It’s been almost two years since Fan Expo Vancouver welcomed thousands of costumed comic book, sci-fi, anime and horror fans into the city’s downtown convention centre.
“There’s a huge amount of pent-up demand,” said Andrew Moyes, vice-president of Fan Expo HQ, which organizes such genre-centric conventions throughout North America.
“There’s very much a face-to-face and real-life connection that needs to be made through the communities at these events.”
Past years have brought the likes of Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee and DC Comics’ Aquaman, actor Jason Momoa. Meanwhile, this year’s Family Day long weekend will see Star Trek's William Shatner, newly returned from his trip to space last year, and Star Wars/Marvel fan favourite Ming-Na Wen drop into Vancouver for panels and photos with B.C. fans eager to meet up in big numbers for the first time in the pandemic.
While Zoom meetings have become the norm during the pandemic, replacing such live events with virtual panels is proving increasingly trickier as the pandemic approaches the two-year mark, according to industry professionals.
“We’ve been able to experience some pivot to virtual, especially for those corporate events where there’s learning expectations and outcomes that need to be hit,” said talent booker Jeff Jacobson, co-founder of Vancouver-based Talent Bureau.
But Jacobson said so far this year there’s been a more “dogged determination to return to in-person events than there ever was in 2021.”
While some clients would have been willing to shift to a virtual event last year if an in-person event looked to be in jeopardy over COVID-19 restrictions, that’s becoming less and less the case.
“We’re seeing clients hold off and say, ‘No, we’re not just going to shift this thing to virtual. We’ve done the virtual thing for the last few years. We’d rather just wait until we know it’s safer to have it in-person,” Jacobson said.
Moyes said Fan Expo toyed around with the idea of virtual panels early in the pandemic.
“You can’t replace that opportunity to meet your hero face to face through a screen,” he said. “You can’t replace that electric energy on the show floor when the fans are coming together, they’re bumping into each other with the same costume on and creating those lifelong friendships. It’s very difficult to replicate that in the digital space.”
Vaccine cards and mandatory masking will be among the noticeable changes at this year’s Fan Expo, while the Vancouver Convention Centre will only be permitted to welcome fans at 50 per cent capacity.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has suggested multiple times since January that some of the province’s restrictions brought on by the Omicron wave could be loosened later this month, but Moyes said his organization has had to make plans that presume present restrictions remain in place.
And while American celebrities such as director Kevin Smith of Clerks fame, who studied briefly at the Vancouver Film School, and Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund will be making their way across the border for this year’s event, Moyes said the city has long possessed an ace up its sleeve for booking talent:
“We’re able to leverage Hollywood North in a way to bring in other celebrities and other talent that happened to be there shooting.”
Meanwhile, fans numbering 3,500 to 4,000 are expected to hit the Kelowna Fan Experience in July after the pandemic previously sidelined the annual event that attracts genre enthusiasts.
New Vintage Theatre, which produces the Kelowna Fringe Festival, recently took over the reins of the Kelowna Fan Experience.
While Fan Expo emphasizes celebrity panels and photos, the genre event in B.C.’s Interior will be centred on film screenings, performances and table-top gaming.
“There’s a lot that are motivated to come out for what they love and support it to make sure that it continues on,” said Bonnie Gratz, New Vintage Theatre’s artistic director, “because I think that people do understand the precariousness of different arts organizations and festivals, and how if they don’t come out and support them they might not be there the next year.”
