Emerald City Comic Con: Where Pop Culture Comes to Life

After a thrilling adventure at Emerald City Comic Con, we can't wait to share our experience with you! Discover how the new venue, the Summit, and its official app made navigating the convention and keeping track of events a breeze, allowing us to spend more time enjoying the world of pop culture.

Listen in as we explore the diverse offerings of Emerald City Comic Con, from vendors and activities to a unique maid cafe. We dive into how the convention has become a melting pot for all things geeky, and how everyone can find something to enjoy. With more space for vendors and a new system for autographs and photo ops, attendees can now be more flexible with their time and fully experience the convention.

Finally, we'll give our review of Emerald City Comic Con, awarding it three and a half stars out of five. While there's still room for improvement in areas like video games and manga representation, as well as comic book vendors, it was a fantastic pop culture event. Plus, don't miss out on hearing about our personal purchases from the convention, including autographs from Neve Campbell and Matthew Lillard, and a Vegeta print!

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Transcript

Emily : 0:00

Welcome to Second Emulation, the podcast that explores all things pop culture, from movies and TV shows to the latest anime releases. Join us as we dive into the world of entertainment, sharing our thoughts, opinions and insights on the latest trends and releases, with a focus on what's hot and what's not. we're your go-to source for all things pop culture. So sit back, relax and let's get started.

Shawn: 0:21

So I went to Emerald City Comic Con for myself. The last one I went to was in 2021. So it's been a while and I have to say my mind was blown because a new year, a new venue, a lot of new changes And I have to say I like the changes that were made for this year and the new location because, for someone who has gone to many of Emerald City Comic Cons, the one gripe that I myself personally had was the venue. It was just very cramped and it looks like they took the feedback and they made improvements And, i have to say, couldn't be more happier. Now, what? you're probably wondering. What do you? what am I saying? Now we have a convention here, convention center here in our city, like most major cities, where they hold big events. Now, the downside with that, it's the only convention center besides stadiums that can hold major events that bring in revenue. Now, not to say for concerts, but things like conventions, like comic book industry, entertainment industry or like business. This is the place that holds, that can entertain that mass majority of people. Now, the issue that they would have, because there's so many calendar events within the year that need this space, there would always be a conflict of interest. So there would have to be lots of rescheduling going on. That's why you would see a lot of stuff either spaced out sometimes the conventions would have to, depending on the event, would have to either change their date And there was a lot of that going on behind the scenes They decided that it would be in their best interest to create a second venue to allow them to be more flexible and have two events going on simultaneously if both dates need to be available for scheduling, which I think is a great idea. If one place is locked up for one event, one venue, then they're the ones free to have the venue at that location. So great idea, and it turned out. It worked well.

Shawn: 3:33

Now, that being said, this venue, which is called the summit, is by far, i think, a good investment for the city. It is huge, it is six floors, has renewable energy, everything from solar panels to reuses. The water that it uses is filtered from the rain That was a unique, interesting fact And it has so much space. So one thing about conventions that I can say is that you have to fight the crowds. It's always crowded, you're always going to be fighting the crowd, and this was the first time that me and my partner didn't have that anxiety and that stress that we were going to have to fight our way for all four days to get from point A to point B. Everything was so. There was so much space that you could breathe And it was the first Like you could actually relax and breathe. I have never been at a convention where I felt like that before. It was. It gave me peace of mind And that was like put me at ease. For when we walked in And yeah, there was crowd. We were moving with the crowds And once we entered to the new venue, the summit, like we didn't have to worry about fighting the crowd being bombed. It was just a sigh relief. The second was just there was only one entrance and exit, which I thought was awesome. The other venue just there was too many exits, too many entrances for the security to monitor and the employees of the convention to monitor, so that there was always coming and going With this venue there's one entrance and one exit. I thought it was spectacular It would. It made it much more easier to monitor. The venue from top to bottom looked new. There were just six floors that had three escalators, so two going up and one going down to navigate traffic, which was awesome. Each floor had rooms like a giant room and then around it individual rooms for panels. So I thought was awesome, it just had space, which which everything didn't feel so clustered and crowded, which I think helped put my mind at ease. Now I think the next thing would probably be the experience Now for those who have gone to any not just a comic con or just any convention.

