So I went down to Calgary for my 3rd Calgary Expo in 4 years. Took holidays from work for it, bought my pass months in advance, but due to extremely poor planning on their part, kind of had a mixy matchy weekend. By the time I got there on Friday there was only an hour left, since the doors closed at 8. 8! What kind of convention ends at 8?
Saturday was the big day, the entire cast of The Next Generation was reunited for the first time in over 20 years. It was announced that the fire marshal stepped in and shut the doors and so thousands upon thousands of people, those with passes or without, it didn't matter, were stuck outside. I had been inside for about an hour but stepped off the floor to have a sandwich before going to a panel (Robert J Sawyer was doing one on writing believable science fiction- and after that I was heading to the costume contest) and was then SOL for the rest of the day. Luckily I still had a great time talking to many many other convention-goers who were in a similar situation. ie I made the most of a shitty situation but it wasn't the day I paid for. I spoke to many, many people who weren't very happy at all- some had, like me, traveled from elsewhere, gotten hotel rooms, paid almost $500 for a photo with the Star Trek cast, and because the Expo organizers oversold, they were stuck outside with no apology. Even, in some instances, attitude from the volunteers. Calgary Expo, via their social media feeds, seems to have chosen to not acknowledge any error on their part, insisting that it was all the fire marshal's fault, and indeed, us convention-goers' fault for showing up all at once instead of in nice and orderly groups of two or three thousand. Today on the CTV News there was a report that the fire marshal has denied any involvement in shutting the doors, but I can't find a news article online to confirm, yet. Here's my photoset, though, got lots of great photos with all the other attendees who were stuck outside.
Sunday was a bit better, I got there early and stood in a crazy long line that went alomst the entire way around the convention grounds, and that was just for us pass holders. They cut off the door-ticket-buyers at 11 and many got sent home.