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Although I didn’t spend the whole weekend meandering the show floor and attending events, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent at St. Louis Comic Con. I was slightly annoyed by some of the ways in which the show was run, but it was an extremely enjoyable time overall.
The Convention Center stop on the St. Louis Metro puts you five minutes away from St. Louis Comic Con by foot. In a city with lackluster public transportation like St. Louis, the times when the train goes exactly where you want are awesome. Also, the stop is right near a couple of my favorite restaurants, providing the rare benefit of good nearby food for convention goers (NYCC, by contrast, does not have many food options in the vicinity). From the outside the America’s Center Complex appeared large and impressive and most of the interior matched that initial impression. There were a ton of rooms for smaller panels as well as a 2500-seat main theatre for the biggest events. The primary space, which included the show floor, was split between a massive concrete hall (the likes of which I’ve seen at AB and NYCC) and a huge arena. Thousands of seats surrounded the dealer’s room. Walking around the show floor and seeing a bunch of empty chairs around you was a bit strange. I suppose that’s a good feature for large convention centers to have, but it definitely weirded me out a bit.
On the other hand, the show floor was a lovely and familiar sight after my long convention hiatus. The worst part about attending comic conventions is that I’m not as into comics as I am the rest of the media that is present at bigger cons. As a result, a lot of the booths selling tons of rare single issues were wasted on me. I did look at some of the trades and omnibuses, but I didn’t find anything especially desirable (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 was my only real interest and it wasn’t very strong). Instead I looked at lots of board games and t-shirts. I’ve been really into pre-constructed card games recently (such as Sentinels of the Multiverse) so I investigated a lot of those (and it was the perfect time to do so: last Saturday was National Tabletop Day). In the end, however, my only purchases were t-shirts. The TeeTurtle stand sold lots of awesome nerd-crossover apparel, and I had to get some.
My other big temptation was an old plastic U.S.S. Enterprise (1701-D) toy that I had when I was a kid. I kept the it’s body for a long time, but I lost the nacelles years ago, so I eventually threw it away. Nostalgia nearly compelled me to pick it up, but an $100 price tag stayed my hand. Thankfully I didn’t get the chance to reconsider. I also forgot to buy a print from Yale Stewart, writer and artist for the adorable JL8 webcomic. Dang.
Despite the great products available, the main draw of St. Louis Comic Con was the guest list. Like most other people there (or so it seemed based on the cosplay frequencies), I really wanted to see Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor. He, like many of the other guests (such as Burt Ward, Adam West, and William Shatner), were scheduled to appear in the convention center’s largest theatre. Since con lines always fill up very early, I queued up to get into his panel two hours in advance. This is where I hit the first snag of St. Louis Comic Con: their approach to event seating. First of all, they didn’t have separate lines for each event. I found this strange until I realized that they didn’t fully clear out the theatre between the events. All of the best seats were regularly evacuated, but “VIP” pass holders had priority access to them. On the other hand, you could also go up into the balcony and stay for as long as you wanted. I much prefer when cons empty rooms between events. Sure, some people might miss out on back-to-back panels, but that’s why you have to prioritize. I shouldn’t be able to prevent other people from having fun just by arriving super early.
The “one-on-one” celebrity panels themselves were very fun. I’d never seen a panel format that only involved one person (and a nearly-invisible host) answering audience questions for 45 minutes. In my experience, a panel has several members who actively discuss things and are asked many questions by their host, but this format worked pretty well enough and allowed for a lot more audience interaction. Of course, this wasn’t always a good thing, but it also wasn’t terrible. Because I arrived early for Matt Smith, I got to see the one-on-one with Eliza Dushku of Buffy, Dollhouse, and True Calling fame first. I never liked her or her character on Buffy very much, but she answered questions well and made at least one little girl’s year, which was nice. Frankly, she seemed a lot like her character on Buffy, which I found rather amusing. I got to see Sean Astin after that, and he too reminded me a lot of his most famous character. He was earnest and passionate, but also funny and more thoughtful than the Shire gardener could ever be. His answers constantly evoked “Awwwwwwws” from the audience (like when he said his wife was “his Sam”). Matt Smith was as amusing and charming as I’d expected after hearing him on podcasts or in interviews, but it was still cool to see him in person. He had the biggest contingent of obnoxious fans, but they were still relatively few. One young woman even broke into tears attempting to talk with him, which tugged at (most of) the audience’s heartstrings. After Smith’s panel I took my leave of the one-on-one theatre. The panels didn’t expose much new information about the actors or their upcoming projects, but it was a fun way to learn a bit more about the nerd icons.
I wanted to attend a few smaller panels at the end of the day, but some scheduling mishaps by the con meant I only got to one of them. In another demonstration of their poor organization, the con’s event pamphlet had quite a few errors. The first panel I wanted to see had an incorrect time and place written down. I spent a long time looking for the room on the pamphlet before I came to the conclusion that it didn’t exist. Once I finally got on the right track, I learned that the first panel overlapped with second one even though the pamphlet said they did not. Lame. Of course, I probably should’ve used the internet if I wanted accuracy, but they still shouldn’t have been so misleading. In the end, I chose to go to the second panel, which was about creating tabletop games. The panel was interesting and featured some great advice from local game creators, but it started 20 minutes late because of the preceding event, further illustrating incompetence on the part of Wizard World, the con’s organizing company. Thank goodness for the con’s quality content because it’s administration was underwhelming.
On the other hand, they sold alcohol at booths all over the con. I’ve never seen that before. I guess that’s how I know I’m in the midwest?
In spite of the organizational failings, St. Louis Comic Con 2014 was a lot of fun. It lacked some of the grandeur and spectacle of the other cons I’ve attended, but had plenty of heart and nerd appeal. I hope they address some of the problems that other large cons have solved, but even if they don’t it’s still worth a visit. Plus, I now have a shirt with a Charmander Black Mage on it, so it couldn’t have been that bad. After purchasing my ticket on a whim this year, I’ll definitely be looking forward to attending next year’s St. Louis Comic Con.
You can check out this post (with pictures!) at the N3rd Dimension.
