C2E2: A First Timer’s Perspective

The Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo, known as C2E2, in an interesting geekery gathering, hitting that sweet spot between small and large convention.  I’ll admit, after getting used to mega-cons such as SDCC and NYCC in the past couple of years, I was expecting C2E2—with its imposing but catchy acronym—to be packed with people all weekend to the point of being uncomfortable, and with all the problems that go along with.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while busy and energetic, the smaller attendance numbers made it an enjoyable weekend with less fight for the prize. When I walked in the door, the first thing I noticed was that there was zero line for tickets.  The spacious queue hall was set up and readily marked, but there was no one in line.  The attendants staffing the different ticket booth types at the far end of the room were beaming with cheer, and glad to have something to do when approached.  Granted, my friend and I showed up at 2 pm on Friday, but still, I’ve never been to a convention, large or small, that didn’t have an hour-long registration line. Maybe that was why the staff was so friendly, I thought. But after attending for the whole weekend, I’ve come to think it’s more than that.  This convention has managed to do that impossible thing: be a big con with the atmosphere of a small one.  It’s also organized so well that the staff are actually happy.  And that, in turn, effects everyone involved. Attendance Held at downtown Chicago’s lakefront McCormick Place convention center over three days, something readily obvious about the convention is that it takes up only one of the four massive buildings in the complex.  This marks the con, in my estimate, as about 1/3 to 1/4 the size of New York Comic Con, or about 15,000 people a day (NYCC and SDCC had an average of just under 40,000 people a day over four days in 2014), and perhaps explains why the tickets for C2E2 are half the price of San Diego’s—a nice surprise. Saturday drew the largest crowd by at least double; perhaps this is because it’s during the school year, but Friday during the convention the audience seemed almost sparse.  But this was actually a nice thing, because at conventions of this size, usually Friday is the only day that’s remotely bearable.  For C2E2, though, Saturday was full, but it wasn’t so crowded you lost your mind, and Friday felt like there was plenty of room for everyone, with no one fighting for photography and booth space. The convention center’s south building—where the con is located—is interesting too: it’s one long shot ascending four stories as you get farther into the building, with spaces underneath the stairs including a lounge, a food court, and a 4-story fountain great for cosplay pictures.  This makes the atrium ceiling four stories tall at the entrance, and one story high at the back of the building, with skylights all along the way.  This also makes it really easy, though, to get where you’re going without having to weave too much—because it’s a straight shot with wide staircases—though for those with wheeled vehicles the elevators were a bit hard to find. Location, Logistics, and Food While McCormick Place has several full restaurants in its South building—including a McDonald’s and a Starbucks—for some reason, all the restaurants in the convention center itself closed around 6:30 pm, which is exactly when the Dealer’s Hall was closing up and people wanted dinner.  The convention center itself is somewhat in the middle of nowhere, so while the shuttle busses could take you back to your hotel, you were out of luck if you wanted a quick bite around closing time—especially if you got locked out of a bus three or four times because of crowd crunch.  (There needed to be about twice as many shuttles during peak times.) However, the hotel-adjacent restaurants, bars, and delis stayed open until 2 AM, serving a variety of quality foods and even con-themed drinks, such as The Hero and The Villain.  The catch to this is that the drinks are almost more expensive than the food—and they didn’t list those prices beforehand.  They sure were tasty, though. Still, the hotel’s watering holes were staffed with friendly people who enjoyed the con atmosphere, and allowed fans and industry professionals alike to talk shop while relaxing from 10 AM to 2 AM, which I can’t say many other conventions do on-site. Finally, the convention is in downtown Chicago, with many of the official convention hotels being on the Magnificent Mile and adjacent to Millennium Park; my hotel, which was thankfully the cheapest of them all, was actually kitty-corner from the Museum of Natural History, and therefore down the street from the famous Shedd Aquarium as well.  