MegaCon 2019 has come and gone along with another year of amazing cosplay, community gathering, and celebrity spotting. With over 100,000 fans in attendance, MegaCon took control of the North/South Concourse at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida for four days of geek-out fun.
The convention was well organized, with only one complaint: you had to activate your badge before it was valid to enter the convention floor. This made it difficult for people without an internet connection to activate a ticket they had paid for. I didn’t see a lot of this being a problem, though.
My favorite part of any convention, other than checking out the vendors, is looking at all that the cosplay community has to offer. People bring out their strongest game at MegaCon, and this year was no exception.
Normally, you see a bunch of a certain costume (usually Deadpool and Slave Leia), but this year there was a nice variety with no single character stealing the spotlight over another.
Wild Bill’s Soda made another appearance this year, and they tripled their locations to three instead of just one like in previous years. This made getting your root beer refills a lot less hectic, even on the massively crowded Saturday. Mugs were $25 with free refills all weekend.
Celebs were in the house and none was more sought after than Zachary Levi, whose line, if you could get in it, was over an hour or more long at each signing. It made me wonder if the poor guy got a break at all during his three days at the convention.
Other celebs that were in the house include three of the four Goonies, the main cast of Smallville, Arrow stars John Barrowman and Stephen Amell, the core cast of Back to the Future, and Tyler Hochen of Supergirl, as well as a host of voice actors from Dragonball Z, Teen Titans, and Animaniacs. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker of the Transformers franchise were also in attendance for part of the weekend.
The Cospital Cosplay Repair had several hands-on workshops that you could attend for a minor fee to pay for supplies. I heard people were lining up an hour ahead just to get one of the coveted spots.
Overall, it was a fun weekend of comradery and geeking out over our favorite fandoms. The organizers were well staffed, seemed to have good communication, and even the prop check went relatively well considering the crowds.
MegaCon will be showing up again in April of 2020 at the Orange County Convention Center’s North/South concourse in Orlando, Florida.
