A fun October with tons of events (mostly in costume)!
Dallas Fan Days Expo – October 18th-20th – Irving Convention Center – Irving, TX
If you’ve never been to a Comic-Con (what are you waiting for?) essentially it’s a market & trade show – at it’s base, it’s just one big store. All the vendors gathered together in one convenient place. To get the fans to come shop, the convention books stars (past & present) for Q&A’s, autograph sessions & photo ops.
The Dallas Comic Con organization holds three shows a year – The big Expo in downtown Dallas over the Summer and then two sattelite events dubbed Fan Days held in the smaller venue in Irving, one in the Spring and this one in the Fall.
Day 1
Always starts on Friday evening as a warmup to the weekend with usually just a panel or two.
This one was with WWE Hall of Famer & one of the my fave wrestlers ever, the charismatic & FREAKING GORGEOUS Trish Stratus.
On one hand I kinda felt sorry for Trish as there was like no one here, I’m not kidding (attendance overall was very low this season) but she doesn’t know that so I was hoping she didn’t think this was a reflection of her popularity as there was less than 50 people in a conference room staged to seat 2,000.
On the other hand it was great for the attendees as it felt intimate & clandestine and made for a very special & enjoyable chat. On just the other side of the conference room wall is where the guests have their signings set up so all they have to do is walk through a small hallway & into the conference room for the Q&As. I mention this as several people had just come from the signings so their names were fresh on Trish’s name so when they got up to ask questions she knew their names and the lack of a huge crowd allowed for moments like the one pictured above with a great young fan named Gabby.
Beth Phoenix (joined by surprise by Trish Stratus)
Day 2 also brought another WWE Hall of Famer in the form of the Glamazon Beth Phoenix.
Phoenix when she was inducted gave hands down one of my fave acceptance speeches ever (check it out here).
While her strongest gifts are her athletic ability in the ring, it was great that Trish Stratus (again just on the other side of the wall) heard something that intrigued her to join the conversation & the moderator had the good sense to invite her to stay for the duration.
At first it felt a tad bit awkward like “Hey, this is Beth’s time and you are coming in and taking over” but for those attendance it was a welcome respite (& who isn’t always glad to see Trish Freaking Stratus??”
So now a tag team so to speak but their style so vast and complimentary to one another to create something special and unplanned.
