Comic Con recently came to Salt Lake. Something that most in the city's geek culture probably never thought would happen. Lucky for us, Dan Farr is enough of one to be in that demographic and decided to give it a shot.
Bulls-eye.
I know nothing of Con attendance in terms of records and history but from what I'm hearing this one shattered records, and while news articles will have different numbers the consensus is that this one was so successful that a 2014 return is all but certain.
To be fair there were a few negative aspects but that's to be expected for an event this size. The lights above our booth went out on the busiest day, leaving the photos a bit darker than they would otherwise be, and the attendance surge caused the Fire Marshall to close the doors to further entry until the numbers inside came down a bit. Some of our people were caught on the outside and couldn't get back in. There was a creep-tacular person making some of our female vendors feel uncomfortable and he was nicely asked to depart by Con security. I also think I may have unintentionally upset a few people and I'm offering a blanket apology to any who may have felt slighted. Please forgive me of my shortcomings.
We had a few people that for various reasons didn't show up for 'work' on their days / times. I thought we did a pretty decent job of adapting but for any con-goers who might have noticed a lack of staffing at our location, we apologize and hope to do better next year.
As far as I know, that was it. Major kudos to those who put this on their shoulders for our group to be able to participate. If you're reading this, you know who you are.
The successes far outweigh the failures...umm...I'm not even sure 'failures' is the right word so let's call them setbacks or something less crass. Yeah, setbacks is a better word.
Our Blast-A-Trooper was a much bigger success than we anticipated and raised most of the nearly $3,000 for the Peter Mayhew Foundation. www.petermayhewfoundation.org/
We were able to procure some screen-used props to enhance the experience:
There was also a screen-used Darth Maul lightsaber hilt there on display but I don't have a photo of that.
We got to take part in a pretty nice group photo. The procession to get there was like a mini-parade and was sooo much fun. I haven't seen any video of our procession but I'll keep looking. Here's a photo - courtesy of Doug Atwood.
...and here's the group photo:
Courtesy of Mike Handy
...can you guess which one is me?
To be fair, I'm sure there are purists who view the presence of a big red blob in the middle of this as a colossal intrusion. I can't really say I blame them as most aren't familiar with the characters of the Star Wars expanded universe (EU). Having said all that, I LOVE being just a little bit different, and I really appreciated the opportunity to be part of it for Comic Con. Had I more talent my white one wouldn't still be sitting in the garage work space.
Our booth space was divided into two portions, one was for Blast-A-Trooper, which allowed people (mostly children) to fire harmless nerf-gun projectiles at various characters. We had some really good people allowing themselves to get shot. My bucket is off to them. I tried it for a bit, and while it was fun, there was a pretty loud 'crack' when a dart struck my helmet and the sound actually hurt my ears so I didn't last long there.
The other side was the 'booth'. It sounds like a grossly over-generalized term but that's what it was. The main activity there was for photo ops. Some were asking questions about the group and others (myself included) were participating in the Droid Hunt (http://www.501st.com/droidhunt) but the vast majority were there for pictures, either with characters or of the screen used props and the Han Solo in carbonite, and of course the experience wouldn't be complete without a Slave Leia.
I was able to get my picture taken with, and an autograph from David Prowse. You may not recognize the name but the character he played is unforgettable.
This isn't one of my better posts in terms of the writing but I've been trying to put this together for some time now and I'm a little tired. I hope you enjoyed the perusal.
In the meantime, check out some various links to Comic Con I'm not in either of them but I prefer it that way as I'm kind of self-conscious. Nothing can beat the experience of actually being there but you should still get an idea of how much fun it was. I realize this isn't everyone's cup of tea but I think there was something there for everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPHmEIh4Hus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpgbGpJzyk4&feature=endscreen
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