Adventures at Fandom Fest - Day 1

Yes, Fandom Fest was my first experience of both being at a convention and being part of a convention. Upon arriving at the Galt House it didn't take long to recognize the immensity of Fandom Fest. I'm not talking the amount of people, I'm talking the size of the facility and the area in which the convention spread. It took three buildings to contain all the activities going on. After parking (and that was an adventure too) and getting checked in we went to register and receive our "get into everything" wrist bands. I am very thankful to Fandom Fest for allowing my wife and son into the convention for free. Well, if you don't count my time of participating on panels that is but more on that later.




Soon we were walking around. At this time the doors were not open to the public and yet people were everywhere. Some in costume some not but all had a look about them that screamed, 'this is where I belong.' I do have to admit, I liked their confidence. As we navigated the halls and rooms we ended up where we needed to be...the Literary Track. The place that would hold all the panels for authors, yes, this was my little slice of the convention. After meeting the other authors I had just enough time to grab dinner with my family and rush back for the first panel.




When I say first, I mean very first panel for me and first real panel to kick off the weekend for the authors. It was all about writing a series. There were five of us including J.H. Glaze, and M.B. Weston. Oh, as if I wasn't nervous enough, the host handed me the first question to get things going. I survived and actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I would say that this panel was a lot of fun and we had a great time talking with the audience. Yes, we had an audience which was a good thing. The panel ran for little more than an hour which, at that time, gave my about twenty five minutes to make it to my next panel which was 'finding the right path to publishing.' I have to be honest, I did not enjoy this panel very much as there were a few publishers who thought their word was final and the debate was over which kind of wrecks the purpose of a panel.




It is 8:00 when the panel is done. Keep in mind, I started driving at 8:00 that morning so I'm running low on energy but we check out the vendor's hall which is massive! Here I have one of the highlights of my weekend. I met Grant Wilson from Ghost Hunters, talked for awhile, and even got his business card with email. Yeah, I sound like a fan because I am a fan. He is a good person and easy to talk too. Heck, he would fit right in with the people I hang out with. I also ran into Stan Lee but that is another post for later on.I'll give you a hint, how many of you can claim that Stan Lee crashed your party?




That's it for day one. Day two was just as insane as Day one.