So there’s plenty of reason to stay an extra day before or after just to see some of the sights. With the convention hotels clustered a ten minute drive from the Amtrak train station and several city train lines that go to the airport as well, it’s quite easy to get to the city and then take a quick cab ride to the hotel of choice.  Then, three separate shuttle lines— which are becoming ubiquitous at conventions like these—were available throughout the weekend to get you to the convention, though at peak hours (around 10 AM and 7 PM) you may find yourself waiting a round or two.  (Or you can just take another quick cab ride like I did, for about $8.) Events C2E2 is just big enough that it has everything you need and want, and can draw big-name stars from big-name shows.  But there was the sense that the biggest people didn’t come—except for the women.  If Tom Hiddleston comes to one con a year, it’s not going to be C2E2, it’s going to be San Diego.  But if female cast of Firefly gets invited to one con a year, it’s going to be C2E2.  While NYCC has been criticized for having very few female guests, some of C2E2’s biggest stars were female.  Whatever we can attribute that to—smaller status of the con or greater equality in general—C2E2 as a home for remarkable female guests in the same quantity as male guests could be a really wonderful selling point going forward. C2E2 had a number of panels focused on comics in education, but not nearly as many as NYCC, though this is understandable since it has one less day to work with (nearly all of Thursday at NYCC is dedicated to comics in education for teachers and librarians).  Like most comic conventions, though, there was a mix of TV, movie, book, and diversity-related panels as well, and notably, the larger events were all particularly well-moderated.  And instead of “Children’s Programming,” C2E2 has “family-friendly” programming, which included things all ages and inclinations would like, such as Acrobatica Infiniti’s Cirque du Soleil-like acrobatic cosplay show. The Dealer’s Hall—which took two days to get through—was remarkable as well.  It had a higher-than-average quality and diversity of goods sold, and many were from local Chicago businesses.  There were a startling number of booths from the UK, too, which I’ve never seen before at a con; perhaps because they’d been priced out of larger conventions. Similarly, there were a lot of small outfits, in a convenient ring around the larger booths, which allowed those interested in small press networking to navigate easily.  And unlike any other comic convention I’ve been to, the people at the booths were happy to chat.  I could hardly get away from them, in fact, having twenty-minute conversations with some right off the bat, even at the busiest retail booths. It was refreshing and welcoming, though for those with limited time, it might have been more of a hindrance than a help.  But, perhaps partly because of Midwestern hospitality, or perhaps partly because this was not an event where businesses were stressed out about making their biggest sales and news impacts of the year (unlike San Diego or Pax), the booth owners were relaxed and amiable, which is rare for a con of this size. And speaking of rare things for cons of this size, this convention had not one but two con suites—rooms set up for attendees to have downtime and a space to chat.  One was sponsored by Wikiqwest, which was hosting trivia competitions in the room all weekend, and the other was a lounge that doubled as the cosplay hospital.  It was a medium-sized space where you could eat lunch, chat, superglue, graffiti some signboards, and even take a nap on body-sized bean bag pillows, which were clearly donated by one of the booths in the dealer’s hall (but it was the best marketing ploy ever). The convention also had a tattoo pavilion, where local artists were giving geek-themed tattoos throughout the weekend. That's not just unique, that's a Chicago original. The Artists’ Alley at C2E2 was enormous, but unfortunately the rows were spaced too tightly together (despite the fact that there was a large bloc of empty convention floor space next to it), which caused a slowly-moving bottleneck to appear in several places, which took some of the fun out of it.  However, like other ReedPop cons, the Artists’ Alley had its own dedicated section and a little bit for everyone, from digital anime-style artists to oil paintings to individuals selling their first graphic novel and collectives selling their tenth.  