks hit or miss. We also attended an animation panel where they had animators who worked on shows such as Aquabats and Tangled, and they handed out a signed high-quality print at the panel. One of the highlights of the con for me was an hour preview of Odyssey Dance Theater's Thriller, which was a professional dance troupe doing halloween and superhero-based dance performances. Their performance was top notch.

An oddity that should be mentioned -- Ian McDiarmid and Hayden Christensen were scheduled to have a panel but it was cancelled about an hour and half before they were set to go on (but they were still in attendance, doing photo-ops and autorgraphs.) In writing, they only said it was because of "contractual obligations." But according to people who went in person to ask the information booth, the staff said that Disney forced them to pull it due to fear of leaks.

For the most part, the convention was well organized. There were a couple areas that could have used improvement (i.e. a few bottlenecks in the Exhibit Hall, aisles too narrow in Artist's Alley but too wide in the rest of the Exhibit Hall, allowing more time to move people in/out between panels in the Grand Ballroom on Saturday) but nothing that took away from being able to enjoy the con. Getting in and out was a breeze. We got in Thursday afternoon and there was an issue with one our badges so we had to go to registration to clear it up which we were initially dreading but it took a grand total of 5 minutes. Thursday was very light, Friday was still pretty light, Saturday was busy but still manageable. One unique thing about FanX is that it's a 3-day con that's Thursday through Saturday, rather than Friday through Sunday. I actually really liked this -- there was a nice buildup on Thursday and Friday, with things in full swing on Saturday (as opposed to things dying down and half the crowd not wanting to be there on the last day at other cons.) It was also nice having Sunday to sleep in and relax before going back to work on Monday.

This was a great con -- the main area of improvement IMO would be to tighten up the Exhibit Hall. Also, while all attendees were extremely polite to us during any encounters, some of the questions they asked some of the celebs were rather...pedestrian, and the number of times girls screamed out "I love you" during the Tom Holland panel got excessive. It was nice to see that they had guidelines on the big screen that the moderator went over before each panel (i.e. don't relay personal stories, don't make personal requests, keep questions to under 1 minute) but they could probably add a few more to them. But all in all, it was a great first time at Salt Lake FanX. We loved the programming and we'll definitely be back.

Of the five comic cons I've been to this year...I'd rank them (with a pretty comfortable margin between each one): 1 SDCC, 2 WonderCon, 3 Salt Lake, 4 Emerald City, 5 Silicon Valley.
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Offline Angology

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2019, 09:42:52 AM »
Nice write up! It sounds like you had a really great time. It's nice when there's a mix of local content and celebrity guests. Some of the Cons I  attend are still like that. Twisted Toonz! I love that panel!

This made me LOL. I just attended KCON (a KPop convention), and the screaming there was next level in the Artist Engagements.  ;D
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and the number of times girls screamed out "I love you" during the Tom Holland panel got excessive.
Ang

Offline marcia29

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2019, 11:29:52 AM »
Ohhh.  [member=354]hikanteki[/member] - Tell me more about THE OUTPOST panel!  The show started off a bit of a mess, yet has improved quite a bit.  It has a sense of humor and the story is moving along nicely.
It is 2024, and I am still asking...where's my flyin' car??!! @fannishmarcia

Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2019, 01:56:16 PM »
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Nice write up! It sounds like you had a really great time. It's nice when there's a mix of local content and celebrity guests. Some of the Cons I  attend are still like that. Twisted Toonz! I love that panel!

This made me LOL. I just attended KCON (a KPop convention), and the screaming there was next level in the Artist Engagements.  ;D

Thanks! LOL, it's similar to some of the anime conventions I go to, but I can imagine that it's even more extreme at KPop conventions.

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Ohhh.  [member=354]hikanteki[/member] - Tell me more about THE OUTPOST panel!  The show started off a bit of a mess, yet has improved quite a bit.  It has a sense of humor and the story is moving along nicely.

That is good to hear that it has improved! The panel had writer/producer Jason Faller and Kynan Griffin, and one of the actors Jake Stormoen. They talked about some of the shows/games that were influences, their previous show Mythica, and showed a couple of clips from behind the scenes and talked about what went into making the set. I haven't watched a full episode of it, but I was curious...and while it doesn't look like something that would win an Emmy, it looks like it could be satisfying to watch in a Xena/Hercules sort of way.
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Offline marcia29

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Re: FanX Fall Salt Lake Comic Convention: September 5-7, 2019
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2019, 02:17:34 PM »
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That is good to hear that it has improved! The panel had writer/producer Jason Faller and Kynan Griffin, and one of the actors Jake Stormoen. They talked about some of the shows/games that were influences, their previous show Mythica, and showed a couple of clips from behind the scenes and talked about what went into making the set. I haven't watched a full episode of it, but I was curious...and while it doesn't look like something that would win an Emmy, it looks like it could be satisfying to watch in a Xena/Hercules sort of way.

[member=354]hikanteki[/member] - Thank you for the additional panel info.  Yep, I don’t think The Outpost will win a slew of Emmy awards but...now that GOT is out of the way in the fantasy category, perhaps a Saturn?  Hmmmm... ;). It has a way to go yet.  The show received a big increase in budget, I understand, so the sets and costuming are much improved from the first season.
It is 2024, and I am still asking...where's my flyin' car??!! @fannishmarcia