I don’t know where to begin with this Fan Expo Chicago con recap because I have never left a con feeling both blessed yet so disappointed at the same time. So, here it goes…

As most of you know from following my art adventures that I have been going to cons for 20+ years now. Including shows hosted by Wizard World (who now are “bought out” by Fan Expo) and have never left complaining. I usually only venture to these larger, overpriced corporate cons when there is someone specific I want to meet. For this show it was Alan Tudyk and Shannen Doherty. As we all know, Shannen could only be there in spirit, but I was still on a mission to touch base with her beloved friend and costar Holly Marie Combs.

From my own personal experience of going to cons I got the vibe from all the chaos that the owners of this one must have complete Woodstock ’99 greed syndrome. Overselling to make more money always leads to under delivering and we all felt it. You could hear people complaining through out the day and each of their gripes were legitimate and not “just whining” (you can also read a lot of them blowing up social media about it now too).

Just a few examples to give you a better understanding:

• It was so chaotic we had to rush to get to things we needed to be at on time because the crowds were so insane and everything was so unorganized.
• The photo op area was a complete cluster and you didn’t know where to go until they yelled out the name of the guest and some they didn’t so those people missed out.
• You could not get to all the vendor tables because if you stopped you would hold up foot traffic. As an artist myself, I felt terrible knowing the price they must’ve paid to have a table at this event and the hard work that goes into setting it all up. You want to at least break even on the table costs which is hard to do if no one can see your work.
• The staff was useless and could not answer anything. Well some did rudely and most gave incorrect information causing you to venture somewhere only to have to venture somewhere else in the massive crowds. This was causing people to miss out on a lot of things they paid for.
• They gave Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen (their precious money makers that were charging $400+ for non-customizable autographs and 1 second of their time) their own floor, and closed off the hotel sky bridges because they were on the 2nd level
• They crammed all of the other celebrity guests into one area with lines so tight you didn’t know which you were standing in. If they were gone from their tables people were getting wrong information on what times to come back, again missing out on stuff they pre-paid for.
• The stale icing on the rotten con cake for me though were the line caps with no warning and the miscommunication from the staff about them (which I will rant on in more detail in a moment).

Despite all my frustration with this con I always look for the “blessings” in every ugly situation and there was one moment that truly made it all worth while. I was able to finally meet Holly Marie Combs and now my “Unbreakable” portrait that I had been working so hard on for Shannen Doherty is now in her safe keeping. Holly is going to make sure Shannen’s Mama Rosa gets it! I am so glad that I trusted my intuition to finish it. My heart is truly full because of Holly’s strength and kindness. Blessing…✅

Here is a close up photo of how the portrait looked framed. I wanted to share because I felt the frame was just so fitting to the piece….

Whenever I gift a portrait I also include a card or letter inside telling the person how they have inspired me since sometimes you don’t get all the words out that you intend to at these events. I told Holly that I decided to still include the letter I had already written to Shannen prior to her passing so that Mama Rosa could read another story of the incredible impact her daughter has had on others. I also chose to still wear the Team Brenda shirt I designed to show that Shannen was still there within us. Holly noticed it and thought it was great.

I have to admit I was shaking a little when I asked Holly to “do me a favor” because honestly I was not sure if she was feeling up to it. I also did not want to upset her knowing how hard enough it was for her to be there without Shannen. As a highly sensitive empath it took everything in me not to burst into tears when I said “I intended to give this to Shannen but the universe had other plans” and saw that Holly was trying to hold back tears too. My intuition also guided me to gift her Dragons Blood Jasper aka “The Warrior Stone”. So I made her a necklace so she can channel her strength (and inner Shannen) whenever she needs it. She seemed to genuinely appreciate it.

Despite the immense pain she’s experiencing from the loss of her dear friend, Holly still made it out to this event for their fans. She truly deserves all the recognition in the world for that. Shannen would be so proud of her strength and commitment to the Halliwell legacy.

Unlike Holly, Alan Tudyk did not offer photos at his table. When this happens it’s always a bummer because its just more convenient, more interactive and much more enjoyable to get it all done at the table. I was also told by the online convention support that you have to purchase an autograph ticket to even talk to him at his table. So I had to do a little splurging and pre-paid ahead of time for both an autograph and photo op so we were well prepared and covered incase they sold out. I did this because this was finally my opportunity to gift him my “This Is Some Bullshit” portrait.

From my past experiences at cons I know photo ops go by fast. So we did our photo op as planned and even though it was quick it was still great to actually talk to him shortly and have my art piece in the photo before I gave it away to him. He was very kind and I told him that I would be by to give it to him at his table and he said “yes please do”. It was pretty surreal to be standing in front of him and these smiles are genuine! We were definitely on cloud Mizar-Alcor. Blessing…. ✅

Now for the “this is some bullshit” part….. Alan had to still finish photo ops with the rest of our group, followed by 2 more groups so this gave us plenty of time to pick up our photo, fight the crowds, and try to take a quick snack break. There was no where to sit (another issue with the con) so we found a spot on the floor in the lobby and saved time eating a quick snack from our backpack. We ventured through all the crazy crowds once again, found his table and got in line behind the rest of the people waiting. Folks continued to get in line behind us. Most of them holding their photo ops they just picked up to have signed. Same plan we had. A staff member begins to tell us we need to leave that they have capped his line and no one else can go to his table. We all explain to them that we pre-paid online months ago and just got done with Alan’s photo ops. A rude gentleman from the staff starts yelling at us and tries to tell us that we were all informed at the photo op (which was a lie or more miscommunication between staff) and starts threatening to get security if we don’t leave. Keep in mind he was the only one getting irate.

