Silicon Valley Comic Con: Report and Review

Silicon Valley Comic Con had its debut at the San Jose Convention Center recently (March 18th - 20th).  Residents in Northern California haven’t really had large-scale comic book conventions ever since WonderCon left San Francisco 2011.  Silicon Valley Comic Con had a huge list of celebrity guests (Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Stan Lee, Jeremy Renner, Adam Savage, William Shatner, and many more).  The con will be returning in 2017; so if you missed it and are considering going to next years, below is a little recap of what the con was like.

RFID Tech In Work

Silicon Valley Comic Con, being a tech-themed convention, incorporated RFID embedded wristbands that could be scanned for entrance to the convention.  This was a really nice way for staff to prevent counterfeit badges and track the numbers of attendees and their frequency of going in and out.  Based on ticket sales, the con had an estimated attendance of around 30,000 on Saturday.  The con also had a free app to help you manage your schedule, set reminders for scheduled events of interest, and purchase celebrity photo ops and autographs.

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Examples of Pricing

The experience at a large comic convention is a bit different than the anime conventions typically held at the San Jose Convention Center.  The first noticeable difference about a con so heavily focused on famous celebrities was the higher price of the con; $50 dollars a day for general admission, and that does not include celebrity meets.  A photo with Stan Lee cost an additional $100.  A fan in line said to me, “this is way more money than I should be spending, but Stan Lee is 93 and I’m not sure how many more cons he will be going to.  This is a now or never situation, so I really had to!”  But since the main appeal of the event was the celebs, the lines for the celebrity photos were extremely long.  One of my friends said he was in line for a photo with Stan Lee for over 2 hours and was rather upset that he spent over $150 to sit in line for so long.  But overall, he was incredibly happy he got to meet Stan Lee and understood that long lines are to be expected with celebrities as big as Stan Lee.

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On Sunday morning at around 9 a.m., the Silicon Valley Comic Con official Instagram account posted that there was a surprise free autograph session by Adam Savage of Mythbusters from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.  This was a nice surprise for Adam Savage fans who didn’t want to spend money but were also already at the Con for the 10 a.m. opening and able to get in line in time before the cut off.

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w/ Adam Savage

There were lots of really awesome cosplays at the convention, but nowhere near as many as seen at anime cons.  The crowd was mostly families who came to see the celebrities.  There were a handful of cosplayers and photographers just “ghosting” (attending the public areas without purchasing a badge) the con. A few of the cosplayers were just hanging out in the front lobby of the convention center having photo shoots, since the RFID check-ins were upstairs.  Some of the cosplayers who didn’t buy badges said that they were mostly interested in meeting up for photos and hanging out with friends/making new friends and that $50 a day was too much for a con.

Cosplay At SVCC 2016

Overall, Silicon Valley Comic Con is an excellent time for fans in the San Jose area to meet some of their favorite celebrities and ask them questions at Q&A panels.  As long as you have a couple hundred dollars of spending money and understand that the majority of your day will be spent sitting in lines.  There really aren’t too many other chances for fans to get opportunities like this outside of cons, so it is definitely worth it if that’s something you really value.  However, if you are looking for a con with lots of fun activities to do on a budget, this con is worth skipping.

-Tom Kiryu

Other Photos From SVCC 2016