By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Changes are in store for both Emerald City Comicon (ECCC) and Fan Expo Vancouver (FEV), two of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest pop culture conventions. They are now respectively owned by ReedPOP and Informa Canada. While Hobby Star Marketing still manages the Fan Expo brand, they now report to a larger company that operates out of 43 countries that deal with a variety of exhibits than just focussing on geekdom whereas ReedPOP is more about the popular culture scene.
In what I’ve experienced from both of this year’s shows, a few of these modifications are not all that visible. Some include courier expressing show passes to fans so they have them in time for the show (ECCC) and others mean hiring additional security / staff for traffic control (FEV). The check-in of fake weapons is another and these are honestly needed for the safety for everyone. These changes are perhaps the most noticeable for this year’s two shows. As for what will happen in 2016, fine-tuning is required to manage the crazy lineups I saw when big name stars appear on the show floor.
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