ComiCONN: A Foxwoods First For Both of Us

The storied Connecticut convention ComiCONN has returned to its original name and moved into the convention facilities at Foxwoods Resort Casino this past weekend. It was the first time at its new location, and the first time I had ever been into a casino.

Before I get into what worked and what didn’t, allow me to explain a bit about the history of ComiCONN. The show, founded in 2010, has been a traveling event, holding its first convention in North Haven, then moving to Stamford. It went to Trumbull for two years, then to Bridgeport for 2014. In 2015 it fell victim to a split between two founding partners, Erik Yacko and Mitch Hallock, after the show moved into the casino Mohegan Sun for its 2015 convention.

Yacko retained the name and brand and Hallock in 2016 already held the first event of a new convention at Mohegan Sun, called TerrifiCon.

Just before Christmas of 2015 ComiCONN merged with the startup convention Hartford Comic Con, founded in 2014 by Altered Reality Entertainment, which also runs Rhode Island Comic Con and TerrorCon locally and Colorado Springs Comic Con. In 2016 the merged conventions took a merged name, Hartford ComiCONN, but stayed in Hartford Comic Con’s location of the XL Center. To be specific, the basement of the XL Center, a less than ideal venue.

The fact the Terrificon was already held in a Connecticut casino gave many people a supposed base of knowledge as to what to expect from a comic con held at Foxwoods, and some things were very similar. Both locations prohibited masks as part of a costume outside the actual convention space. And both prohibited people in costume in the actual casino floors.

At Foxwoods for ComiCONN, those policies were spottily enforced. I saw people with full face masks outside the con space and people in full costume on the casino floor. Another area of spotty enforcement was the last-minute extra level of prop weapon restriction, which banned anything that resembled a real gun at all, and anything that could be used to shoot anything, including obviously toy water guns. On Saturday I saw Punisher cosplayers walking the show floor with full gear including airsoft handguns and assault rifles. That changed later in the day Saturday and was fully enforced on Sunday.

But that ability to correct things on the fly is actually one of the strong points of the Foxwoods staff. On Saturday the Foxwoods staff kept a very tight control on the number of people in the showroom at any one time, and anyone who left had to get into a line to get back in — a line that let in only as many as came out. That led to a line that was as much as 30 minutes of wait time in the middle of Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning all of that was changed, with more people being allowed on the show floor at one time, and more entrance points and exits. There was no wait for most of Sunday, and at worst there was maybe a five-minute wait in line. That kind of a serious change in line and crowd control would take many other venue staffs until the next con to figure out.

From a photographer and press standpoint, Foxwoods is a great venue for a comic con. Amazing colorful lights from a casino floor background (the feature photo above is Boston Bee Cosplay, taken at the edge of the casino floor space), interesting walls and fountains, as well as outdoor woods, lawns and an enormous pool. From an attendee standpoint, the dealers, artists and celebrity areas were about the same size as when it was Hartford ComiCONN, although much better served by being in one room than the multiple spaces in the XL Center basement. Well, mostly one room as the cosplayers and charity setups were mostly in the side hallway to the east of the show floor.

The celebrity guests and comic creators were fun and, as is often the case with smaller cons, very interactive with the fans, for the most part. Near the end of Sunday, the adorable and talented Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things was wandering the cosplay and charity area, talking to people like he was at a school mixer. And he showed off some serious light saber twirling skills.

Many of the people I know who were running the charity tables and booths reported an excellent weekend for money raised. In fact, the only pretty consistent complaint I heard from guests and vendors was that the load-in area was so small and far from the convention area that load-out would take many hours.

Overall, ComiCONN was a success as a convention in its new location. Despite restrictions on prop weapons and an in-flux line and crowd policy, the convention staff ran things smoothly, and the Foxwoods security and staff was the best informed and most friendly of any venue staff I’ve ever encountered. Add to that all the food and entertainment locations right around the convention center area, and you have a good location for a comic con.

One personally unpleasant surprise I had was discovering that Foxwoods allows smoking in the casino areas. It’s been years since I walked through a serious cloud of acrid cigarette smoke and it was probably the worst thing about the weekend, but nothing related to the convention itself at all.