Shawn: 7:21

Normally you're given a pamphlet or a guide or a program of what entails for the three days, the four days, what's going to be on the agenda. In the past, with conventions or for comic con, they've had paper programming that they would just hand out and then you would have to, like, plan your days through that and then they transition to a third party app which was simply you'd have to download, then download the program and then work through that. This time the convention or MSD Comic Con had officially had their own app, wasn't a third party app. It wasn't someone else's app that you had to download. It was their official app, which was something new, because I myself remember the hurdles of having to download that third party app and then downloading a program. This was new. They had their official app and it was. The experience with that was amazing.

Shawn: 8:54

Me talking about an app like oh, apps are one of a dozen. I get that, but for things like going to a convention like this, where you're going to be planning out your day and you need to know the program of what's going to happen and you don't have a guide of what time things are going to start and you do have your phone an app like this is essential to plan out your day. For me it was like a breath of fresh air and the app itself was very informal. Once we downloaded it, it was like boom. It had everything you needed. It showed you the spotlight of the guests, an actual map that you needed to guide through, had a program. You could explore where to buy photo ops and autographs right there from the app. You could set on what specific date, timeline notifications Each day. They're all streamlined and then you could set a notification for yourself to remind yourself when a specific panel guests. It was very streamlined.

Shawn: 10:28

Then the kicker I think it was even a step four is they even had within the app free Wi-Fi for the guests. The other venue didn't offer free Wi-Fi. You had to pay for the Wi-Fi through the convention center package. This was a free Wi-Fi access. They even gave you the name of the Wi-Fi and the password within the app. I was like that was amazing. They didn't have to do that, but they did free Wi-Fi for all attendants who were at the convention center. You didn't have to worry about depending if you're in an area that you had no signal. I'll look to the Wi-Fi while you were here. Never thought of that. That was thumbs up.

Shawn: 11:38

Another thing that kind of threw, you know, took me back, is that they even implemented a code and bag check on level three. That's the same thing for a minute. Yeah, i said that. A coat and bag check on level three. That means for a lot of attendees like myself, if we're carrying our backpacks or bags and it gets tiring for us if we buy merch or other things that we just don't want to carry our bags while we're at the event, we can go in and check our coats and bags and still walk around and then come back at a later time and pick up our stuff and then go to our hotels. That that's amazing. I thought that was a great move by Ambroseady, comic Con and the convention. We're going to have so many people here. They're going to be carrying their bags and if they're with kids, they're buying stuff and it's going to be heavy for them and they still want to attend the event and we don't want them to go back to their hotels and come back. Let's give them an option. Most impressive, i applaud them for that and it worked. There was a lot of people using the bag and coat check and it kept them in the convention center longer and I took my hat off to them because it worked. It's one of the things I myself am going to utilize next time around, because one of the things that becomes an issue is that, again, you carry your bag, you have your water and you go to the convention and you walk around. Over time, that bag, if you're buying stuff, becomes heavy and you either have to decide you're going to go back to your hotel to drop off your bag or drop off some stuff and then come back and you don't want to miss any panels or events that could be happening, because by the time you have to, either depending on how long or how far your hotel is. So that was a very ingenious idea for them to do that and looking forward to maybe utilizing that the Nexa con.

Shawn: 14:50

The next thing also is just a lot of different food items on every level, which impressed me a lot. The one thing from the other venue was there was very limited food options which forced a lot of the attendees, including myself, to go outside and get food, and the only option was a cheesecake factory. This actually solved that. There was a lot of different food options which kept many people from going outside the convention to get food. They're not the best options still finger food but there was enough options, reasonable options to not having to go out and go to the convention center or go to another restaurant to get some food when you can get something for half the cost and hold you over. So I thought that was also pretty good and I think the options were like chicken strips, pizza and looked like a pot pie, which that was interesting. I mean, there weren't the best, but it was the first time in their new venue. So they're trying and I think come next year, with feedback they get from everyone, they're probably going to step up their game, which I'm excited to see because I feel like this was a trial run in the new venue, that they're going to take a lot of input and then they're going to make it even better.

Shawn: 16:39

Now, the next thing that kind of just blew me away was how they implemented autographs and what I mean by autographs. At conventions. There are autographs and photo ops by celebrity guests. You can actually buy an autograph or photo op through a third party vendor that's there and they're a company that does both the autograph and the photo op. Now, in the past, when it comes to the autographs, you would normally have to go, select the day and then select the time that you would go have to be at that guest that's a lebs table in order to get your item signed. And finding out that they no longer do that anymore When it comes to the autograph, is that your purchase for that day is valid for that day or you have to do is check the times for that day.

