Emerald City Comicon – Why I’m Excited (and Why I’m Not)
Written by GeekGirlCon Copywriter Sarah “SG-1” Grant
Emerald City Comicon is coming up this next weekend, March 27-29, at the Washington State Convention Center! It’s a 3 day celebration of comics, writers, artists, collectibles, cosplay, fandom-related merchandise, and of course, all those FANS.

From the ECCC home page
I have been extremely excited to attend ECCC for the past five years; though I’ve been in Seattle for almost 10 years, I didn’t hear about it until 2011, and I showed up on the first day and bought my weekend pass on site. That doesn’t happen anymore; all of the passes were sold out in early February this year, and I’m pretty sure they were sold out for last year’s show as well. I’ve been a “buy it early!” kind of girl for most of my life, so I bought this year’s pass the day they went on sale back in September.
I’ve been attending conventions since seventh grade; they were Star Trek conventions, and they usually only had a couple of thousand attendees. The really big conventions were the ones that had more than one celebrity guest. I saw Mark Lenard (Spock’s father, Sarek from TOS) and Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Janice Rand from TOS) at the same convention, and that one blew my mind. As the years passed, conventions got larger and larger, until the last purely Star Trek convention I attended had Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), and Colm Meaney (Transporter Chief O’Brien). I think there were about 5,000 people there at a hotel on the west side of Madison, Wisconsin.
My first experience at ECCC was amazing in every way. I got to sit in the main hall and listen to actors I admired tell stories, answer questions, and even repeat some of their most famous lines. There were a lot of people there–around 32,000–but it didn’t bother me. I arrived early so I could stand in line, and then get into the main hall as quickly as possible and stake out my seats as close to the front as I could get. I spent most of my weekend in that room, sitting in that seat, taking pictures (none of which turned out on my old, crappy phone!), and being in awe. Wil Wheaton was, by far, my favorite guest that year. I’d never seen him speak, and it struck me as he walked to the stage that he walked just like a normal geeky guy. He was comfortable at the podium, funny, sarcastic, and very entertaining. He was also very real; of all the actors and famous people I’ve met, he was the first who came across as a real person, rather than a famous person tolerating their fans.
ECCC ‘14 was a con of a completely different animal. There were a lot more than 20,000 people there; the convention had expanded its space within the Convention and Conference Centers, and it was hard to move around freely in the exhibitor rooms. There was a line every time I went into a bathroom, and it just felt crowded to be in the building, much less in the main hall and the exhibitor areas. I ventured down into the gaming area once, and it was packed–wall to wall people playing and watching various games, none of which I understood. I didn’t stay there very long.
Two years ago, I actually met one of my biggest celebrity crushes of all time: Patrick Stewart. I’m not the kind of person to stand in line for hours just to pay a lot of money for a picture or an autograph, but as he was the one person I hadn’t met from The Next Generation cast, I decided it would be worth it. It was, to a certain extent. I had stood in line early to get into the convention, and then immediately went upstairs to the autograph area to get in line. I was somewhere in the first 30 people, so I didn’t have that long to wait. Stewart came out on time, and immediately sat down at his table to start signing and meeting people. While I was standing in line, Gillian Anderson came to sit at her signing area right next to Stewart’s. It was fun to be close to her, but it was nothing next to approaching Patrick Stewart. I handed him the picture I wanted signed, he said hello and asked me my name, and then I said something about him being the only Next Gen cast member I hadn’t met, and that I’d been trying to see him since 1991. He sort of smiled at me, with a little puzzled head tilt, said it was nice to meet me, and went on to the next fan.

From Memory Alpha
I still have that signed photo in my ECCC program book for that year.
This year, even though I purchased my pass in September, and watched the guest list avidly to see who was coming, I’m not feeling quite as excited as in previous years. Don’t get me wrong; I purchased a photo op with John Barrowman already, and I am VERY EXCITED to meet Captain Jack Harkness in person!! It’s probably too much to ask that he’ll be dressed like Captain Jack for our photo…but a girl can dream. There are plenty of other exciting guests I want to see speak, of course, including Clark Gregg (swoon!), Brandon Routh, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Stan Lee (!!!), Curtis Armstrong, Hayley Atwell, Amanda Tapping, Rachel Skarsten, Chloe Bennet, Charisma Carpenter, and Julie Benz. One of my favorite authors will be there as well: Seanan McGuire, whose main character, October Daye, I wrote about in a blog post a few weeks ago. I do want to be there, but I’m just not feeling that motivated to get there, to be there, to stand in lines, and be around 80,000 or so of my “closest” friends.
