Author Topic: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022  (Read 3016 times)

Offline hikanteki

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FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« on: April 29, 2021, 08:21:28 PM »
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Edit: November 25-27, 2022
« Last Edit: November 04, 2021, 02:16:16 PM by hikanteki »
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Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco Announced for 2022
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2021, 02:14:46 PM »
Their You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login page has been updated. CCSE may not return to Thanksgiving weekend, but someone will:

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #2 on: Today at 05:22:42 AM »

Offline alyssa

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2021, 04:25:10 PM »
Fan expo did a good job in boston
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Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2022, 04:38:49 PM »
Fan Expo SF is just over a month away, on November 25-27!

They have been going full steam ahead with guest announcements. Full list is at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Highlights include: Ming-Na Wen, Giancarlo Esposito, Katee Sackhoff, and the leads from Clerks, Smallville, and Sons of Anarchy. Additionally, there is a separately ticketed Smallville Nights event.

Advance tickets are available until November 10, $99 for 3 days. After that, it goes up to $119. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Hotels start out at $139 for the Marriott Marquis Downtown SF :o :o :o (I’d seriously book this if I didn’t live 4 blocks away. I’m still tempted to book it.) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
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Offline accelerate

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2022, 06:21:21 PM »
I’ve never been to a Fan Expo. Would one day be enough to get the “full” experience? I’d do all days, but I’m in the South Bay, and it’d take over an hour via BART to get up there, so I dunno if it’s worth it.

Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2022, 11:11:43 PM »
The schedule is up!

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Offline Transmute Jun

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2022, 10:13:52 AM »
I'm feeling lazy. I'm a little interested, but not sure that I want to truck my butt into the city on Thanksgiving weekend...

Offline Xio

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2022, 09:40:54 PM »
Same, I'm interested, but am just far enough for it to be a bit of a slog to get there with Thanksgiving craziness happening...

Offline accelerate

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2022, 11:07:43 PM »
I just purchased Saturday badges. I contemplated 3-day, but SF is just far enough away (1+ hours by BART) that it would've been too much to go every day, and not far enough to warrant staying at a nearby hotel (which would be $$$). Also, like others have mentioned, with Thanksgiving weekend, it would be a bit of a madhouse in the city.

Also, I've never been to a Fan Expo, so I need to experience one to decide if it's worth 2.5 days in the future.

Offline hikanteki

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #9 on: November 29, 2022, 04:40:05 PM »
We went to FanExpo's first San Francisco show and had a great time. It was held in Moscone West. The first floor was registration and the exhibit hall, the second floor was panels and the third floor was photo ops.

We had Premium (the level between regular and VIP) weekend passes. Costs were $30 more than regular weekend passes and came with additional swag: a FanExpo bag with a Mickey/Nightmare Before Christmas vinyl figure (different ones than the ones they were selling at the booth), a mystery Batman comic, and a generic black lanyard. Other benefits were 10% off at the FanExpo booth and a premium lounge. I felt it was worth it because the swag alone would have cost over $30. Lanyards were of course useful but really shouldn't be limited to Premium/VIP. The 10% off was nice. Saved me a couple bucks off of the merch I bought. But the premium lounge wasn't that exciting. It was tables on one of the sides of the exhibit hall, walled off with curtains put up. (However, I thought the VIP lounge was even more questionable, which was basically tables set up in the middle of the foyer with curtains on all four sides...but you could see inside from the escalator and 2nd floor, lol.)

Registration was a breeze. We then went through the premium lounge straight to the exhibit hall. Like accelerate, I was pleasantly surprised at how big it was. I actually didn't notice too many vendors that that make the rounds--a number of them I recognized as actual brick and mortar stores in town which was nice. Also, for the first time this year, I found a bunch of Gloomy Bears (which are my favorite things to get at conventions, but they seem to be harder and harder to find.) I also picked up a Jollibee/Hetty Spaghetti Funko Pop for $45 which isn't a bad price for a 2-pack usually only seen at Pop Asia retailers.

