Entering the crazy world of Comic con

      Friday and Saturday, September 6-7th I had the amazing opportunity of attend my very first comic con in salt lake city utah. Not only was this my first comic con, it was also the first convention like this for the state of utah. I had first heard about this convention after the very first announcement that it would be coming to utah and would be held at the south towne expo in sandy, but that wasn’t what got me excited about it.     

           What really got my going about it was the initial celebrity guest list which included none other than my childhood heroes: Adam West & Burt Ward. 

Adam West & Burt Ward from the show

Now if you aren’t in touch with your inner geek then let me explain who these two men are. Yes Batman and Robin from the 1966 TV series was there as part of the guest list. you can imagine my excitement as a long time batman fanatic to finally get to see in the flesh the two actors that in a sense changed my life forever. The original venue was only scheduled for two rooms at the South Towne Expo that really wasn’t that big of a venue. 
   But i didn’t care, because batman would be there. As time passed and the days approached the convention, the number of celebrities that would be attending grew, and so did the venue. 



This was gearing up to be a lot bigger than what people had expected. so let’s fast forward to the sunday prior to the start of the convention. I see a post on their facebook page about volunteering to work at comic-con. This was a totally new concept to me, rather than pay money to go to it all three days, why don’t I work as a volunteer and get what I thought to be more perks than that of a person with the vip.  After some short email exchanges with the organizers of comic con I was selected to be a volunteer. i realized two things when this happened. 1.) this is going to be a lot of hard work, and make black friday in the retail world look like childs play and 2.) this is going to be absolutely amazing. I am going to be a part of history. Well I do have to say, I was right on both of my realizations, it was most definitely a lot of work, to say the least. On the flip side, I got to do a lot of things that one can only dream about.
      

      To Give you a short synopsis, I was given the opportunity to be a celebrity escort to Adrian Paul, who played as the Highlander in the late 90’s which was a fantastic experience. he was a lot of fun to talk to, and really nice, and most of all when i was completed with what i was assigned to do, he shook my hand and thanked me for my help. Here is a major celebrity thanking me for what i have done for him... SWEET!! I also had the chance to meet some of my childhood heroes, some of which you might know, some you may not. Dean Cain was awesome, very nice and very laid back. especially for a man who has the title of being superman.

David Yost aka The Blue Ranger

Walter Jones aka The Black Ranger

David Yost and Walter Jones, whom some of you may think who on earth is that? They were the original Blue and Black Power Rangers from the show The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.

Ray Park

      While I understand that this may really show how geeky I can be, I don’t really care. :-) the important thing is that I had the fantastic opportunity to meet and interact with celebrities. Some of the other celebrities that I met included Ray Park, who is known as playing Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1, Snake Eyes in G.I Joe, and last but not least, Toad in X-men. For a guy that’s short, he is ripped and not a guy I want to piss off in any parking lot. Henry Winkler who has been around the hollywood scene for a long time, was part of the celebrity guest list, he is a great guy. While the other celebrities were sitting behind their table, Henry was up in front of the table among the fans interacting with them, which I thought was a classy act on his part.

Adam West

       But the highlight of this comic con was being able to work the booth for burt ward, and the ever so famous, Adam west. Even though Adam is significantly older than he was before, he is just as sharp now as he was when he was on the show as batman. Talk about being humble and grateful. Adam West is probably one of, if not the most humble celebrities that I have ever met. (although his agent was a piece of work) Burt Ward on the other hand, not so much. Both Burt and his agent were making all sorts of hissy fits and made it very clear that they were unhappy that people decided to go pay money on Adam West, where the others just wanted to shake his hand. While Burt was throwing his tantrums (and no, I am not exaggerating either) Adam just looked over at burt and chuckled to himself while continuing signing autographs. There were many other stars that I met but all and all I think that for this being a 1st year in the business, this was a huge success!


        I am excited to be able to say that I was definitely part of history at the Inaugural Salt Lake Comic Con and because of the efforts that I was able put in to this particular comic con, I will be able to volunteer at the comic cons from here on out. The best moment though for me personally was to be able to see a lifetime dream come true with my wife and my son there at my side when it happened.
That right there, made all the headaches and all the stress that came from interacting with thousands of people all worth it. 

A view of the Vendor Exhibit floor on Saturday

**All the images were from the Salt Lake Comic Con website and all the credit for those images goes to them.