The afternoon of the 25th, I went to the Calgary Expo with my girlfriend Katarina. It was sort of a last minute plan so we unfortunately didn’t have matching cosplay, but it was still a very good time. She dressed up as Kim Possible and I went as a character from Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.”
After showing up at my house around 2:15, we took the train down to the BMO Centre and got our passes figured out. We ended up getting in line about ten minutes before the expo opened (we went on the first day which is the shortest and cheapest day of the expo). There were quite a few cool cosplays, but not as many given that it was the first day which is usually the most laid back day for people dressing up. None of the presentations or celebrity signings were particularly interesting to us so we spent four hours walking through the Artist Alley. We definitely needed that much time just to look through all of the stalls. There were A LOT. You could find just about anything fandom related there and more. There were stalls for cloaks, swords, funky pops, posters, paintings, wood carvings, music boxes, keychains, corsets, lightsabers, crochet dolls, dice, and so much more. The Artist Alley alone took up almost two whole halls.
I was tempted by many things, but ultimately got just a few things. Katarina got a pair of sheep, one black and one white. They’re magnetic so they stick together. We also split the cost of some lil 3d printed animals. We got a capybara, an alligator (crocodile?), and a dinosaur (@diabolicaldungeoneer).
I definitely ended up getting art inspiration from wandering around the convention. Some notable stalls that I thought were super cool were Kay Pop Art Studio, @noblecoinrings, @knotsofcritters (they had a giant No Face plushie from Spirited Away), and Lisa LaRose Art.
Overall it was a ton of fun and I would definitely consider going again next year.
