Grand Rapids Comic Con is a one day con that debuted today. It's in the same building the
Toy and Comic Expo we attended earlier this year, which is pretty close to our house. We arrived about 20 minutes before the doors opened and there was already a pretty impressive line.
They had a pretty nice program guide for the event, complete with a little bio for each of the vendors and artists in Artist Alley (although to be honest, the vendors and artists were intermingled in the same room, so I guess there wasn't a true Artist Alley, which is fine).
The building was pretty small, so while the program didn't have a map, it was pretty easy to find which room was hosting which panel.
And yes, there were panels. We poked our head into a few rooms but didn't stay for any.
I'm just excited there were panels! I was tempted to stay and watch some
Trigun, since I'm a huge fan...
The vending room, which had both the vendors and artists, was pretty packed. There was even a full-size Mach 5 car replica from
Speed Racer.
We ran into
Adam and Comfort's good friend
Corinne Roberts. I also saw
Meghann Pardee, who is with
Studio Acramill, though their table was pretty busy as well and I wasn't able to stop and say hello.
We also got to meet up with both Jeff and Dave, two of Chris's friends who were also at the convention (as attendees, not artists).
We left after a few hours to run some errands. Later in the day we noticed that the
event was at capacity and people were being turned away. That's pretty impressive. I think they had a larger turn out than expected. And at $5 a person, it's pretty cheap entertainment.
There were plenty of high school and college aged kids lining the hall, playing on their 3DS or chatting with their friends about their costumes. The whole event definitely felt like it pulled a page from an anime convention. And honestly, that's my favorite part about anime conventions - how energetic and excited everyone gets.
Chris made out with a Knight Rider action figure and I enjoyed the ton of 3DS street passes I received. Chris has a pretty nice
write-up of the event on his blog as well.
I look forward to going to the event again next year!