It could have been such an amazing show. There were some of the best vendors and celebrity guests I've ever seen at a Con. The panels and events after 7 all sounded like a blast (though I did not attend those) and there were SO MANY PEOPLE there.
But... no.
1) 1 hour before the Con started on Friday, one of the convention halls was still in use by a private party. Exhibitors and vendors downstairs were not allowed to set up until THIRTY MINUTES before showtime, and most (if not all!) of them had no assistance from the FandomFest staff.
2) A drunk guy got past security and destroyed a vendor booth. And he wasn't just drunk, he was fall-down-drunk. And he dove directly into a 10-foot X 7-foot wall of action figures and sent merchandise, shelves, metal poles and light fixtures crashing around him like a wave. He completely leveled it.
Thankfully nobody was hurt.
Security admitted he was drunk but tried to say they had no control over it. But they were serving alcohol. And he was noticeably drunk and had to stagger past a gaggle of hapless security guards and volunteers before he demolished this booth.
Staff did not volunteer to clean up. The Ghostbusters did the clean up, and they earned a TON of respect for it.
The vendor told us the Con didn't apologize. They made excuses. They didn't offer a refund. Didn't do anything.
This booth was being ran by a man and a woman. The woman had been working it alone when this happened... and she couldn't figure out where her partner was. He left his phone at the booth and was gone for like 30 minutes.
Why?
3) Because the Fire Marshal deemed the place unsafe. They started sending people home. People who had been in line for hours were told to beat it.
People who stepped outside the vendor hall were locked out. Without notice. No warnings that you won't be able to get back in. There was no announcement. No one came to each booth and told the vendors if you step out to take a leak, your merchandise will go unguarded for an undetermined amount of time.
No one had any clue what was happening.
4) The layout was a damned nightmare. The Con was split into at least 3 sections. There was the horror-centric section which was a few blocks down the road (seriously). There was the main, epic vendor hall upstairs and the smaller exhibitor hall downstairs, which also had Walking Dead celebrities and photo ops.
There were no signs telling you where to go. The staff downstairs couldn't give directions to the show upstairs. We asked. More than once. And we were met with shrugs and were finally advised to, "follow the people." Well, we followed the people and ended up at a dance recital filled with 8 year old girls. After 20 minutes of going to the wrong floor or the wrong part of the building, we stumbled across the vendor hall (and oh what a mighty and beautiful vendor hall it was).
Problem could have been AVOIDED ENTIRELY if someone had put a sharpie to a poster board and drawn a little arrow. It wouldn't even need to be a nice arrow. Just a slightly pointy thing in a general direction would have been wonderful.
5) The lines were ungodly. The line to meet Norman Reedus was 10 hours long. TEN HOURS. I couldn't get close to anyone I wanted to meet. Well, except for John Barrowman. And though I consider myself 100% hetero... I couldn't get close enough. That's one absurdly attractive man. Maybe 99% - ANYWAY...
6) On a far more personal note, a security guard shoved my girlfriend. It's a long story, but the gist is that a security guard got a little excited with power and put his hands on the person who matters most to me in my life, and I am still furious over it.
Here goes.
I had a vendor pass, she had a general admission pass, and we both got in to the show at 9am. It was the advertised time the show was supposed to begin, but apparently that was for VIPs and general admission was at 10. It may be on the website somewhere but I didn't see it, and I went looking for it.
After getting her ticket we asked two volunteers at the front if it was ok to go in, and both said yes. I did not have my exhibitor pass with me so that wasn't even an element yet.
There were so many huge lines we didn't know if they were lined up for photo ops or admission. We were told it was for photo ops and admission was open. (humorously, at least one guy who had been in line - and close to the front of the line, which implied he had been there for a while - heard this, threw his hands in the air and cried out in a very frustrated voice, "I thought this was the line to get in!" then walked away)
My exhibitor pass was at my table so I sent my girlfriend in to pick it up for me.
She went in with no problems.
Got my badge and came back out.
Then we both went in.
Then she came out.
And went back in.
Then we both went out again.
And she went back in. And a few minutes later, I went back in.
And so forth.
And so on.
It was pretty well established by just about everyone that the convention opened at 9 and my girlfriend, with the bright yellow GA pass, was allowed in.
At around 9:30 she squealed in delight and kind of darted out the door after something. I waited for her to come back for about 10 minutes while I talked to the other guys at our table.
Then security guard stormed up to me.
"There's some girl outside who says she's with you guys. Just because she's with you doesn't mean she can get in," he said in a particularly weasely voice.
Me and the guys at the booth just kind of looked at each other, clueless as to what he's talking about. I assumed it was someone else in our club who was supposed to meet us but didn't have her pass and didn't call to let us know she was there (we had all our passes at our table).
I asked who it was. "Some girl," he kept replying (with snarky emphases on "girl."). He must have said it 4 times, like there's only one girl in the universe and we all should know her. "In a costume," he finally clarified.
"What does it look like," I asked.
*He stared at me blankly*
"Is it all black? With a mask and a cape?" By then I had kinda figured he was talking about my girlfriend. I tried to get it out of him by describing her costume and hoping he would say yes that's it or no she's in purple armor or something.
"It's black," he replied with the enthusiasm of a 2-year-old who just made poopoo in the potty. "Just because you have a pass doesn't mean she can get in!"
"She had a pass. We just waited in line for 45 ***king minutes for her pass." His attitude was grating on my nerves and I'd started losing my patience. "They said we could come in."
"She's not a VIP," he told me.
"So what? I don't understand. The convention opened at 9 and we've been in and out a dozen times!"
"YOU can get in now, she can't!"
By now I was confident I was talking to an escaped mental patient and further discussion was inconsequential. I asked him politely to, "get out of my ***king face and get out of my ***king way," as I made my way to the exit.
I found her standing there next to security, looking a little scared and upset and I was filled with so much anger I could have broken someone in half.
I grabbed her and asked if she was ok and she said yeah. "I saw Jason Momoa walk by," she told me, her voice a little slower and less full of excitement than it should have been. She should have been bouncing off the walls. She would have been. "He's really tall."
I tell her we should wait out in the hallway for about a half hour until we go back in. We milled around for a while and she started to tell me how rude the guy had been to her. He was condescending, raised his voice and tried to make her feel like he caught her stealing. And the kicker was...
When she was walking in, he stepped in front of her and shoved her back. He had put his hand out and pushed on her chest when he told her to stop.
I was livid. Absolutely enraged that some hillbilly on a power trip touched her at all, let alone pushed her, and I should have hunted him down and expressed my dissatisfaction by means that are not generally socially acceptable in a public place.
But cooler heads prevailed. I was there as an exhibitor and I had responsibilities I had to meet, and I didn't want to completely destroy our day.
So at 10:15 we walked back to the entrance by the ticket booths. She asked a staff member standing by the door if it's alright for general admission to go in yet.
"Sure," he replied. "It's been open since 9!"