Shawn: 18:08

I was. I was shocked because the past that you were, you had to adhere to that purchase and that time and that date, that if you had missed it, you had to repurchase your autograph either for a later timeframe so you would spend more money. Now you make one purchase for that day and your. Your receipt and purchase, for whichever date you pick, is valid for the whole day. All you have to do is check the time and then show up for that specific time frame. That's it, and this, i believe, is a game changer in my opinion, because there will no longer be any conflicts of interest if you can go early to go get something signed by your favorite celeb, and if there are already signed people lined up, you can just go in, get signed and then leave. you don't have to be here to a later time frame, and so I thought that's pretty cool, and I don't know how the celebs may feel about it, but I for me, as an attendee, i thought it was pretty nice that I was able to get something signed pretty easily and then able to enjoy the rest of the con and not be too stressed if I was going to miss my time slot. And that was like the biggest concern in the past, which is, you were so stressed out and anxious that if you were gonna miss your times, everything was like had to be planned around you getting your autograph or you getting your photo op that if there were other panels or events you wanted to do that they were just pushed off to the wayside, and this allows it to be more flexible, which I do enjoy. I do kind of like that. They made this adjustment, so I don't know if this was implemented for this time or if it was done more recently in the previous con.

Shawn: 20:46

Now, with this new convention center, there were a lot more no say more fun for everyone to enjoy and, with that being said, there was a lot more things for people to do. You had your standard board games, manga library. There was just a lot more things to do. They were trying to bring in everything for everyone, which I myself and with so much space, they had to fill up things for everyone. And this year they introduced a maid cafe, which I didn't have the opportunity to attend, which would have been nice to do. Unfortunately, that was not in the cards. Now they did have larping here, which that was pretty new. I thought bringing in different vendors and different things and not just making it more about comic books and vendors is a good way to expand the conventions. I know a lot of people want to be solely just meant for comic books, which is great and all, but it is a melting pot for all things geeky now and it was nice to see a lot of kids dressed up in cosplay and enjoying the convention. Now, when I mentioned earlier more fun for everyone to enjoy, these conventions are essentially are meant for you to enjoy in your own way. You get to choose the type of experience and the type of fun that you're going to have. So you go in with the mindset of how you're going to spend the time here.

Shawn: 23:00

And for me and my partner, we decided we were going to step outside our comfort zone and and march ourselves and and what the convention was going to offer. So we decided to do some what they considered con after dark events. So we did some bingo, nerd bingo, which was pretty interesting. They tried. It was. I would say it was pretty eventful. It made me laugh. It was a good out of our comfort zone. we did go to a men after dark anime viewing show. With it we were watching from episode one. That was pretty interesting, yeah, and normally we don't. We don't normally do like after dark events or you know, once the con shuts down we just go to our hotel. So we were trying to expand that. What kind of offerings they did. And since it was being it's in a new venue or like, let's just roll the dice. So those are the two that we tried And since they were having this prom event on a Saturday night, we decided we would join this prom night party, which is like a rave dance party, and it was awesome.

Shawn: 25:01

Everyone, geeks, merits of all of all cultural backgrounds, a group who are uncorrelated and dancing just dancing to music, which I thought was pretty nice. And they had a little mini bar setup station for people to drink, which was I thought was pretty nice for those who wanted to drink, and it was a fun time And it was a good experience, which would never have done if we didn't risk it for the biscuit. As my family would always say And this just goes back to like fun for everyone that these conventions there's things for every everyone there. So there's things for kids, there's things for teens, adults, there is a lot of. We have anime, manga, star Wars you just have to go and seek it out and cosplay And, as I mentioned earlier, if you've ever gone to a con, a convention before and then you've ever felt like, oh, this was like the worst experience in my life, you have to ask yourself what were you trying to get out of it?

Shawn: 26:33

Did you want to see someone? What was your plan? Because normally with conventions of these natures you have to have like a plan going in. And this brings me back to like my first one that I've ever gone to which I had no plan, unfortunately. Yeah, i mean, i'm so seasoned, i've been to so many conventions, i feel like I'm an expert, which I'm not For those I feel like.

Shawn: 27:10

I think everyone should go to a convention of this caliber, if it's Emerald City Comic Con or Pac West, pac East, new York Comic Con, san Diego Comic Con, any pulp culture convention event that's in your city, if it may have it be big or small, go there, experience it, be there with your peers or people who have similar interests as you, because you be surprised how many people might geek out on the same things that you might be interested in. And that was like my first, like culture shock when I went to one of these. Was that, how many people like minded as me, who have the same interests, who are geeking out on the same things? we're all have a love for comic books, anime, star Wars. We're all geeking out. Some are showing their geekiness by cosplaying their favorite characters. Some are doing you know art, so it they're showing it in different ways in different mediums. And so I feel like, for those who want to, who are unsure about going to these cons, just experience it for yourself. Engine will see if it's something you want to do, to start off small and then go from there What Let's see.

