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The Mystery Machine was outside waiting when we arrived!
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Fandomfest/Fright Night is a very unique convention located in Louisville, Kentucky each summer. It used to be two separate events, but they decided to combine them together. It's a comic, sci-fi, horror, tattoo convention which even put anime into the mix this year. They have tons of amazing guests, panels, and activities for fans of every fandom. Guess that's why it's called Fandomfest, right? Anyway, let's move straight along to the part of the review you all enjoy.
The first positive aspect of Fandomfest was the attendees themselves. Everyone is considered family at this event. Most veteran attendees are extremely nice and more than happy to help teach the new attendees the ropes of how a convention such as this works. It doesn't matter if you're in cosplay or not either - everyone is treated equal. In fact, at Fandomfest - cosplaying doesn't usually occur until Saturday - which is the big day. Though since this is a con where a lot of people are there to meet guests rather than make friends - some level of hostility can be seen at certain times - such as in the lines for photo ops and meet and greets - so be prepared for that if you wish to attend next year.
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This costume was impressive. Everything is made out of Magic cards.
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The first disadvantage would be how they handled the registration early Friday. It was a complete disaster in the Galt hotel. There were no dividers to create organized lines and it quickly became a mess. People were just gathering in a giant group blocking hall traffic -others were cutting other people in line. Granted there was some buzz from staff that something happened with the registration line crew's car and they were delayed, so that might be responsible for that.
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The crowded and disorganized registration line in the Galt Hotel
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Even though I just discussed that, the registration line quickly got organized by Friday afternoon and ran pretty smoothly after that. People weren't waiting for more than an hour to get in. I give them props on quickly diffusing an issue of that caliber. Only part of confusion that continued was that there were two registration points; one in the hotel, and another in the convention center. Despite it being confusing, I found it to be a smart move. I feel that way because whether you arrived at the convention center or the hotel - you didn't have to walk to another location to get a badge.
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The relatively organized registration line in the convention center.
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Another issue I saw was the complete lack of organization that continued over the weekend. Most of the staff were unaware of what they were doing. Lines to meet guests and get autographs were in complete chaos. Talk of waiting in lines for more than 5 hours quickly spread around the con, as well as the fact the chaos of it became so problematic that it resulted in the con breaking Fire Marshall Code and getting in a spot of trouble. This issue only improved slightly over the weekend and not enough to turn this problem into an advantage in the long run. Hopefully the con will improve that next year.
A really good aspect of Fandomfest is the quantity and variety of guests. They had big names from several industries, most notable names being Stan Lee, William Shatner, Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flannery, Gene Simmons, Jason David Frank, Adam Baldwin, John Barrowman, and more. The variety of guests is indeed one of the things that bring people to this event. Now I need to take this moment to explain that Fandomfest works similar to a Comic Con - You will have to pay extra for photo ops and autographs, so fit that into your budget if you plan to attend.
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John Barrowman entertaining his fans in a Q&A panel.
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Now a really bad problem they had this year was that they kept canceling panels, moving them around, and nobody could find anything. They moved around autograph times, photo-ops got pushed back and they even canceled a few guest Q&A sessions. Now this wouldn't have been such a major issue, if the staff didn't choose to make the actual special guests the scapegoats and blame them. The guests were buzzing about how unfair it was to them, as well as to their fans. They openly defended themselves in panels to all their fans, and drama ensued. A proper convention needs to learn you do not blame the special guests, treat them poorly, and certainly not blame them for the con's mistakes. There is a very important reason for this - they will talk, they will tell fellow friends of theirs in the industry, and that convention will have a hard time finding guests willing to attend the following year.
Now a major plus side to Fandomfest are the dealer halls. They have 3 different dealer halls filled to the brim with rare, unique, and exceptional content. From old movies, cartoons, comics, to rare figurines, plushes, and autographed posters -there was always something unique to buy. Pricing is pretty decent as well. This reviewer in fact found several items to buy including something she'd searched years for.
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One of the smaller vendor halls.
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A picture of the larger vendor hall.
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Look at this rare pin!
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I just boasted about the vendor halls, but I also need to set aside a small portion here to warn people who attended. I'm sure the convention was not aware of this, so try to go light on them if you end up being a victim of this problem. One dealer was selling fake autographed photos for hundreds of dollars. The con apparently didn't take the time to make sure it was an authentic seller. When questioned by an attendee, the girl called her fake autographs "art" and told them that if they didn't like it, they didn't have to buy it. The problem was that vendor was promoting them as real autographs. So, sorry to say - if you bought an autographed photo for a lot of money - you might need to check its authenticity out now.
Another plus side was all the activities. So many independent horror movies were being played for the first time at Fandomfest as well as big favorites. They also had fandom related panels, contests, screenings all over the event to entertain guests. In the upstairs Conservatory bar area at night, they played numerous films on a big screen. It was exceptionally nice to sit, chat, and gather at a bar while watching Ghostbusters 2. They also had maid cafe panels, parties, and other exciting night life for the older crowd. Note here that when the sun goes down, the con becomes 18+.
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People enjoying a screening of Ghostbusters 2 on Friday night by the bar.
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Another issue was the schedule. It was confusing, complicated, and lacked a map to direct you where you needed to go especially with so many of them being canceled or relocated without notice. Due to this, it actually made one of my favorite things about this convention from last year become almost worthless this year. The hotel has interactive boards throughout the hotel which they streamed the schedule and locations on. Yet, once things changed around there was no update on the board to inform people.
Another major benefit for Fandomfest was their attendance growth. Attendance numbers not only doubled this year, but they actually ran out of badges and reached max capacity this year. Although I don't have the official numbers yet, so don't quote me on this, the word going around was that there were over 28,000 people this year. That's some insane convention growth, especially for a small city like Louisville.
Unfortunately, that amount of attendance growth turned out to be a problem because the staff was not prepared for the amount of growth this year. It caused several issues including them not knowing how to flow traffic properly. Halls would get too crowded, autograph lines were a mess and caused over 5 hour waits. The staff buckled under the pressure and many of them gave up trying to keep things organized which caused utter chaos. Several attendees ended up complaining - as far as to the point that they posted bold complaints and tagged the convention in it afterwards. I'm sure it's because they hope the con will improve, as I also am hoping for by writing this review.
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People leaving less than flattering remarks concerning Fandomfest this year.
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Without further ado, lets rack up the points and add a few categories: NEW CATEGORY ADDED: GUEST TREATMENT - which details how the guests were treated by the staff.
Convention Staff and Security: 2/10
Cosplay Variety Range: 10/10
Convention Activity Level: 10/10
Convention Panels: 6/10
Registration Line: 4/10
Attendance Growth: 10/10
Convention Uniqueness: 8/10
Convention Layout: 2/10
Convention Guests: 10/10
Convention friendly level: 5/5
Guest Treatment Level: 1/5
Issues and problems: -10 points
Total Points: 56/100 Points
Overall Rating: 56%
Convention Grade: F
Overall Rating: 56%
Convention Grade: F
Review written by Warkified Chocobo of NerConEct.
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