I-CON 31, Stony Brook Long Island

Written by Samantha Saturday, 31 March 2012 17:15

ICON31 was held at Stonybrook University on Long Island. We (Samantha and John) attended ICON on Saturday, as that is usually the busier (and rainier) day of the convention.

The convention has a lot of good guests. Jeremy Bulloch, Bonnie Peirce, Paul Blake, Paul McGann (8th Doctor, from Doctor Who) and others.

However, the convention this year failed to perform. Several of the dealers complained that they had not seen it this dead in a long time on a Saturday. Half of the campus is under serious construction, which makes it very difficult to get around.

There is a HUGE anime showing at ICON. The problem with this is you have a lot of under 18 girls on a college campus, half dressed. This does not bod well for the family atmosphere that ICON tries to create.

There was also a lack of costumes, or good costumes. Most were 29.99 costumes you can buy at Party City for Halloween. Good costumes were few and far between.

The only GOOD costumes were from the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. They always have quality costumes where ever they go.

The dealers room was a repeat of previous years. You had a few autograph dealers, shirt dealers, video game and DVD dealers, the same jewelry dealers -- everything that you can find at any other convention. There was nothing special, new or different about ICON 31 from previous ICON's.

In the same respect, there was a Comic Book show in Manhattan this weekend, that had bigger names such as Stan Lee which even offered a meet and greet with him and we believe that a lot of the regular ICON goers attended the comic show, and plan on attending ICON on Sunday instead.

Will we return to another ICON? Who knows. Especially considering there are changes in the wind for the staff of MHC.