Review: Wizard World Big Apple Con Spring Edition
Last Updated on Saturday, 28 May 2011 13:36 Written by John Saturday, 28 May 2011 13:32
Over the weekend of May 21st & 22nd 2011, Wizard World held their Big Apple Comic Con Spring Edition at the Penn Pavilion in midtown Manhattan. The convention was host to such guests as Tom Felton from the Harry Potter series, Morena Baccarin from V and James Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
While big comic cons in NYC during the year are few and far between, I applaud Wizard World for hosting one in May to hold us rabid fans over till Labor Day when Dragon Con happens. However I really think Wizard World should look into alternate venues for their next con in the city. The reason being is, the Penn Pavilion is too small of a location to hold a convention that size.
While all cons have their pluses and minuses, this edition had more minuses than pluses.
I’ll start with the pluses:
Great guest line up
Good Idea to hold a show in the spring time
Now here is what I feel were the minuses:
Too small a venue
Disorganization of the volunteer staff/Lack of knowledge from the volunteers on where certain things where
No AC in certain parts of the exhibit floor
Long lines to meet the guests
Hard to get to where the panels were being held
While in line for the men’s room I overheard people saying they will never attend another Wizard World again. It’s a shame to hear people say that since Wizard World cons are usually good conventions. Case in point, Philadelphia Wizard World is being held in a pretty big venue, and is easy enough to navigate from the dealer’s room to the artist alley, to panels.
All in all I felt this convention was a letdown compared to previous Wizard Worlds that I have attended. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes with this con and improve them for the next Big Apple Con in October.