My favorite part of any convention, panels, did not disappoint. In the main hall, we saw Lou Ferrigno (although his ended about 22 minutes before scheduled time), Emily Swallow, Giancarlo Esposito, Ming Na Wen, Clark/Lex/Lana from Smallville, and Gates McFadden/Brent McSpiner. I appreciated that nearly all of them were more panel than Q&A. They cleared rooms between each panel (except for VIP) but none of them were full, although Giancarlo Esposito had a particularly good turnout.

We also attended a panel for a new comic, Crossbone Skully by Tommy Henriksen, with a cartoon of it animated by Riley Donahue. They premiered the cartoon (it was cool, although I wish a big screen would have been available). Tommy Henriksen is in a band with Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry and got all three of them to do voices for the cartoon. Additionally, they gave raffle tickets to everyone who attended. The grand prize was an actual guitar autographed by Alice Cooper. :o We didn't win (lol) but the odds had to be pretty good for something like that considering there were only about 100 people in the room. Later, I picked up the comic and got to talk to Tommy and Riley, who autographed it and let me take a photo with them.

There are only two things I can think of to complain about and both weren't major. First, the exhibit hall and booths weren't marked. There were no aisle markers hanging from the ceiling like at other conventions, and from what I could tell the booths did not have numbers on them. There was an online map that showed the location but it was a bit hard to find and hard to read. I had fun walking around it but we wanted to go back and look for one of the booths we saw earlier and had a bit of trouble finding it. Second, I thought some of the paid panels were excessive considering that this wasn't that big of a con to begin with. For instance, The Room didn't make sense as a paid panel. And Smallville Nights was $199 which is totally ludicrous. At least the regular Smallville panel did not charge.

But overall, it was a great show. They had a good selection of celebrity guests with panels (on par with any non-SDCC con I've been to this year), it was super easy to get around and navigate, and we found a couple of additional gems such as Crossbone Skully. They also offered free wireless internet which actually worked (perhaps since turnout wasn't huge) and some pretty decent food options, although there were many other decent food options within a block.

I actually liked that it's on Thanksgiving weekend. It's not on Thanksgiving itself but it's something to do for the rest of the weekend and many people already have Friday off. SF also isn't too crazy for this weekend. Both the Marriott Marquis and Hilton were $135-139 per night. If we didn't live like 4 blocks from Moscone center then I would have booked a hotel. I was still tempted to. The date may not work if they want to be a national convention but for a local/regional one, I think it's perfect. And most importantly, if it helps them get a date in SF, then I'm all for it. There was nothing going on at Moscone South or North so fingers crossed that Fan Expo can move into one of those. They already have a date for next year, and according to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, they've secured a five year deal.

Oh, one other thing. Before most of the panels in the main hall, they had trivia contests that you could play on your phone. The trivia was usually related to the TV shows the guests were on (i.e. Superman trivia before Smallville, Star Trek trivia before McFadden/Spiner.) The people who got the top 3 scores each round got a prize. Then, they added up all the cumulative points for every round, and the grand prize was a pair of VIP tickets to next year's show. My partner won, so we're going to Fan Expo SF as VIPs next year!  8)
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Offline Transmute Jun

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Re: FanExpo San Francisco: November 25-27, 2022
« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2022, 08:16:00 AM »
Thanks for the review You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login . I had the opportunity to go to this as press but passed it up, since I was very busy this past weekend. It's good to hear your thoughts. it sounds like it was a small con with a few growing pains. I'm wondering if they made money or lost money, given that it clearly wasn't sold out. But the panels sound good, and how cool that you won VIP badges for next year!

It does sound better than what SVCC has become (far too Maker-oriented for my tastes, with few worthwhile guests).

The Thanksgiving weekend isn't a good one for me, but maybe I'll check it out next year. At least i know in advance.