My SFX 2007 Review!!

Well Jackie and I attended SFX 2007 in Toronto, Canada on Friday August 24th and Saturday August 25th at the Metro Convention Centre.

I will star with HOLY CR*P there were a ton of people there (I can see why they are expecting over 50,000 people there this weekend – it was wall-to-wall people everywhere.

We got there Friday around 11:30am and decided to get our “Advance Passes” first then meet our friend John (primetime21) for a yummy lunch at LoneStar Roadhouse. The ticket line was not too bad and it opened shortly after noon and we had our passes around 12:45pm.

We went for lunch and came back just around 1:30pm and we got into the con shortly after 2pm. We walked around the huge dealers room – I would say as a “SciFi” fan of this con there was much less of these dealers and way more Horro, Anime and Gaming, not to mention Comic Books! I actually bought NOTHING in the dealers room over the weekend. My wife bought 1 toy for the kids and that is all (and it was all of $15).

We saw David Prowse (Darth Vader) arrive and jumped into his autograph line to get our poster signed (he charged $20 CDN) – he was generous and friendly and my wife got a picture with him at no charge.

We decided to get into Malcolm McDowell (Saron from StarTrek Generations movie and also in Clockwork Orange) autograph line as the lines for all the stars were getting crazy long and winding all over the place (SFX still cannot get this right and ensure they have enough room for all the lines!!). Unfortunately Malcolm was delayed and we had to wait 1 ½ hours until he finally showed up and we got 2 autographs from him ($30 CDN each) and I got a picture with him at no charge – he was very fan-friendly and I was thrilled to meet him.

My wife went over and got an autograph from Jake Lloyd (Anakin Skywalker) cost was $30 CDN and she also got a picture with him at no charge. She tell s me he was a delight and was “very chatty”. We left shortly after this and headed home.

We went back on Saturday around 9:00am as we wanted to meet/see Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) and Charisma Carpenter (Buffy TVS and Angel). The line-up to get into the con had to be about 5,000 people at 9:00am, we stood in line and around 10:20am we got in. We headed right to the line for Tricia Helfer to get autographs and we stood there for about 90 minutes. Tricia arrived at 12:00 noon and in about 20 minutes we had 2 autographs from her – she is absolutely stunning (real tall, leggy and just gorgeous!) – cost per autograph was $25 CDN. We then headed to a photo op with Tricia where we had to wait just over an hour (sensing a theme here...hmmm) and we got a photo with her for $40 CDN – my disappointment here is they told us we could pick up this photo later Saturday then changed their minds and said Sunday only or they mail to us – I say mail it to us as we are not going down again on Sunday and pay parking and more line-ups!

Next was back in the room to meet our buddy primetime21 as he was saving us spots in line to get Charisma Carpenter’s autograph – we ended up waiting 2 hours as “she decides when she is showing up” and came about ½ hour late. We got 3 autographs from her (cost was $25 CDN each) and I got her to sign my Playboy with her on the cover, when she was signing it, she looked up and smiled at me and I thanked her and she said have a nice day – I think it surprised her seeing it!! She did have a great smile looking at it and she is also a beautiful woman!!

We decided not to pay another $40 CDN for a photo op with Charisma and decided to leave and go have dinner before heading home.


Here are a few thoughts I have on the weekend called SFX 2007.

- It was great seeing some good friends there: T.J., John (primetime21), Joanne, Twinks (Steph), Gord Rose, Dawn, Stephan, Tessa and Sharon.
- In case you were wondering here are some other autograph costs: Adam West (Batman) $50 CDN, Jonathan Frakes (Riker) $30 CDN, Adrienne Barbeau $30 CDN, Robert Beltran (Chakotay) $30 CDN, George Romero (Horror Director) $30 CDN.
- The photo ops were ok but I found them a bit rushed and the guests were sitting in a stool so they seemed a bit impersonal and not being able to pick it up same day after being told (I still have the email from James saying so!) we could is not good at all.
- The crowds are getting insane to out it mildly, they need to take even more space than they have, if you are claustrophobic, have kids in strollers or are handicapped it is a chore to say the least getting around and not getting bumped/jostled.
- I cannot believe how rude some people are with huge backpacks on their back and turning and smacking into people – these are the “scourge” of conentions!
- I can tell you there are still attendees who do not know what soap/deodorant/showers are we ran into a few of these – yeuch!!
- All I can say is if you are attending SFX – bring lots of money – it is a place that I like to call “A licensed establishment to print money” as prices are going up up up!!
- It was GREAT to see Tricia Helfer give Aman Gupta (the head guy of SFX) crap for trying to push people faster through her autograph line, she told him in no uncertain terms to stop it and she wanted to say Hi to ALL her fans!! He sheepishly went off to the end of the table obviously embarrassed – one of my highlights of the weekend!
- Thank goodness we have lots of good friends to talk to in lines as we spent hours and hours in them (too many in my book compared to other shows we attend) and we are able to catch up with news from all our friends!

