2014 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo - A review

I will forgo the usual blog in regards to my work and various musings and concentrate on giving you, my readers, my thoughts, insights and experience at the 2014 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

First I have to say that without a doubt in my mind, it was the best expo that Calgary has hosted. I’ve been to all nine expos. I was there at the inception and have – almost like a parent – watched the expo grow and change rapidly over the years. I’ve witnessed the successes and failures that have come each year. As with a child, there were numerous growing pains.

But the result is that each and every year the organizers learn more and more and are able to rectify any issues that may have occurred as time progressed.

I will forgo the usual blog in regards to my work and various musings and concentrate on giving you, my readers, my thoughts, insights and experience at the 2014 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

First I have to say that without a doubt in my mind, it was the best expo that Calgary has hosted. I’ve been to all nine expos. I was there at the inception and have – almost like a parent – watched the expo grow and change rapidly over the years. I’ve witnessed the successes and failures that have come each year. As with a child, there were numerous growing pains.

But the result is that each and every year the organizers learn more and more and are able to rectify any issues that may have occurred as time progressed.

This year the expo was the largest BY FAR! I have no idea what the total attendance is at this time, but I’m guessing well over the 70,000 mark. They cover several buildings now and have even spread out into the grounds itself, by having food trucks and other venues appear to add to the almost festive experience.

Almost? No, that’s not right. It WAS a festival. A celebration, a carnival. You name it.

There was something for everyone, and that is no bull. Voice actors, including the cast from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the 80’s (yes, the stuff I grew up watching), voice actors from several other past and current cartoons,

There were MANY different actors from various movies, television, and so forth. Even some that I had to wonder why they were there (like Alfonso Ribeiro – Carlton from Fresh Prince of Belair fame).

Still, for me the absolute highlight was the fact that nine of the actors from Aliens appeared, and I have photos of seven, I only skipped out on two. When you consider that I have stated numerous times that Aliens is my all-time favorite movie, you can pretty much understand why this was such a big deal for me.

I met and talked to each and every single one of the actors, and several really stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Ricco Ross, AKA Frost was one of them. He was very kind, very funny and a really nice guy. And shit, I hope that when I get to his age I’m that ripped!

Then there is Lance Henriksen. I took my border Jinhong to meet them all on Sunday, since this was the first expo that she has ever been to, and Aliens was the first movie that we watched together when she got here.

We told lance about that and he was kind enough to give her a free autographed picture! That was incredibly sweet of him to do so, and I am pretty sure that she was impressed. Jeanette Goldstein (Vasquez) and Mark Rolston (Drake) were both really sweet as well.

Paul Reiser (Burke) had an issue with his throat and could not talk too well, but he was also pretty damn kind and same with Carrie Henn.

I already had the pleasure of meeting Michael Biehn last year, but he still seemed to be a nice guy. Guess things don’t change all that much over a year. Heh.

The only one that I only had a second to see was Sigorney Weaver, and that was when we were getting the photo with her. She loved Roses (my wife) costume and essentially ignored me. Heh, all good in the end.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of seeing all these actors on stage for Aliens EXPOsed. Heard a lot of familiar stories, but also learned quite a new little tidbits regarding my favorite movie. It was a lot of fun and many laughs were had by all. Danny Glover even made a brief appearance, and Ron Pearlman sent a message to the cast via video.

It was great stuff!

More personal experiences – I went up to speak to Bill Paxton. He complemented me on my Colonial Marine armor and we spoke very briefly. I played my ringtone, which just happened to be his death scene from Aliens. He laughed, loving it, and then grabbed me by my armor and pulled me in close and autographed my chest-plate.

Trust me, that was VERY COOL! He normally charges $80 for an autograph! So that little event really helped make an already great experience even all that more enjoyable. And then on Sunday Lance Henrikson saw that my armor was autographed and did the same thing.

Speaking of armor, I did cosplay the whole weekend. Originally my son, wife and I were going to be in costume as characters from Avatar: The Legend of Korra. I was going as Amon (and I did for Thursday and Friday), while Gary my son was to go as Mako, and my wife as Korra. Sadly, my son could not attend due to his EMR course, but there is always Edmonton and next year.

I had plenty of opportunities to get my picture taken as Amon, but what really got the attention was my Colonial Marine armor. Tons of photos were taken, including several fun pictures with several people who had dressed as Aliens.

And there was a ton of people in cosplay. Some was incredible, people having spent a great deal of time and money on their costumes, so were meh. Some were clearly done for fun and more of a spoof than anything.

Yes, many of the girls were ‘ahem’ smoking hot as well.

Tons of merchants had their tables set up and there were many different items ranging from comics and books to costumes, jewellery, T-shirts and unique offerings. As I said earlier, there was pretty much something for everyone here.

I just hope that if you attended, you brought a wad of cash! It would not take long to go through a lot of money, believe me.

If buying merchandise and watching people in cosplay was not your thing, they had all manner of panels. Spotlights on various actors, information on how to write and create your own comics, spotlights on movies, even demonstrations such as sword-play and steampunk parasol dueling. That was just the tip of the iceberg!

Not only did I meet and greet the actors from Aliens, it was also a blast getting to meet Michael Rooker AKA Merle from the Walking Dead. He was a lot of fun, heard tons of stories of how he was so into meeting the fans and talking to people while he was walking about, and doing all manner of cool things. Like Lance Henrkison and Bill Paxton, he ended up autographing my armor for me. He even did a selfie with me and posted it on his twitter account. I will need to look that up and get it for myself!

Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad and Revolution fame was also a very nice man as well. He really seemed to love meeting his fans and was very kind and funny. Went as far as to try and steal a pizza from a couple of younger boys that came to meet him. Of course he gave it back but a good laugh was had by all.

And I got an autographed box cutter for my son. He was really happy about that.

Let’s see, met George A. Romero, also got a photo with Bruce Campbell and Danny Glover, but did not have much time to see either man.

Another highlight was meeting and talking to Garret Wang (Star Trek Voyager). He was the MC for the Aliens EXPOSed and it was a lot of fun watching him have a near fanboygasm! I talked to him on Thursday for the first time and he gave me his twitter account to follow. I came up to him on Saturday to show off the armor (as it finally had arrived on Friday) and he loved it! He took a picture of me in it and posted it on his account. After getting the free autograph from Mr. Paxton, he took a picture of that and posted it too.

Really sweet guy!

Hey, the bottom line of this blog is very simple. 2014 was the best expo that I have had the pleasure of attending and I really hope that things will just continue to get greater every year. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be long before our expo is as popular as the San Diego expo.

I have discovered one thing and this is probably not going to be much of a shock to anyone. I like the attention. I got in on tons of photo-ops and had a lot of fun doing so. This year not only am I showing up in pictures that I had people take for me that I posted on my Facebook account, but I’ll be showing up on many other accounts, twitter, and even on the official Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo flickr account as well.

If there was one place that they failed when it came to the expo this year it was the whole weapons and prop check. They were all over the place, and there was pretty much ZERO consistency when it came to it. Some props they allowed, others they didn’t, only to allow pretty much the same prop appear at a later day. This is the only part of the expo in which the organizers totally failed. They get an F! Otherwise, they get a pure A+ for everything else.

Finally as I am apt to do every week, I would like to invite you to like my personal author page on Facebook.

Until next week – and I will need this entire week to recover – Peace!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook Creatures of the Tropical Wastes sourcebook, co-author of its Wisdom from the Wastelands game supplement and contributor to the 'Sword of Kos: Hekaton' Anthology.