GalaxyCon San Jose Aug 16-18, 2024 0

[ExNihilo]

No one posted this (or at least I don't think anyone did), so throwing my thoughts out there.

For some background, GalaxyCon held its first convention in San Jose this past weekend (GalaxyCon San Jose).  This was mostly a pop culture convention and the celebrity guest list was fairly impressive by my standards.  The Clone Wars cast was largely in attendance (Matt Lanter had to drop due to illness).  Many OG Star Trek TNG cast members were also in attendance as were some DS9, Voyager, and Picard cast members.  Oh, and some guy named Will Shatner.  On top of that, the show was headlined by Weird Al and John Cleese.  Rounding things out were the usual voice actors, wrestling stars, and of course comic creators.  That list of creators included (but wasn't limited to) Art Adams, Joelle Jones, Humberto Ramos, Mark Brooks, Dan Jurgens, Fabian Nicieza, Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, Keith Pollard, Jim Cheung, Kevin Nowlan, Zeb Wells, etc.

The show floor had two dedicated comic shops selling back issues, and a third selling a mix of books, vinyls, and other vintage items.  The rest of it was independent art/print shops, Funkos, Pokemon, and other pop culture related vendors.  As a result, I didn't do much shopping and most of my money went towards sketch commissions and autographs.

Friday was the quietest day, obviously as a result of it being a work day.  This was easily the best day to line up for autographs.  Saturday was jam packed, and Sunday quieted down somewhat, especially towards the afternoon.  Oddly, the panel discussions on Saturday all heavily featured the top talent.  And all of them were roughly at the same time so you had to choose which panels to go to.  For example, Wil Wheatons panel overlapped with the Clone Wars one.  Thankfully, seating for the two largest panel rooms was plentiful.  The largest Stage had plenty of seating.  I think the Clone Wars panel didn't even reach 50% capacity because the room was so large.  You could probably fit almost every attendee into the room if you wanted to.  Needless to say, I would have appreciated if they had spread out the more popular panels across the 3 days.  If you only came on Friday or Sunday, there probably weren't THAT many interesting topics to attend and so your time might have been best spent meeting celebs or shopping on the showfloor.

Overall, it felt like, if you were lucky, you could complete everything you wanted in just one day.  I also thought the panel organization to be lacking.  Most panels were simply "Picard Cast Q&A" or "Wil Wheaton Q&A".  And while I appreciate that guests had an open forum to ask their most burning questions, I do wish the presentations had more structure to provide more personal insights.

At the end of the day, I've never gone to a major con.  I've been to small purely focused comic shows, and the occasional small convention (SF Fan Expo).  The biggest convention I go to is D23 which is a completely different type of show from what I've gathered.  I don't expect GalaxyCon to have the same amount of things to do as D23, but I do wish the panels had more depth.  Overall though, it's always nice to have more weekend conventions come into town and it'll be interesting to see what things they change moving forward as GalaxyCon has a three year contract with San Jose.

(Sorry, I know this is the point where people usually post pics, but other than of my interactions with celebrity talent, I didn't really take any).

[Yorick]

I went on Saturday.  Very few actual comic sellers.  I chatted with several comic artists (the highlight for me).  I was quite surprised by how adult oriented the convention was.  Burlesque shows each evening on the mainstage and Hentai panels in the back rooms.  Even a full tattoo parlor.

Those "other" pop-culture sellers (3d printed stuff/craft things) were also fun to chat with.  I'm always looking for tips on perfecting my own skill.