I give SFX a 7.5 out of 10 overall

"It was GREAT to see Tricia Helfer give Aman Gupta (the head guy of SFX) crap for trying to push people faster through her autograph line, she told him in no uncertain terms to stop it and she wanted to say Hi to ALL her fans!! He sheepishly went off to the end of the table obviously embarrassed – one of my highlights of the weekend!"

Get ready for the big surprise - this happens aparently quite often with him getting told off by people he makes the mistake of beign pushy/bully with.

He knows to stay clear of me when I'm out of uniform ;)

As to the other problems - surprised?

"It was GREAT to see Tricia Helfer give Aman Gupta (the head guy of SFX) crap for trying to push people faster through her autograph line, she told him in no uncertain terms to stop it and she wanted to say Hi to ALL her fans!! He sheepishly went off to the end of the table obviously embarrassed – one of my highlights of the weekend!"

Get ready for the big surprise - this happens aparently quite often with him getting told off by people he makes the mistake of beign pushy/bully with.

He knows to stay clear of me when I'm out of uniform ;)

As to the other problems - surprised?

Nope not surprised about attendees and the "hygiene stuff" but boy this is happening more and more as I attend shows!! I think I need to "pin" the convention etiqutte list from your site! :)

As for backpacks, it would help if the Convention Centre would add some - there is this one "bank" of them and they were totally gone early Sat morning. People have as much "respect" with backpacks as some do with their cell phones.

As for lines, that is a "big con" thing and SFX is just like San Diego or Chicago for that one (people waited 5 hours for Mark Hamill's autograph a few years ago at Chicago) - imagine the "writer's cram" on that one!

It was fun to see Aman get put in his place, Tricia was having none of the "conveyor" system and was gracious to everyone on the people asking for autographs!

I don't have too much to add to what Bryan had to say but i do agree that there were a ton of people there over the weekend. The one thing i will give credit to SFX is that they know what will bring the people in. By that i mean they added Anime to the show a few years ago, then the horror aspect, and now video game playing. They aren't afraid to change things up and add new genres to the show unlike some cons. I have read reviews about a few cons from the US and the major complaint was that things were always the same, same guests, same dealers, etc. Well SFX does change things up. Pretty soon the only part relating to Sci-fi will probably be the autograph area as there are fewer and fewer dealers with sci fi related ties.

I did end up going on the Sunday and i would definitely say that if you can make it that day instead of Friday it is much easier to get autographs as the lines were much more manageable. I did manage to make it to half of Daniel Logan's and Teumera Morrison's I and I and it was quite enjoyable. I was just glad to not have to stand in line for something at this con,lol. It is too bad they don't have more of these Q and A sessions with the guests, but then that would cut into their signing time i suppose. But i would recommend getting autographs on sunday, especially in the afternoon as the lines were no where near as long as on Friday or Saturday.
The best part of this show for me is probably getting together with Bryan, Jackie, and TJ. I don't see them very often and this show is one way to keep in touch. Now if they could only bring in Mark Hamil next year i wouldn't care how long i would have to wait,lol.

I wanted to drop a quick update in here - we received our photo op with Charisma Carpenter in the mail from SFX on Friday Sept 7th (about 2 weeks after the show - not too bad).

It came in excellent condition and very well packaged! It is an awesome picture and turned out very well - a great momento from the con!

I still wished we could have picked it up at the convention but as it came out great and we received it within 2 weeks of the con ending - can't really complain too much!