On weekend just past I attended an event in Melbourne called Supanova, it’s one of three main Expo’s that run in Melbourne yearly. This year I was only able to attend the Sunday of the event, I also got to bring along a friend who had never attended an event of this kind before so it was fun being able to do it with someone knew.
Firstly my main reason for coming to this event was to catch up with friends, and introduce my other friend into the scene. Even though they had a decent guest line-up there were none that I was particular interested in meeting or getting photos or autographs with so this year was fairly basic, just walking around checking out the show, exhibitors stalls and chatting with friends.
Having been attending conventions for over a decade I have watched them change and evolve over the years, I must admit that there were a few things about Supanova that were a bit disappointing. For starters the jump in price for entrance seemed a bit ridiculous, most events such as this have an entry price of $25-$30 for a one day pass, this year Supanova were charging $32 online and $40 at the door, last year I brought a ticket at the door and it was only $35 which at the time I thought was a bit expensive, but it’s the first event of the year in Melbourne and some price increases are expected but $5 up from the previous year and last year they had guests such as Christopher Lloyd, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols… This year there were no big name guests like that, least none that I had heard off which of course comes down to what I like to watch etc… but I still felt that seemed like a big jump in price in comparison.
Other than that, and having been disappointed in Supanova’s lack of organisation last year where we missed getting our Christopher Lloyd photos printed in time to get autographed I’d say that the organisation seemed a bit better this year. The same as last year they keep the Autograph and Photos section separate to the exhibitors areas, I feel as though this would take traffic away from people looking through exhibitors stalls but it is a system that appears to work for them and they keep doing it that way. The lines seemed to be moving fairly quickly and we thankfully got through the doors at the start of the day quickly it helped that we turned up after the place had opened so there wasn’t as big of a queue and we had pre-purchased our tickets online.
As always there were some fantastic costumes to be seen and panels to attend although I didn’t get the chance to see any myself, we did enjoy our time walking around the exhibitor hall and seeing what was available to purchase and also for me catching up with different mates who were either walking around as well or working an exhibitor stall.
Overall it was a pretty good day, other than the entry price there wasn’t really anything to complain about. Then again I did not need to get any autographs or photos and that is the part where the queuing and token purchasing really come into it. Looking forward to seeing what the next Melbourne event has to offer.
Complete Guest List: Manu Bennett, Richard Harmon, John Jarratt, Adrianne Palicki, Eka Daville, Sean Maher, Ronnie Schell, Christopher Judge, John Leeson, Bonnie Right, Gareth David-Lloyd, Amy Acker, Burn Gorman, Daniel Sharman, Dawn Wells, Sachin Sahel, Naoko Mori, Jack Gleeson, Allison Mack, Trina Nishimura, Brina Palencia, Bryce Papenbrook, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Jason Hayes, Michael Gluck, Daniel Sharman, Dawn Wells, Katie Houghton-Ward, Bruce Mutard, Trina Nishimura, Martin Abel, Paul Abstruse, Dean Rankine, David Yorn, Brina Palencia, Chamba Cruz, Tom Taylor, Marlee Jane Ward, Maria Lewis, Alisha Jade, Wanda Wiltshire, Alison Goodman, Meri Amber and A.K. Wirru.
