Pop culture enthusiasts converged at the Phoenix Convention Center last weekend to celebrate fandoms large and small during the third annual Phoenix Fan Fest.
The Phoenix Fan Fest served as a temporary hub for all things nerdy — from Pokémon GO team meetups to an exhibit hall packed with toys and trinkets.
Fan Fest served as scaled-back version of the annual Phoenix Comicon which will be held May 25-28, 2017. Yet the smaller crowd held true to that of a pop culture convention — from a conga line of Deadpools and the gray-faced, candy corn-colored horns of Homestuck trolls, to children dressed as Kylo Ren or Rey of Star Wars and photogenic superheroes of all franchises.
Attendees had the opportunity to meet celebrity guests, get autographs and have their picture taken with the guest of their choice. British actress Millie Bobby Brown, who portrays the character Eleven in the Netflix series Stranger Things, met with admirers on Saturday and Sunday.
“We saw her panel, and her and David Harbour have really great chemistry together, and they just seem like really, genuinely awesome people,” Peinado said. Peinado briefly met Brown on Saturday at an autograph booth in the exhibit hall.
New to the Fan Fest scene were World Wrestling Entertainment stars, including John Cena, Brie and Nikki Bella (otherwise known as the Bella Twins), and The Honky Tonk Man. The WWE figureheads charged the heftiest prices for photographs and autographs during their scheduled appearances — Cena and the Bella Twins both charged $190 for a group photograph.
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Panels and activities like LEGO building, parkour training, Q&A sessions, lightsaber duels and Quidditch drew attendees from the halls of the convention center.
On the third floor, the exhibit hall was full of vendors selling fandom merchandise including comic books, T-shirts, Halloween decorations, props and fake and real weapons. Local artists showcased their talent as well as their wares. One of these Arizona-based exhibitors was Steam Crow, home of the fans and members of steam crow dubbed “monster scouts.”
“Steam Crow started 10 years ago, and we started on a whim,” said Dawna Davis, co-founder of Steam Crow. “Daniel, my husband, is an artist and I was an art teacher at the time, and he took me to San Diego Comic-Con and he tells me at San Diego that he wants to be an exhibitor there … but he didn’t know what to do. And so I said, ‘Write a book.’”
The Davis’s first book, entitled Caught Creatures, was their ticket into San Diego Comic-Con as exhibitors. They began attending conventions in 2005, including WonderCon in San Francisco and, because they wanted to participate in a localized show, Phoenix Comicon when it was still held in Mesa.
Davis said they have participated in all three Fan Fests so far, and the opportunity to meet and recruit fans face-to-face gives them new ideas on what they should create for Steam Crow.
“Basically, we are a community of makers, monsters and misfits that gets together,” Davis said. “We do camp outs, we have game days, we have badges that you can earn and badges that you can buy. And we just have a lot of fun together and it’s really great.”
Arizona State University’s Sun Devils Quidditch team taught Harry Potter fans the art of the sport, using PVC pipes for broomsticks and partially deflated dodgeballs for the Quaffle and the Bludgers. Bright yellow basketball shorts marked the player who acted as the Golden Snitch.
“It started off a little slow as anything would… by the end everyone was having a great time,” said freshman Ella Featherstone, one of the team’s Beaters. “We had six or seven snitches running after one of our team members which was really cool. But it was a great collaboration with all of our team working together.”
Jacob Bordenave, a senior, was the Golden Snitch for the first few rounds.
“We teach kids how to play Quidditch and it’s not too uncommon that everyone wants to be like Harry Potter and be a seeker, so when it comes to being a snitch… you generally have five to 20 kids coming after you at one time,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Contact the reporter at Katelyn.Finegan@asu.edu.
