Mega Con 2022 Review

Mega Con is an annual event that’s held in Orlando each year, and is one of the biggest shows in North America. It began back in 1993, and has seen massive growth ever since. The show now attracts well over a hundred thousand visitors from all over the world. This year’s Mega Con was held from May 19 – 22, at the Orange County Convention Center. Since fans come in all shapes and sizes, Mega Con is the perfect gathering spot for those who enjoy just about every aspect of fandom. There is truly something for everybody, and this year’s Mega Con was bigger and better than ever before. The show was held at the North/South concourse of the Convention Center, which is their largest area. That means LOTS of room for shopping, cosplay, exhibits, photo-ops, celebrity autographs, panels, or just soaking in the atmosphere.

Mega Con 2022 boasted 400,000 square feet of fan goodness this year, with an incredibly massive area for shopping and sight seeing. This area included hundreds of exhibitors, retailers, and artists. If you can’t find anything to buy at Mega Con, then you’re probably at the wrong place. There are toys, clothing, comic books, masks, artwork, cosplay accessories, and more Funko Pops than you can possibly imagine. In addition, there are fan panels and displays set up on both, the north and south concourses. This allows for twice the amount of panels with just about every aspect of fan culture that you can think of. Each celebrity attending the show had a panel of their own, with the bigger ones being ticketed events throughout the weekend for the Hobbits, Frank Miller, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. Many other panels were also held for collecting, cosplay, podcasts, design, paranormal interests, art, gaming, and much more than I can list. Let it suffice to say, that there was a panel or display for everyone.

Another huge reason to go to any convention are the celebrities, and Mega Con always comes through with some of the biggest names in the business. This year was no different, as Mega Con featured the hottest names from the big and small screens. Attending the event were all four Hobbits from Lord of the Rings (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan), Cobra Kai stars (Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Martin Kove, Mary Mouser and Tanner Buchanan), Brent Spiner and Levar Burton from Star Trek, the crew from Clerks (Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, and the gang), Nathan Fillion, Gina Carano, Brendan Fraser, and so many more. For animated fans, there was the legendary Kevin Conroy, and Billy West, James Arnold Taylor, Ashley Eckstein and Matt Lanter from Star Wars, Paige O’Hara, Chris Sarandon and many more. Wrestling fans got to enjoy Alexa Bliss, Ric Flair, Jerry Lawler, the Bella Twins, Kevin Owens and even the UNDERTAKER!

One of the biggest parts of any convention nowadays are the absolutely amazing cosplayers! Since Mega Con has such a broad spectrum of fans, every single corner of pop culture was well represented. There were plenty of tributes to iconic franchises such as, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, and more. The comic book world was certainly well represented with cosplayers from every part of the Marvel and DC universes. Disney was everywhere with their large selection of princesses and characters. The Anime world was also out in full force with Cosplayers from Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia, Full Metal Alchemist and more. The most commonly seen costume for men this year, would have to be Spiderman, with the Mandalorian finishing a close second. Most popular costume for the women goes to Marvel’s Scarlett Witch/Wanda, with a strong presence of female Batman villains for runner-up.

Mega Con in Orlando is a four day event, and even that isn’t enough to see everything. One of the most amazing aspects about this show, is that you could walk around for all four days, and still see things on day four that you had not come across. Mega Con has grown into one of the premier fandom cons in the country, and will only continue to grow as pop culture fans flock to the event each year. The company, Fan Expo, does an amazing job of putting this show together, and has come up with a winning formula in Orlando. Overall, Mega Con is a large show with something for everybody, and a complete sense of awe from the moment you walk in the door. Despite being such a large show, Mega Con maintains a tremendous sense of of organization with very few issues along the way. Even though it may get a bit tight on Saturday’s, it’s always a pleasant experience to get around. This show is definitely one that I circle on the calendar each year, and truly can’t wait to see what next year brings.

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