With convention season now in full swing and Phoenix Comic Con in the books for this year; let’s look at some of the highlights of Phoenix Comic Con 2015. With last year’s convention having a huge increase of attendee’s one would think that it couldn’t any big then it is now? WRONG! So wrong; this year’s convention was the biggest it’s ever been and I am sure next year it will be even bigger. The convention only used the north and west buildings this year, but they used all 3 floors of each building something that had never been done. The basement level contained the entire vendors hall which was massive compared to Fan Fest or the past years PCC. They moved registration to the north ballroom formally where the huge spotlight panels were and moved the spotlight panels to the 3rd floor of west building. Room 301 was a gigantic improvement allowing much more seating and lowering the chances of people missing out on the big panels due to lines. Now lines have always been a major issue at PCC but this year they nailed it. By having the flow of traffic go in one section and out the other way it helped smooth over some of the chaos. The escalators also only went up or down on certain side of the buildings so that helped control traffic a lot. This compared to past years was a huge improvement.
Now this year had some huge guests! Alyson Hannigan, Christopher Lloyd, Danielle Panabaker, David Morrissey, Edward James Olmos, Jason Isaacs, Jason Mamoa, Jim Beaver, Karl Urban, Katee Sackoff, Mary McDonnell, Micheal Shanks, and a ton of others were in attendance during the weekend. There were also some extremely popular authors, Diana Galbaldon and Max Brooks just to name two. The spotlight panels for the guests this year were fun, with lots of humor and definitely made me hope some of them return next year. The fan panels this year came in all varieties from cosplay dos and don’ts to in-character Q&A’s. One of my favorite events is P.U.G.S (Phoenix Ultimate Geek Smackdown!). An event that usually split into 2 days Thursday was the qualifiers and Friday was the finals. The event has two people debate a geeky topic; which could range from ‘Capes vs. No Capes’ to ‘Who would be the better chef, Batman vs. Superman’. The topics are always entertaining and the commentary is a riot. Another favorite had to have been Karl Urban’s spotlight panel on Sunday. His onset stories from past movies were hilarious; especially the practical joke ones. Skewed n’ Reviewed’s very own Gareth Von Kallenbach had his very popular upcoming movies panel as well as the upcoming videogames and tech panel. Both always being huge hits with packed rooms. The programming for this year was extremely diverse and made for a great convention.
All and all this year was a huge success for Phoenix Comic con; which sold out of full membership passes just a few days away from Preview night (Thursday). Aside from the lines and the panels they also made an effort to have more food trucks this year; which was greatly appreciated. As usual they had part of third street shut down to show off some cool geeky cars, but this year they also added live music to the mix. Which was an interesting choice, but due to the heat and only a small covered area during the day there wasn’t a large crowd. As always Phoenix Comic Con does such a fantastic job on making the experience of the attendee’s a positive one. I’m sure that next year will be an even bigger success! Can’t wait for June 2nd 2016.