Why is that? What’s changed for me in the past few years? I can think of a few reasons.
First: The aforementioned crowds. There will be SO MANY people there. I don’t get claustrophobic, and I generally like people (though I’m also pretty introverted); people watching is really fun, and I love listening to the celebrity guests tell stories about the shows and movies I love and follow. But this year, it feels like a big hassle.
Second: My expectations have changed. Before I had to pay to meet the celebrities I admire, I often worked myself into a bit of a tizzy, trying to decide what to say, imagining how it would go (good and bad, of course–I have a really active imagination!), and really hoping I wouldn’t fall flat on my face in front of the person I’d been hoping to impress with my witty repartee.
I still get worked up when I’m going to meet someone I admire; meeting Patrick Stewart solidified that particular trait for me. I’m really, really excited to meet John Barrowman; in some of the scenarios I’ve imagined (yes, I still do that), he decides I’m his best friend and we hang out together all the time and just be normal people. In some other scenarios, he sees me, falls in love with me, realizes that he doesn’t love his husband after all, and that I am the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. And there are the scenarios where I walk up to get my photo taken with him, I’ve got lunch on my shirt, and I trip over a cord, fall on my face, break my nose, and bleed all over the place. Like I said, a really active imagination. I’ve really accepted, however, that none of those scenarios will take place. I will meet him, I will be awkward, I will say something silly, and make no impression on him whatsoever, past that thought of, “that poor girl is so awkward,” as I walk away clutching my awful picture. And I will have paid $50 that I can’t really afford to have that moment with him. *sigh*
Third: I don’t have the money to spend on things I would love to buy. I’ve been slowly getting into comics, so there are writers and artists I really admire, and I would love to support them. I want to buy Lego jewelry, and dragon-shaped earrings, and the entire Neil Gaiman Sandman series, and more geeky t-shirts I really don’t need (I have like 50 t-shirts).
Fourth: Have I mentioned all those people??
In spite of all the potential the weekend has for embarrassment (sorry in advance, John Barrowman), and all of those people, and the things I can’t buy…I’m still pretty excited to sit in the main hall and watch and listen to those stories. I’ve seen actors who remember every second of their previous roles, who love to talk about their favorite moments; I’ve also seen actors who barely remember their past characters’ names, but it’s still fun to listen to them talk about their lives and what they enjoy doing. Maybe I’ll see you there; I’ll be the one with the auburn bob, a geeky t-shirt, jeans, and comfortable shoes.
I’m sure I’ll stand out in the crowd.
I’m with ya. My first time was also ECCC ’11, and it was nice to go from room to room and eavesdrop on the panels. I wasn’t one for sitting up front, but there was always some place to sit in the back. We went again in 2014, and it was awful. We spent $150 (me and hubby) to push through crowds, find lines forming three hours in advance of a panel, and just general not-goodness. We were able to roam the comics and look at the cos players and that was it. We didn’t buy tickets this year because of our experience last year. Good luck to you! 🙂
Yeah, it’s been really hard this year to get up the actual physical motivation to go. What’s helped a lot this week is finding out that, while my boss and I have to split the workday on Friday of the con (she’s as big of a geek as I am, and we got our weekend passes at the same time), I’m actually going to get to go from about 1pm on–which is when the Friday programming really gets going for me and the things I want to do. 🙂 Suddenly…I can’t wait to get there!!!!
This is so funny but I think I actually did see you there. I believe I talked to you a bit on the bus ride back on Sunday night? Unless I’m mistaken, then I’d feel weird, haha.
If I was the one wearing the black GeekGirlCon shirt and holding a picture of John Barrowman and me…then yes, it was me. 🙂 Even if it wasn’t, don’t feel weird! Come find me at GeekGirlCon and we can officially meet then. There will be a couple less people there… 😉
SG-1