We’re back from Comic Con 2009!  The days flew by while we were on the move down there, but we were able to meet a lot of great people and companies.  It was great watching people’s reactions when they would hear and/or see about how vokle works.  Things are always moving quickly here with the team in LA, so it becomes really cool to be reminded of our hard work kicking ass at the end of the day.

Some personalities that I saw were Terry Gilliam, Verne Troyer (brief meeting courtesy of Tyrese Gibon’s Mayhem team), Danny DeVito, Stan Lee, Matt Groening, Dan and Jon Heder (bumped into them on the floor), and Jon Favreau.  For us techies out there, even a brief meet up at a local hot spot with Alex Albrecht!

I wanted to share some tips and tricks for those of you planning to attend a convention in the future.

Parking:  The parking situation was insane, and rather than try and fight for a spot and pay $20 each day, we simply drove a few extra blocks and found a ton of free street parking next to a train stop.  Paid $15 for 4 days of unlimited metro access.  Not only was it less of a headache getting to the convention center, but it even saved us some cash too.

Panels:  Some of the panels had lines hitting 2+ hours in wait time.  You could expect something like this from Hall H (which has a seating capacity of ~4500 people if i’m not mistaken, but it was surprising to see these long lines for the “smaller” rooms.  Generally the lines would dissipate after they closed the doors for each panel, but if you timed your panels correctly, you could always come in and catch the tail end of each panel.  It was a great way to still have the opportunity to hear them speak, listen to the live Q & A’s and even talk to some of the panelists!

Stan Lee Discussing Ultimo

The Exhibit Floor: If you’re trying to get somewhere, definitely avoid the center isle going length wise across the room.  It moves slowly and people are bumping into each other left and right.  The first day I spent on the exhibition floor I was focusing on a specific industry, which I later changed up to those I was looking to speak with in a specific area of the floor.  You’ll definitely run into people on the floor though.  This is how I bumped into Dan Heder and we starting talking about reaching out to fans in a more personal way online.  *cue vokle theme song*  (we should really come up with a theme song…oh wait we kind of have one.  I’ll get it posted up)

Foot Traffic

Post Event:  We did have some time after each day to hit various local restaurants that the tens of thousands attendees from the convention would spill into.   Don’t think that the only time you’ll run into people is inside the convention.  It was at a local hot spot where we ran into Alex Albrecht.  Snapped a photo of Alex with our very own head honcho and ceo Robert.  Apparently they knew each other back from the days when they were both at G4.  Crazy

Rob looks like he is squeezing into the frame. Must be the USC Filmschool background in him wanting a closeup? I'll just do closeups from now on ;)

Overall it was an awesome time, but alas there is so much going on at the same time, that you have to pick and choose.  Hopefully this helps those of you hitting any major conventions in the near future.  I’ve been to a few conventions before, but none as massive and busy as the 5 days I spent at comic con 2009.