Full disclosure here, this is my 6^th New York Comic Con. For most of those years, I’ve had a professional pass, so I can’t speak about things like obtaining badges like a regular fan, because Pros have a different application process.  I also may bring up some issues that other attendees might not have.

Six years ago, the con topped out at 133,000 attendees. Back then, it was crowded but not overly so. It was still possible to stand in a line and get the autograph, photo op, panel seat, or whatever else you wanted to do done. The show floor was crowded, but you could still get around and have a pleasant con experience.

Since them the con’s grown to over 250,000 attendees. I’ve seen NYCC evolve from something contained in the Jacob Javits Center (which is 3 floors and 5 city blocks long)  to an event that now encompasses, the Jacob Javits Center, the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden (capacity 5600) , the Hammerstein Ballroom (capacity 2200), and various other venues across Manhattan and Brooklyn. The con’s outgrown it’s original home and that’s really beginning to show, more so Now that a third of Javits is under construction and is unavailable.

I also have some issues with their disability accommodations. I generally have issues standing for long periods of time, and this year I had an additional injury. This year they at least let us ADA folks stand in shorter lines for photos and autographs, I only did one of each so it wasn’t too much of a problem, but there are other cons, that while not perfect, actually make an effort to be sure that even their disabled attendees have a good time.

Now on to What I did!

Thursday: This year I didn’t attend on Thursday due to a foot injury. I usually average walking six plus miles a day (most of it in the Javits Center) at NYCC so not attending on a day when there wasn’t much I wanted to do was a better decision than putting myself through that kind of activity when I didn’t have to. A number of my friends who did attend said it felt like the convention was oversold on Thursday, and everything felt much more crowded than it had in years past.

Friday: I only attended for half a day, again due to my foot issue. My first stop was the ADA Desk to get a disability wristband, which I was supposed to keep all weekend…except it was a paper wristband. So that presented a bit of a challenge.

Then I headed onto the vendor floor, to make some purchases at the CBS Booth, one Chateau Picard wine glass and a Discovery Military Style shoulder bag later, I took some photos of the costumes they had on display at the booth. Then I was off to meet The Ninth Doctor.

Saturday: Star Trek Day! I wandered around the vendor floor and artist alley at the Javits Center for a bit, as my friend had a few things she wanted to look at before heading toward Madison Square Garden to see the Star Trek Universe Panel. We arrived during The Walking Dead Panel and sat through that for a while before scoring some great seats for Star Trek.

I won a seat in the Lottery, so I wouldn’t have to stand in line, but I found out that those seats were much further back from where we were, so staying where we were was the better deal for us. We wound up about four seats back on the left side of the room, but as the panel continued, we managed to move over closer to the center and got some good photos of the stage for both the Discovery Panel and the Picard Panel.

Both panels were moderated by Vladimir Duthiers of CBS News. I think he was the only

person more excited to be in the room than we were. Honestly, I like when reporters are the moderators of these kinds of panels as they’re able to direct the conversation and ask good questions and keep the conversation on topic more than some other moderators I’ve seen during conventions.

The Discovery Panel covered some information about Season 3 and showed the trailer of course! There weren’t too many questions asked about the trailer, or of any of the cast about season 3, since not much could be said by anyone. Someone from the audience did mention getting a Pike series, and Alex Kurtzman did say it was something the production team knew was wanted.

The Picard panel was exciting for me. The last time I saw Patrick Stewart was at a Creation Convention probably about 10 or so years back. He had to cancel his last autograph session at NYCC back in 2014, so it was nice to see him back in the city.

Since the panels were live streamed, I’m not going to go into too much detail other than to say it’s an exciting time to be a Star Trek fan and I hope that all of the excitement and enthusiasm present at MSG is going to carry through to the series and help keep the franchise going.

After the panel, we went back to Javits and I got my Klingon Cleave Ship model from Eaglemoss, and then we were off to the Paley Center for Media to see their Star Trek: Discovery panel, but that is a separate post.

Sunday: Sunday was another chill day, and I didn’t spend too much time doing con related things. But I did manage to make a stop at the Star Trek Universe Transporter Experience! After standing in the fairly fast-moving line, we got to visit Discovery’s transporter. The

re were a few props from both Discovery and Picard to look at while we waited for the experience. Inside the transporter we got to visit a few different worlds and we had a 30 second video made of the experience. When it was over, I got one of the Star Trek: Picard Visitor Pins.

We also had the annual Star Trek NYC Cosplay group photo taken at the transporter experience. CBS Posted the photo on their twitter account, and all you can see is my forehead.

 

I hope that helped explain a little more what comic con is like. The jury’s still out on whether or not I’ll be attending in 2020. It’ll really depend on whether or not the convention center’s finished, and if it alleviates some of the crowding issues mentioned earlier in the post.