Faith Heads to Fan Expo 2006

Yes, kiddies, Faith Naked is off September 1st to September 3rd to the annual Fan Expo inToronto, Canada for a weekend of mingling with the geekiest of fanboys and girls at the best convention in Canada. Oh, I’m getting a happy on just thinking about it.

The Annual Fan Expo in Toronto is a huge convention featuring 5 conventions in all: Canadian National Comic Book Expo, SFX: Canadian National Science Fiction Expo, Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, CNAnime: Canadian National Anime Expo, and GX: Canadian National Gaming Expo. That’s right; all things geek in one huge weekend expo. This will be my fifth year going and I am stoked more than ever for this year.












My journey will start on Friday night at 6pm with the Video Games Live show at Massey Hall in Toronto. Video Games Live is a concert featuring an orchestra and choir that performs the music from various video games like Super Mario Bros, Halo, and The Legend of Zelda. The show also includes interactive elements like a costume contest, game previews, and a chance to win a new laptop during the show. Check out Neiro’s article on the show for more details. I’ve been lucky enough to make friends with the marketing coordinator for the show, Becky “Altrez” Young and will be getting to go backstage after the show, as well as help judge the costume contest. So for those of you entering the contest, you know who to suck up to now. I’ll also get a chance to meet the show creator’s Tommy Tallerico (My #1) and Jack Hall as well as maybe a few local industry people. Sweetness!














Saturday I’ll be at the convention itself where I’ll spend my day perusing the endless aisles of vendors peddling their geek wares, and waiting in line to get autographs from the many special guests such as Juliet Landau, better known as Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gates McFadden, better known as Dr. Beverley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Each guest also has an intimate and interactive session that deluxe pass holders can attend to sit and listen to hundreds of real fan boys ask them a bunch of really dumb questions. The convention features special events for all the conventions over the course of the weekend such as anime screenings, a masquerade contest, a special party at The Reverb for the horror convention featuring an appearance from Alice Cooper, and card battle tournaments.











The science fiction expo is also holding a Star Trek 40th Anniversary event with special guests William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The special event included an intimate and interactive session with the two stars and then depending on how much you fork out for the different ticket packages, you can also get photos, autographs and free exclusive items. I’m not going to this event because I refused to pay $130 dollars just to listen to obsessed Star Trek fans ask questions of their gods, Kirk and Spock. I did fork out $80 to do the same thing with James Marsters at last year’s convention, so I guess we all have our faults.












The convention just added the Horror and Gaming Expos last year, so I hope to see more content from both of these expos at the con this year. Nintendo was the only major company to be involved in the Gaming expo, but with G4 TechTV sponsoring the event and D.O.R.K hosting a few gaming tournaments, my hope that this year will feature more companies from the video game, role-playing game, and card battle industries. The horror convention has also added a few new elements this year like horror movie screenings, game sessions for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and World of Darkness, and a live panel of quests to answer questions about the horror industry. Hopefully this is a sign that there will be more content this year for the horror expo.

Look for a full recap of my weekend at the Fan Expo next week.

For more info on all the expos and events, check out the official Fan Expo 2006 website.

For more info on Video Games Live, check out the official website.











(Note: Anyone still interested in getting tickets for this event, I suggest going to the Massey Hall website and buying the tickets directly from there, instead of using Ticketmaster. See I got mine from Ticketmaster and I ended up with horrible seats on the main floor, when there are apparently good front area seats still available on the Massey Hall site. Curse you, stupid Ticketmaster for putting me behind a pole!)