We attended MEGACON yesterday, and want to share our insights and photos. This post will touch a bit on the good, the bad, and the very ugly of the con. While some people reading this will undoubtedly have horror stories to share, we feel adjusting certain expectations of a Saturday level of crowds for a con could leave you having a great time.
Having been to many cons over the years, we know that Saturdays are by far the worse days to go. To this point the organizers didn’t help themselves by having so many great guests show up on Saturday. In most cases this is due to the guests availability, and it is understandable they may only have 2 days to attend themselves. Yesterday saw the arrival of The Undertaker, all four Hobbits, and Kevin Smith to name a few.
First let’s talk about the ugly. This complaint starts outside with parking. All of the Orange County Convention Center parking lots were full somewhere between 11am -12pm. Multiple people were stuck outside in long lines of cars with nowhere to park. Reports on social media outlets were mentioning 1-3 hours worth of a mess for some people.
Our suggestion for any con on a Saturday is, stay at a hotel that is very close to walk to the con. Park somewhere else and Lyft in like we did, or if you must drive, you will need to sacrifice sleep and be at the parking lot incredibly early. If you start heading over to the con right at 10 and expect to park on a Saturday, you really need to re-think your strategies.
Another bad situation to call out before we talk about the good! The photo op area was a mess. If you spent money to get pictures with your favorite celebrities, you were met with horrible organization. This could have been avoided easily by the organizers. Previous cons we have attended before often have huge crowd drawing celebrities in their own section.
This should have been done with the Hobbits for sure. To this point when we met Stan Lee a couple of years ago, he was in his very own section, as was Chris Evans, Jason Momoa. The organizers should go to other cons if they haven’t for research, as this was dangerous and unacceptable.
Now let’s discuss the fun we had by separating the next sections into the what we focused on seeing for our only day at MEGACON!
Clerks
The movie Clerks holds a special place in my heart. In 2020 we had the chance to hang out with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (on the day we were all locked down) for a couple of hours in Hollywood. I was able to really thank Kevin for his work. That made meeting Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson the priority for MEGACON.
Approaching the area with the both of them we could tell that their lines were manageable, however if you were going to see Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith you were in for a horrid wait.
Both Brian and Jeff spent enough time with us conversing and joking around that it felt like I ran into old friends at the con. I let them both know, for better or worse how often I quote Clerks in my daily life. Jeff apologized for any time I may have gotten in trouble for quoting Randall from Clerks, but I defended him and said it is ok that is what Randall would have wanted.
For the autograph, I had them sign a 15th anniversary Blu-Ray cover that Kevin had already signed for me before, and the photo I asked them for the best “I hate work” face possible. I even conjured up my own face to go with it.
The Four Hobbits Reunion
The main focus of our trip to MEGACON was of course the Hobbits. We had the Photo op with them and also the panel with them which was at 7:30pm. We always suggest going for after hours events when you can as it will make leaving cons a lot easier. This avoids leaving with everyone else at the same time especially on a Saturday.
Enough has been said on the Photo op line above, but the experience of getting the photo itself was more or less the same. There was no interaction though like previous photo ops as they had a barrier between us and them. Thanks COVID! We still liked the end result though!
As part of our Hobbit-centered Saturday we attended their panel, The Four Hobbits: An Unexpected Reunion. This was well worth the price of admission! From Sean Astin complaining about his big feet prosthetics, to Billy Boyd’s fart story, it was light hearted and very fun to watch, and be a part of. I captured a couple of clips of their answers.
Some highlights to the panel were when questions were asked and the actors had to hold up who they thought the answers were. One example was, “Who gives the best gifts?” The picture where 3 out of 4 of them held up Dominic was the answer. Other questions were around filming the massive trilogy, and we were even treated to some bloopers from the set in which they asked follow-up questions of the actors about them.
Elijah Wood also mentioned they would not go back to Middle Earth unless Peter Jackson was involved, however Billy Boyd had other plans. Overall we really enjoyed our time with the Hobbits, and have great memories and stories to share.
MEGACON Conclusion and Thoughts
As we leave you with a lot of random photos from MEGACON here our our final thoughts. We had a great time at MEGACON, but it is because we set certain expectations for ourselves on how Saturdays and cons go.
For anyone reading this who may have had a bad day yesterday, just note form our experience this is unfortunately how Saturday events go. Whatever didn’t work for you yesterday, come up with a plan to mitigate it next time if you decide to do it again. For us, the parking really can’t be addressed unless the convention center decides to spend a lot of money (good luck there). The line disorganization can be dealt with by the organizers though, and they should really look into it.
Now enjoy our photos and let us know what you think in the comments! Excelsior!
My favorite area was the 501st Legion’s booth. They did a really good job with their set, amazing costumes, very friendly cosplayers.