Fan Expo Dallas Overview

By: Roni Sepulveda (@vRONIs)

I have to start off this post by saying… Coooooon!

Hello, FanExpo Dallas!

I had the great pleasure to attend FanExpo Dallas as press recently. This was my first Fan Expo convention, and I was excited to experience a new organization and study its methods. I have to say, this was one of my favorite convention experiences thus far!

I arrived Friday morning with friends after a long drive from Houston. We checked into the Aloft Hotel, conveniently across the street from the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. I’ve been to events at this convention center before, but never fully appreciated it until this trip. I really wanted to consider how the configuration of booths, check-in, panels, etc. affected attendee experience. The Kay Bailey really is a lovely convention center. Its massive scale was quite apparent as I walked from the Auditorium in Hall A to the check-in area of Hall D multiple times through the weekend, but it wasn’t overly daunting.

View of the convention center from our window

As most Fridays go at conventions, it was a nice sized crowd but not overwhelming, which made us wonder how crazy Saturday would be. Check-in went very smoothly for my friends and press check-in was very organized and quick. My schedule was pretty set for the weekend, starting Friday with Hayley Atwell’s panel. Hayley was only attending Friday as she was scheduled to attend another convention the rest of the weekend. I will be posting separate posts on all the panels I attended which also included Peter Capaldi, John Cusack, Candice Patton, and a Daredevil Panel with Jon Bernthal and Elden Henson. The remainder of my time I walked the vendor and artist alley floor on the hunt for new folks to showcase. I will have a post on this as well in combination with cosplay. I have to give a shout-out to those who dove into cosplay. We got so many great photos throughout the con, it was difficult to pick my favorites.

My buddies, Gabby and Alejandro were on a mission themselves. They managed to attend all of their panels and get all of their autographs including the elusive Frank Miller! By the way, Kevin Conroy is the best.

A special thank you to Gabby and Alejandro for letting me jump into their photo

I may have attended as press, but I am also a fan. I carved a little window to take a photo with the Punisher himself, Jon Bernthal. (Insert all the heart eyes here.) He is a sweetheart. I shook his hand and thanked him for coming to Dallas, he proceeded to say it was his pleasure and pulled me to him for the photo. After the quick camera snap, I thanked him again and he then says, “Thanks, mama.” The fangirl moment where I fly away on a pink cloud may have happened.

Overall Thoughts

There’s so much to write about, so I wanted to give an overall opinion of the convention prior to the specific Cosplay/Vendors and Panel posts to come. I would highly recommend for nerds to attend this convention. Everything ran smoothly and if there were any squabbles behind the scenes, the public was unaware. All of the panels began no more than 15 minutes late, which is impressive. There was enough room to walk around the booths without feeling too claustrophobic. Sure, Saturday was significantly more crowded, but not San Diego Comic-Con levels. The photo-op and autograph areas were perfectly spaced and didn’t have any maze-like lines of confusion. All of the volunteers were informed and friendly. I made a point to approach a number of them at random.

Food! Nom Nom!

The convention is also situated within access to many great restaurants. A few are quite pricey, but we found a great, reasonably priced one inside of the Omni Hotel which so happens to be connected to the convention center. Yay, convenience.

Excuse the blurry photo, I was starving!

Everyone go to Texas Spice, their staff is amazing, the food is so exceptional we didn’t venture to another place. We had two big meals here, lunch on Friday and dinner on Saturday. We would’ve gone back for more. Also, the drinks are fabulous! I highly recommend the Champagne Cobbler, what I dub a dangerous cocktail because the taste leaves you wondering where the liquor is. #priorities

Lunch Friday at Texas Spice: Chicken Wrap, Fish Tacos, Chicken Fried Steak. Oh, and the Champagne Cobbler is the pink drink.

The Afterparty

We also want to give a shout out to Alamo Drafthouse for hosting one of the nerd after parties Saturday night which featured Smash Bros. on the patio, nerdioke, and a cosplay contest. Great fun!

My photographer Mike and his wife, Lizzie. We enjoyed karaoke!

This is how we con in Texas

Great food and great people made FanExpo Dallas a massive success! Other conventions this season have quite a bar to meet. Thank you FanExpo for having me, I hope to attend more in the future. Keep an eye out for more posts on panels, cosplay and vendors! Subscribe and follow us on all the social medias. Let us know if you’re interested in attending, and if you did attend, let us know your thoughts!

Nerd On!
~R

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