A guy knelt in the center of the LA Convention Center floor wearing a prisoner's execution hood to promote is work. Just around the corner, Elvira posed with fans at what will be her last con not dressed as Cassandra Peterson. Stan Lee showed up, and so did Leslie Easterbrook, Ernest Borgnine, Mark Hamill and Morgan Fairchild.
For its convention debut, Comikaze Expo definitely booked great celebrities and showed Los Angeles a slew of talented artists and writers. The cosplay was diverse, representing many genres from gaming (Sonic the Hedgehog) to horror (Pyramid Head, Silent Hill), and steam punk was in the building! There were several steam punk panels and nearly six steam punk vendors.
I held down a booth slanging "Nerdy at the Roots" t-shirts for Komplicated.com. It was my first convention of this type also. It was well attended, but not as crowded as I've heard Comic Con described. I could at least move around without touching people. It was a little disorganized, though. Line management for celebrity photo-ops could have been handled better and I'm pretty sure forty percent of the crowd walked in without wristbands or payment. Comikaze didn't print floor maps, panel schedules or exhibitor lists. Unless attendees downloaded them from the website, they were stuck wandering from panel to panel reading the fine print pasted onto poster boards.
Speaking of panels, they were only enclosed by pipe and drape, so actually hearing the panel over the loud roar of the convention was next to impossible. If they couldn't be found and couldn't be heard, they might as well not have been at all.
The food was terrible and very expensive, but better food was within walking distance. Overall, I had a great time promoting Komplicated and buying little knick knacks. Comikaze will likely be an awesome experience next year when the kinks are worked out.
[Source: Myshelltabu.com]