Shawn: 29:23

So with everything that, so, with my return to or going back to I was saying the Comic Con, with this new venue, i would have to say, with everything that I experienced at this convention, i would have to give my overall review of this year's convention would have to be four out of five stars. Now, it can't give it five stars because there's still room for improvement. Actually, we'll give it three and a half stars. I'll correct myself we'll give it three and a half stars because there's still areas that need improvement overall for this convention. So just certain tweaks, things that can be improved Now, not saying that things are going to. You know it's going to be perfect, but it's on its way to getting there overall and hopefully, with feedback that the attendees give the vendors for Amazon and Comic Con, they'll eventually up their game and then we can see some improvements And the reason why I gave it three and a half stars is that, for everything that I mentioned that were great about the convention, there were also some areas that were lacking.

Shawn: 31:10

Yeah, they made some big improvements, but there were also things that they were lacking. There wasn't no representation for video games. They were displayed or announced anywhere. Manga was kind of like had its own floor but also off to itself, and it was lacking in a bit. Comic books vendors weren't here, they're like off, they're like independent. So hopefully, like there were some vendors that were missing, that hopefully that next year we'll get them back and just other independent people will end up coming and then we can get more events, more panels displayed, and so hopefully that would change. It just seemed, yeah, we had that representation there, but it was also like lacklustering and didn't get the type of representation or the advertisement that they deserved, and so I felt, yeah, they were present, but they were like off to the side And if you didn't know where they were at or seeking them, you wouldn't really know. So I feel like maybe that would get improved. Also, the map Yeah, they had a map, but the map it also had issues of displaying where the vendors were, like their names and updates to the map were also lagging, and updates to times and things like they were like minor things, but those things also have to be updated as well, because if you're looking for a vendor or an artist and your app says that they're located at this area on the map and they're not there, but it can cause some issues or that vendor's livelihood. There were some things that caused me to give it three and a half stars, not saying it's bad, just saying that, with all the good things that I've mentioned about the convention this year, there were some some things that kept it from giving it that high marks.

Shawn: 33:49

Now, since I did go to the con, i did end up making some purchases. So this year I I end up getting two autographs. They weren't for my, they weren't for me. One was by Nev Campbell, who played Sydney's Prescott and scream. The other one is Matthew Lillard, who played Stu and scream.

Shawn: 34:22

I got these for two family members and I got myself a, a Vegeta print from a vendor that I followed for a very long time. They had put out a, a release that when it dropped it had sold out and I wasn't quick enough to to pick it up and they had two variants. So when I was walking, artist alley, me and my partner were just casually happened to walk in front of them And I told myself if I wouldn't, if I didn't get the print there, i wouldn't miss out. And they had a deal If I got one, i buy another one. I guess I can second one free, and I should have got a second one, not to once if I get it later.

Shawn: 35:33

But the print that I got was a Vegeta print. It was a Vegeta print that just. It shows his whole history, of all his history. He sang the four of round. It's just for those who don't know. For those who don't know, i am a huge Vegeta fan. I have a Vegeta tattoo on my arm.

Shawn: 36:04

I grew up with Dragon Ball. Goku was a good protagonist, but when they introduced Vegeta, i was a Vegeta fan. Something about Vegeta resonated for me. So when they had him and he transitioned from the bad guy to the antihero slash good guy, i resonated with him And they had a print there of Vegeta and I was able to get it. And so I have that and that was, like my, the one thing I got myself, and so I'm going to get the other print, which is Goku, which they're. They're part of a set, so I'll get that later, but those are the things that I got myself. Those are the things I purchased at the con, because you can't go to a convention and not get anything. It's completely impossible to do. Yeah, those are my purchase that I got while at this year's Grammar City Comic Con. So that's going to bring me to the end of this episode, so I will see you guys in the next one.

Emily : 37:27

Thanks for tuning into this episode of Second Emulation, where we explored the latest in pop culture movies, tv shows and anime. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, spotify or your favorite podcast app and leave us a rating and review to help us reach more listeners. And don't forget to follow us on social media for even more pop culture content and to stay up to date on all the latest news and releases. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future episodes. So until next time, keep on emulating and stay tuned for more exciting content.