D23 Recap! Was The Disney Convention Worth The Price Of Admission? I Know Someone Who Didn’t Think So!

I’ve done many conventions and festivals  over the years but I had yet to enter the halls of a D23 show. Now let’s be clear  I don’t have any problem with The Mouse and all his friends but they haven’t been a part of my life very much as I’ve become an older and more cranky Geek. But I am quite the Marvel Studios fan and I watch at least half of ABC Network’s lineup. And don’t even get me started on my love of Star Wars–I’d like to keep you around at least until the end of next paragraph.

So what was good at D23? Well they had a big panel where they showed exclusive Avengers: Infinity War footage, some behind the scenes of the next Star Wars flick The Last Jedi (which was online later that day) and also various clips and trailers from other projects they have coming out soon. Now I wasn’t in the room because to get in you either had to camp out over night or get there by 5am. No thanks! Was it cool having so many of the big Avengers on stage together? Certainly! But to sleep outside the convention center on inflatable futons to see a couple hours of some clips and trailers that already went online or probably will soon later anyways? I can wait. But hey, that’s just me because I personally know several people that did it.

So how about the exhibit floor itself? It was mainly scattered Disney animation  themed booths. There was a DuckTales exhibit where they would take a 360 degree Matrix style picture of you jumping into all the gold coins of Scrooge McDucks vault,

a stage where some of their Disney musical acts performed for the audience,

and various signings with Disney artists and directors like Pete Docter of Monsters INC so that was good for all the hardcore fans.

They had exhibits up for the upcoming Star Wars Land and many booths selling exclusive Disney merchandise.

The Marvel booth gave out posters periodically but of course my luck when I got in line they ran out by the time I got up there. And they had a couple of signings which were only 100 tickets each so good luck with that. Funny trick they did was to promote a “Avengers: Infinity War” signing and then the only person who ended up being part of the signing was Josh Brolin. While I think we all agree Thanos/Cable is a dope guy to meet the title was a little misleading there Marvel. One of the only things I thought they did really well was they had scheduled photo opportunities with cast members from shows like Fresh off the Boat, Blackish, Speechless, and Once Upon a Time. When you got up there they let you take several different poses and it was very laid back and fun not rushed and impersonal like most conventions.

I will say the cosplay was really well done and with it being Disney there was rare instance of variety. For once I didn’t see just dozens of Stormtroopers, Deadpools, and Batman’s (but for the record I did see at least one Deadpool). I didn’t see a lot of hack jobs that looked like people just stitched something together overnight. Almost all the costumes I saw were really fantastic quality with wonderful attention to detail. And you know one random thing? So many of these people were happy! The majority were walking around, laughing, smiling, and really enjoying themselves. Now not all mind you–those of us people standing in lines at Marvel were generally irritated but for the most part the place had a great vibe.

But at least for me D23 wasn’t much and I had more fun just hanging out with the friend I came with since he was in from out of town. There’s just not a lot to do or see for this geek at least.

I found a way to make it through my day with only leaving about an hour before the exhibit floor closed but that was me just milking it since I had driven all the way down there from LA. Maybe if you REALLY love Disney this one is for you but at $80 a day (which is more than SDCC and that offers about twenty times for things to do and see) they sure are asking a lot of chedder for just giving back bread crumbs.