Another WonderCon survival story!

20 May

I’ve been sitting on my thoughts about WonderCon 2016 for a bit now because I was bitter about being there alone this year… but that wasn’t WonderCon’s fault. So I’ve decided to draft my thoughts and just move on.

WonderCon 2016 continues the successful run of WonderCon shows in Southern California. I’m not sure why but it moved from Anaheim to Downtown LA for 2016, which was fine but I understand it’ll be back in Anaheim next year and I actually prefer that. Being in Downtown opened up other options in the area but is also meant that larger stuff over flowed out of the convention center proper and I didn’t care for that.

They tried something new with the badges- RFID. I understand this has been being used for SLCC for at least a year and honestly, I thought it helped stream line movement through the areas. Apparently they are looking at this for SDCC. I won’t fully buy into it until I see how it works with as large a group as SDCC. But I liked it.

Due to timing, I only focused on the dealer room and being a part of the panel I was in on Sunday. There were several panels that intrigued me but the few times I wandered in that direction, I didn’t want to deal with the crowds. Perhaps if someone had been with me… I did enjoy sitting and people watching, discussing cosplays, and occasionally snarking with the strangers sitting nearby. That’s always fun.

There were some excellent cosplays. And some that fail my cosplay rules (and the addendum). For example, the battle armor Batman who needed four pals to assist him in walking… looked great, but was not functional or convention friendly.

The nice thing about not having anywhere to be was that I was able to cruise the dealer room and really dig into the stuff to be seen. I came home with a single piece of Swag- a TMNT mask. But I also came home with new Easter Bunny ears (it was Easter weekend), a new taxidermy piece for my collection from Toshwerks, and the Captain Jack Harkness Funko Pop. Caught up with several friends. And chatted with the delightful John Schneider- who still smells delicious. Just saying.

For me, the highlight was joining other members of the PsychGeeks for our panel on the psychology of Wonder Woman. There is a lot of fascinating information in Wonder Woman’s history- and every member of the team had lots of good stuff to share with the crowd (additionally, I had two friends that I haven’t seen in years [nearly 20 in the case of 1 of them…] in the audience). I hope the audience had as much fun as we did on the panel.