WonderCon 2019: Exhibit Hall Floor (Part 1)

It’s that time of year again — WonderCon time! The “little sister” show of Comic-Con International’s San Diego Comic-Con takes place Friday, March 29 through Sunday, March 31 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Badges are now completely sold out.

The past couple of years, I haven’t been able to attend on the Friday, but this year, I was able to get the day off from work and go on Friday! The show floor didn’t open until 11:30am, so I took the opportunity to go to Disneyland for a little while before walking over to the convention center, which is across the street to the South.

It was about 12pm when I arrived on site, so any lines that had formed prior to the convention center opening had already long gone and I was able to walk right in without any waiting. As has become the tradition, food trucks lined the courtyard outside the convention center, and once again attendees had to scan in with RFID-enabled badges to access the fountain area.

The first panel I wanted to attend was Dark Phoenix, the upcoming X-Men movie, which was scheduled at 3:15pm in the Arena. So the first thing I did upon arriving was walk the Exhibit Hall floor, starting at Hall A (all the way to the right), working my way up and down the aisles.

At the back of Hall A, several charging stations were provided for those whose phones were running low on battery, though you needed to have a plug for the outlets, rather than just the USB cord. However, I had brought a portable battery pack, since I knew I would need it for the long day. But it is a nice option for attendees who had not brought a portable charger with them.

The DC booth was fun, as it had a Shazam photo booth to promote the new movie. You can see the video below that I made in the photo booth. If you’ve seen the movie already (we saw an early screening of it last weekend), then you’ll know what I’m mouthing in the video! If not, don’t worry, I won’t spoil it. The booth also had the Shazam costume on display.

 

 

Another fun booth was Stargate Command. I actually have recently been binging Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, so this was of particular interest to me. They had “stargates” set up that you could take a picture in front of to make it look like you had just come through. There was also a wheel that you could spin to win a prize. I won a button!

As far as making purchases, one thing that I am always on the lookout for are small nerdy earrings. There was a Marvel/Star Wars Jewelry booth that had several such earrings. I remembered buying from them last year, so I was glad to see them again. I picked out three pairs: Deadpool, Groot, and Infinity Gauntlet. The guy at the booth gave me a good deal, as they cost $10 for one pair, but $25 if you bought three pairs. I immediately put on the Infinity Gauntlet pair.

It seemed that people on Twitter were enjoying my “earring coverage” so every time I came across a booth with a large assortment of nerdy earrings, I tweeted about it.

Around 2:30pm, I decided I should go ahead and head over to the Arena, just in case there was a crowd that might show up for the Dark Phoenix panel. However, it was a walk in at that point. Upon entering, attendees were given a Dark Phoenix poster. At that time, the 20th Annual Animation Show of Shows was still going on. The seats on the floor were full, though there were still some available in the first section of stadium seating. However, I went up to the balcony to make sure I had a good, clear view of the stage.

After screening several short animated films, Producer Ron Diamond brought out Andrew Chesworth, who had been nominated for an Academy Award for his animated short film One Small Step. He talked about having worked as an animator on several Disney films, and how he had initially been inspired to become an animator when he saw Bambi as a child.

Stay tuned for our recap and photos of the Dark Phoenix panel at WonderCon!

You can view more of our WonderCon 2019 photos below. Also, I only made it to aisle 1800 before I went to the Arena. I didn’t even make it to Hero Within yet, which is one of the booths I had been most looking forward to! Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Exhibit Hall floor photos.