For the third year in a row we here at East Coast Who were selected to attend and cover the biggest convention in the Washington DC area, Awesome Con. I think every year Awesome Con has gotten bigger and bigger, which creates unique problems for the staff at Awesome Con. This review will break down Awesome Con with a slant toward the Dr Who Universe, because that's what we cover. We will look at guests, vendors, panels and overall feel.Before I get started let me tell you that I did have a friend attend Awesome Con has a David Tennant VIP, which simply meant that your autograph and photo with David Tennant was included in the price with some extra perks. Now this cost was over $400, which is nothing to sneeze at. Last year VIP attendees received a special comic book and T-Shirt . This year all they got was a stupid looking bag that went on like a book bag and a special lanyard, which was not very special. The value was simply not there and I doubt they will do the VIP with Awesome Con ever again.
Guests:
This is where Awesome Con excels, by getting top stars of Dr Who. David Tennant, John Barrowman & Catherine Tate were all in attendance this year. They were even supposed to have Billie Piper, but unfortunately she had to cancel. For a non Dr Who Convention, that's a pretty impressive lineup. The even more impressive thing was that all three of them were at the convention multiple days, with Tate & Barrowman being there all three days. This allowed fans to get their autographs and photos with not too much difficulty unlike last year. I do have to say, the staff at Awesome Con do learn from their mistakes each year. If you remember last year's review, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman's appearances were a complete disaster. This year things ran a lot more smoothly, especially with the photo line.Vendors:
One of the things I look forward to the most of any Con is the vendor area. I don't have a local store that carry's a lot of Dr Who merchandise, so it's nice to find so much under one roof. Science Fiction Continuum, Third Eye Comics and Alien Entertainment were definitely my top 3 vendors for Dr Who merchandise. I was able to get some Dr Who action figures for only $5 and 5 Dr Who shirts for only $40. Those are some pretty sweet deals. I can not forgot that I was able to feed my Big Finish addiction by purchasing some great Dr who audio titles at the Alien Entertainment booth. These were just my top 3 vendors, but there were plenty of vendors and artists that had Dr Who related merchandise. Awesome Con attracts a top notch variety of vendors and artists.Panels:
The nice thing about Awesome Con is that each guest has their own panel, but due to autograph and photo demand they only have one. John Barrowman's panel was basically a rerun of last year's panel. He came out and did some of the same jokes as last year. So if you had never seen John on a panel, you would have loved it. If you had already seen him on a panel in the past, then it wasn't as special. Catherine Tate's panel was good. I had never seen her before and she answered a lot of questions about Dr Who and lots of her other roles on TV and the stage.
David Tennant's panel is where the bus came to a crashing halt. First off they did not have enough seating for everyone who wanted to attend the panel. Which is not much of a problem, but there were hundreds of people still lined up outside waiting to get in. They weren't told that they would not get in until about 15 minutes before the panel ended. Which made for some upset fans, who if they were informed properly could have went and done other stuff instead of waiting in a huge line. I was personally able to get into the panel and I kind of wish I hadn't went. It was probably the worst Dr Who panel I had ever seen. They had 2 scientists interviewing David and all they asked where scientific questions, which you could tell Mr. Tennant and the fans could care less about. David Tennant played the Doctor, he's not actually a Time Lord. He can't answer questions about the science behind time travel. The ending allowed for fans to ask questions, which of course sucked. I think fans who get up to ask questions have a tendency to try to be either A) cute or B) show how smarter they are then the rest of the fans by asking them about some obscure projects they have worked on. Sometimes I wish they would just skip the fan questions. I literally have the urge to throw something every time someone asks about the acting profession.Overall Feel:
I will give Awesome Con 2017 a 4.5 Tardises out of 5. Awesome guests, awesome vendors and an awesome time!