MegaCon 2024 In Review
MegaCon is an annual event that’s held in Orlando each year, ever since its inception back in 1993. It has grown to become one of the biggest and more popular shows in all of North America with massive growth. This year’s MegaCon was held from February 1 – 4, at the Orange County Convention Center and attracted well over a hundred thousand visitors from all over the world. Since fans come in all shapes and sizes, MegaCon 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 MegaCon was bigger and better than ever before. The show was held at the West concourse of the Convention Center, which means LOTS of room for shopping, cosplay, exhibits, photo-ops, celebrity autographs, panels, or just soaking in the atmosphere.
MegaCon 2024 boasted more than 400,000 square feet of fan goodness this year, with an incredibly expansive area for shopping and sight seeing. The area included hundreds of exhibitors, retailers, and artists. If you can’t find anything to buy at MegaCon, then you’re just not even trying. There are toys, clothing, comic books, masks, artwork, cosplay accessories, gaming supplies, swords and more Funko Pops than you can possibly imagine. In addition, there are displays, activities and fun zones for fans of all ages. There are also dozens and dozens of panels featuring everything from cosplay, collecting, podcasts, design, paranormal interests, art, gaming, and many more than I can list. Let it suffice to say, that there was a panel or display for everyone. There are also unique celebrity panels set up for the many attendees to speak of their experiences on our favorite shows, movies, comics or other fan culture. A few higher profile celebrity panels offered pre-purchase tickets for guaranteed seating throughout the weekend, but all of the panels are included with the price of general admission.
Speaking of celebrities, MegaCon always comes through with some of the biggest names in the business, and this year was no different. In fact, the guest list for 2024 was (in my humble opinion) the biggest they’ve ever had, as MegaCon featured the hottest names from the big and small screens. Attending the event this year were the stars from Back To The Future (Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, and Tom Wilson), Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Marisa Tomei, Ke Huy Quan, Stranger Things stars (Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo and Grace Van Dien), the stars from A Princess Bride (Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Wallace Shawn, and Chris Sarandon), Rainn Wilson from the Office, Anthony Daniels, Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor from Star Wars, The Charmed Crew (Alyssa Milano, Shannen Doherty, Rose McGowan, and Holly Marie Combs), Thelma and Louise (Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis), Giancarlo Esposito, Gina Carano, William Shatner, Danny Trejo, Randy Quaid and so many more. For animated fans, there was the legendary Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, along with Star Wars superstars, James Arnold Taylor, Ashley Eckstein, Dee Bradley Baker and Matt Lanter, the voices from X-Men 97, and many many more.
One of the biggest parts of any convention nowadays are the absolutely amazing cosplayers! Since MegaCon has such a broad spectrum of fans, every single corner of pop culture was extremely well represented. There were plenty of tributes to iconic franchises such as, Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, 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 women this year goes to Marvel’s Scarlett Witch/Wanda with Female Loki and Barbie coming in at a close second. For the guys, Spiderman and Batman were well represented, with the Mandalorian finishing not far behind.
MegaCon Orlando is a four day event, and even that isn’t nearly enough time to see everything. One of the most amazing things about this show, is that you can walk around for all four days, and still see things on day four that you had never even come across. MegaCon has truly grown into one of the premier fandom cons in the entire country, and only continues to grow as pop culture fans flock to the event each year. Fan Expo does an amazing job of putting this show together and has truly come up with a winning formula in Orlando. Overall, MegaCon is a large sized show with something for everybody. There is a complete sense of awe and wonder from the moment you walk in the door until you reluctantly have to leave at the end the end of the day. Despite being such a large show, MegaCon 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, navigating the showroom floor and various other areas are generally painless and easy to figure out. MegaCon is most definitely one event that I circle on the calendar each year, and truly can’t wait to see what the next year brings.
CHECK OUT OUR COSPLAY SLIDESHOW FROM MEGACON 20024
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