Some people in line behind us stuck around to see if anything could be done to let the handful of us up there to get a quick autograph. Some folks were upset but willing to just get a refund and were told to go to Customer Service. Those same people returned saying Customer Service told them to go back to the autograph line causing more confusion and giving the rude staff member more reason to start yelling again. I for one could care less about the actual autograph and told a much nicer staff member that I only paid for it because I was told by Fan Expo staff that I had to in order to go to his table. That I just wanted time to talk to him and give him the artwork. That I had even told Alan in the photo op that I was going to come to his table and give it to him. The rude staff member sees me talking to the other guy and starts yelling at me again that it’s not going to happen and to leave. The nicer gentleman proceeds to tell me how he wants to tell the asshole what he really thinks of him, but doesn’t do anything to actually help me.

So I finally get desperate enough to ask the rude staff member if I could just be escorted by him to give it to Alan once the 5-6 lucky people that made the cut are done getting autographs and he told me its still not going to happen and starts threatening security on us all again. At this point he has not even seen me at the point where he would even need security (because believe me he would need it) and I am trying to keep my composure so I don’t look like a nut job and be respectful in front of Alan. My husband is beside me getting upset and doing everything in his power not to knock this guy out and is telling me..”just walk up there and put it on his table”, but I didn’t want to be rude to the people that didn’t get capped off in line (the empath in me strikes again) and I didn’t want to freak Alan out by doing that either. A lady on staff comes up and hears whats going on and noticed I was getting upset, flustered, teary eyed, and holding in my rage. People behind me are even agreeing that it shouldn’t be a big deal to just walk up and hand it over to him. That I am being very reasonable offering to give up my autograph so its fair to all of them who can’t get theirs. So while the rude staff member was busy yelling at someone else, she goes over to Alan’s “management team” (a woman sitting next to him) and asks if it would be ok for her to give them the art piece on my behalf and I could watch from where I was standing. So I saw Alan was finishing up the last of his autographs and took a big risk and quickly made the decision to hand it over to her (as someone who is not a big risk taker it took everything in me to just hand over my original art to some stranger) and watched her give it to the woman while Alan was packing up.

I put months of my heart and soul into that art piece so I captured this photo as it was all I got from my experience and wanted proof of who had it since I didn’t get to hand it to Alan myself.

As you can see the woman in green is holding my portrait in the white box. The nice lady on staff that actually helped me was unfortunately cut off in the photo (on the left) because I took it so quickly and in the process saw that the rude staff member (in the blue flannel) was going up to them and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to do something seeing he had told me no and was obviously on some sort of power trip. Someone else on staff did however yell at me when they saw me taking this photo but at this point I was over this convention entirely and could care less if they called security on me. Kick me out at this point. I will be happy that you did.

Let it be known that all of this was out of Alan’s control and really he had no idea anything was going on as he was still interacting with the last few lucky fans that got to meet him. The point I am making with all of this is that we could’ve had the experience we were looking forward to had there not been so much negligence and miscommunication (or lack there of) from Fan Expo. I for one downloaded the Fan Expo app on my phone to stay updated and received notifications all day about panel times and things of that nature but you would think it would be more important to send out notifications of things like capping lines for things you pushed attendees to pre-pay for online. On top of it Leap tried to tell me they could not refund the service charges for my autograph ticket when I emailed them for a refund. What service? You did not supply a service. I am by no means a “Karen” but I am a “Brenda” and you bet your ass I got my full refund. Your not gonna get rich off our money and not deliver. Which is probably why they were sending people all over the con when they were requesting refunds in person. I mean that’s really putting the “con” in convention if you ask me. Not to mention none of us standing there did anything to deserve to be screamed at by this irate staff member. Here all of us are already upset and disappointed and then you yell at us on top of it when its your cons negligence causing all the issues to begin with.

So, since everything was a shit show, now all I can do is hope that Alan actually got the art piece I worked so hard on and that the card was still inside the box since it said a lot of the things I was going to tell him in person. Maybe it will trigger him to remember and associate the brief encounter he had with that weird purple haired girl with the sparkly galaxy colored glasses who asked him to hold it in the photo op and promised to bring it to his table to gift to him. Hope is really all I have at this point. So Alan if your reading this.. I tried! All I wanted was the opportunity to show you how much you inspire others. It meant a lot to come all the way to this con to be able to give you that special art piece and I really hope its in your safe keeping where it belongs.

So… I am going to end this on a high note and a vendor shoutout for Chimera Publishing. They were one of the vendors whose booth was larger and much more accessible. I stopped dead in my tracks and my jaw dropped when I saw a hand numbered and signed poster print of Brian Froud ‘s Gwenhwyfar. The owner took it down so I could look at it. Here I was with all this chaos of the con going on around me and I am frozen in time holding a print that at one point one of my favorite artists held and signed. Finding this treasure was indeed a magical moment for me. We then found out that the vendor was the publisher and that is how he knows Brian. He proceeded to tell Frank and I some fun stories about times he has spent with him. He also told me that if Brian says he sees the fae there is no doubt in his mind that he does. The whimsical goth in me absolutely loved hearing that. So needless to say.. I own it now! Blessing… ✅

Outside of the con we had a blast…. having dinner at Murray Bro’s with our friend Jeff from Anthony’s Collectibles, watching fireworks going off as we walked back to our hotel, having drinks and playing games in the hotel lobby, and most importantly winding down in our big comfy hotel bed! We stayed at the Aloft for the first time and were not disappointed! It was super fun, artsy and modern and they got my approval the minute I saw a David Bowie book on the table! Top notch service, food, drinks, and accommodations! Would definitely go back there, but one things for sure.. it most likely won’t be for Fan Expo Chicago! 😆

Stay Spooky & Magical,
LDG Nicole