I’ve heard of ‘ComicCon’ before, the biggest one being in San Diego, which annually attracts all geeks and nerds in the known universe. It seemed an impossible dream that this phenomenon would ever come to Ottawa; but it did for one glorious weekend.
In the days leading up to the event, I must say that I felt like a child the night before Christmas: full of nervous energy and completely unable to function normally. All I could think about was seeing and hopefully meeting all these people that I had only ever read about and watched on television.
Each day, and multiple times each day, I would scour the internet for news about the Ottawa ComicCon. Where was it? Who was coming? How much were tickets? With all information in hand, Jeff and I decided to get VIP passes. We figured that if we were going to go, we might as well go in style. As it turned out, we were very glad that we did.
The day finally came, May 12. We got to the CE Centre bright and early, 9:15am. We couldn’t believe our eyes as we approached the venue. There were literally several THOUSANDS of people lined up outside, in front of the building, and around the entire parking lot.
We approached the building with an enormous sense of dread. ‘Do we have to lineup?’ we asked ourselves. ‘We have VIP passes!’ We went toward a guy holding a sign that read ‘Front of line’ and we thought ‘Okay, this is where we need to be’. We told the guy that we had VIP passes and he said that we needed to lineup with the rest of the people. WHAT!?!
Completely shocked and unable to comprehend what was happening, we made our way alongside the building looking for someone else to speak to. Surely that guy didn’t know what he was talking about. As we walked past the long line of people, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small handmade sign that read ‘VIP’. I gestured to Jeff and we immediately rushed over and presented our e-ticket. Now, I’m not a religious man, but I swear that I heard angels singing as we were instantly ushered inside.
All my nervous energy and my complete inability to function normally were now in overdrive. I vaguely recall the events that followed, only that by the end of it all, I had my picture taken in the driver’s seat of the Delorean, met and got an autograph from Adam Baldwin, met and had my picture taken with Lou Ferrigno, got an autograph from William Shatner, and attended Lou Ferrigno’s, Marina Sirtis’, William Shatner’s, Adam Baldwin’s, and Brent Spiner’s panels.
It was a once in a lifetime experience that I hope to do again next year.
