5 Ways to Fan Fest: Part One

By George Rose

September 21, 2017

Cue the Beach Boys...

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The following two-part series is Rated-R. It is not suitable for children. It contains foul language, sexual situations, alcohol/drug intoxication and a general sense of debauchery. The views and opinions are solely those of the writer. BOP does not endorse the following actions. Do not try this at home or at any convention. Enjoy!

Welcome, everyone, to Heroes and Villains Fan Fest! For those that have read the 5 Ways to Comic Con series, you know I love nerdy conventions and all things pop culture. You also know I have a habit of embarrassing myself in front of celebrities. After my most recent Comic Con had me stealing pictures from the Hulk and talking to Jean Gray about her five inch tranny vangina, I started to think… maybe there’s something wrong with me. Am I bipolar? Schizophrenic? I mean, what sick person thinks it’s ok to do and say whatever they want?

Have you ever seen that episode of South Park where Cartman pretends he has Tourettes so that he can be allowed to curse in public? After living life long enough without a filter, he eventually finds he can’t stop himself from saying his darkest secrets. Maybe that’s my problem. I curse and fornicate and indulge myself in whatever pleases me, and then I’m surprised when I black out in front of celebrities and word vomit all over them. That’s why after my last Comic Con experience I was trying to be good, trying to replace “mother fucker” with “mother trucker” in my everyday speach. The more I tried, the more my spirit died.




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On Saturday, September 16, 2017 I drove an hour away to Secaucus, NJ for Fan Fest and prepared mentally for how to act. I was running late, arriving closer to noon instead of the 10:30am start time. My friends Travis, Heather and Michelle were already there having spent the night at a nearby hotel so they could get up at sunrise and be among the first to enter. When I arrived, they had already gotten Robbie Amell and Brandon Routh’s autographs. They were about to watch a panel so I decided to take that time to explore by myself and figure out a gameplan. What I knew was that Stephen Amell would be there Sunday, I had a handful of celebs I wanted to get done on Saturday (Robbie Amell, Katie Cassidy, Brandon Routh, David Mazouz and Robin Lord Taylor), and I only had $500 to spend for shopping and celebs.

Right off the bat I learned something quick about this convention; there was basically no shopping to be done. This convention was so small that the entire shopping area consisted of three small vendors selling Funko Pops (see, I told you they were the convention autographing staple), two small shirt vendors, and maybe a handful of people selling artwork. To put that into persepective, that’s about ONE ISLE of shopping at any other convention. It was about 1/10 of what Philly Comic Con offers and 1/30 of what New York Comic Con has. At first, this upset me. Did they really think people were only showing up to this convention to talk to celebrities? Half the fun of these events is the shopping. I had mentally given up just as quickly as I had arrived.


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