As it is comic conventions are becoming popular in and of themselves as people want to learn about comics, see demos for video games and hear hot Hollywood news before others. Because of that I can excuse the lack of con experience that was very apparent at the con, but it’s shocking to see that the company that produced the well-oiled C2E2 also phoned in this con as well.
Friday it became clear to me that this con was going tobe a sit in one room and watch every panel type con. This was mostly due to the fact that the ten people in charge of lines for all fifteen panel rooms were not letting people in to the rooms as they cleared out. Most panels experience a large exodus of people when the Q&A begins and at most cons they funnel more people into the room. Not NYCC, they would not fill the room again until the next panel which created massive lines that was completely pointless. There was never a room I didn’t get into due to the line, but I still had to wait for the control Nazi’s to let me in the door. In a lot of cases it seemed as if they just wanted to create hype for the room or have people talk about waiting in line as to give the con a much bigger feel. It honestly felt like they were intentionally creating lines.
The only thing that NYCC has going for it was the fact that most of the comic publishers were willing to reveal a lot of juicy details about their upcoming projects. Either by accident or planned, it didn’t matter.It could be in part due to the time period in which NYCC falls as it is the last con of the season which could play to two schools of thought. One being that they’re tired of cons and traveling and just forget what they can and cannot say and the other being that they need to keep the interest for the books until the next years cons and what better way than to spoil something three issues out.
My general impressions of New York Comic Con can be boiled down to this: Unorganized, poorly set up, full of inexperienced visitors,decent panel information, lack of security, lack of volunteers and dirty. That’s right try emptying out a trash can once in a while so it doesn’t smell and look like a dumpster please. Also if you’re going to serve popcorn don’t burn it as that smells even worse when you’re trapped in a basement waiting in a pointless line with sweaty nerds. Would I attend NYCC again? Probably not. It would take a lot of convincing and several friends in attendance with me in order to make the trek again, but as it stands I think this was the worse con I’ve been to all year and it really made me want to go to C2E2 and Wonder Con instead.