If you’re into the indie scene, it’s definitely worth a go. Cosplay C2E2 is ReedPop’s first convention of the calendar year, and thus it appears that they’re going to use it, at least for now, as the final stop in their newly-formed internal, tiered cosplay competition called the Crown Championships of Cosplay, which you can read more about here. Because of that, the level of cosplay on display at the convention was on average very high. The really cool thing about this convention, too, is that it’s just small enough that you will probably run into the same cosplayer several times in one day (unless they’re the one you’re specifically looking for, of course), something that none of the other mega conventions can say. Worth adding to the cosplay discussion is that this is a good place for cosplayers to be seen—there are more spaces in the convention center than average in which to be seen by crowds and get your picture taken (without getting in the way of traffic).  At, say, NYCC, even though the conference center is mostly a straight-shot setup as well, it’s hard to find the space to photograph, and at SDCC or ECCC, the conference centers are so sprawling you can’t stand in one place and be seen by most attendee traffic. This convention also makes special efforts to create good photo spots.  Massive red C2E2 letters, for instance, standing 10 feet high in front of the fountain backdrop, was a unique place set up by the con for attendees to promote the con and themselves at the same time.  Over the weekend, this was a constant and favorite place for large cosplay groups to come together and get pinned down by photographers from various news outlets, as well as a ring of fans wanting pictures, all while staying conveniently out of the way of Dealer’s Room traffic. This convention's location on the lake in Downtown Chicago made the average temperature 20 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the temperatures farther inland on the same day.  So while C2E2 was at the end of April this year, with flowers and trees blooming in other parts of Illinois, it was still winter at McCormick Place, with 40 degree weather and 40 mile an hour blustering winds.  However, this makes C2E2 the perfect convention for wearing your winter cosplay without having to trudge through actual snow; the convention center itself was the right temperature for a sweater, too, which helps make those Game of Thrones costumes bearable.  (And there were some amazing Thrones cosplayers, with real fur and more upholstered fabric than a couch.) C2E2 also sported ReedPop’s new highly-visible anti-harassment policy initiative (they put up 6-foot-tall, freestanding “cosplay does not equal consent” signs around the convention center that outline their anti-harassment policy, what constitutes harassment, how to avoid it as a potential perpetrator, and what to do if you feel you need to report something), which actually made me feel more comfortable as a female attendee.  I knew that the convention—at least in theory—had my back as a place in which I was supposed to feel safe, and in which my fellow attendees could be safe.  The rules of civilized behavior were outlined, so if people violated them, I knew I could point to the rules and have grounds to do something about it.  Especially due to the high amount of cosplay that was going on, I do think it helped create an atmosphere that was more relaxed and jovial than it could have been—I for one was less on edge, being in a new place with strangers, in a city that isn’t well known for its diversity relations.  That’s no small feat, and one which the con should be quite proud of. Overall C2E2 found a home in Chicago in 2010 and is run by ReedPop, which also organizes New York Comic Con and which recently acquired other mega-cons Emerald City Comic Con and the parent company that runs all four PAX gaming conventions, the biggest of their kind.  ReedPop, unlike most other conventions that began organically and are decades old, began as a business, and therefore, runs its conventions like a business—one in which public opinion is crucial for its survival. After a rocky first few years with NYCC, ReedPop, with C2E2, appears to have hammered out a lot of logistical details in its portfolio of conventions: they’re the first convention group to have a wide-reaching, visible anti-harassment policy (which was put together in partnership with The Mary Sue website last year), which many other conventions are stubbornly avoiding.  They also start things on time, pay a large portion of their staff (and strive for competent, friendly staff, which NYCC decidedly did not have for its first couple of years), have the newest technology for registration, and get big-name stars while managing to promote new artists. From what I’ve seen of comics and gaming cons, C2E2 is quite simply the best medium-sized con the country has to offer, both for sellers and fans.  It has a lot of good things to build on and space to do it in, so the convention seems poised to grow in coming years.  The timing may be a bit difficult—the publishing industry is traditionally swamped in May, kids are still in school, and Anime Central, also in Chicago, is only a few weeks later—but so long as it stays true to its small-con atmosphere and perks, C2E2 will have a lot to offer that other cons just can’t match.