• Published July 1, 2016

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Every story has to come to an end, and bidding goodbye to Gallagher Convention Center, the new home of ICON, was quite disheartening. As I walked out of Hall 2 for the last time, I wished that I could stay a bit longer, but alas, my time had run out. So, how had all of this come to pass? Let me rewind time a little and recount this tale from the very beginning.

My adventure started with a taxi ride to the Hatfield Gautrain station and once there I boarded the Gautrain. The train ride went smoothly until I reached my destination and, upon disembarking, I managed to get onto the wrong bus, thus necessitating another taxi ride (headed to Alexandra for some reason), got off that taxi at an off ramp, caught another taxi and somehow ended up at a McDonald’s outlet where I found yet another taxi which finally got me to my friends place (that’s 4 taxis if you’ve been keeping track). Suffice to say, it was somewhere during this whole debacle that I wished I could open rifts through space-time so I could traverse vast distances like the characters in Raymond E. Feists books, instead of utilising conventional means of transportation.

ICON was held on 24-26 June 2016 and I was keen to see what the new venue had to offer. I had previously attended 3 prior ICONs ( 2009, 2010 and 2011). This was during the time when the event was held at the Jabula recreation centre, located in Sandringham. When I recalled the ICON’s of yesteryear and contrasted them with this year’s event, I came to a realisation that this was quite a major shift not only in terms of the venue, but also with regards to the nature of the event as a whole. I’ll break down what I thought of the overall event into sections because the event itself had some good parts and some minor bad parts.

Items on sale at one of the stalls (Photo: Annari du Plessi)

First off, the parts that could be improved upon

The catering service:

Now, I wouldn’t be making a fuss about food, but I felt that the service from the caterers was not up to scratch, at least for me. I found them to be rather unhelpful which led to the queues in the food court, especially on the Saturday to extend for quite a distance until they reached the edge of the board gaming area. Had they been acting swiftly, this would not have occurred but they were at times waiting around instead of taking orders while people stood in the queue. The other problem is that had someone informed people that there were two outlets, one located at the entrance to the hall and another at the food court, then the queues would not have been this long. This is a minor gripe but I just thought that it was a tad frustrating.

ATM machines:

This is another minor gripe but it would have been a bit convenient to have had a mobile ATM machine located within the hall itself. To get to the nearest ATM one had to get out of the hall and proceed out of Gallagher Convention Center and walk until you reached the parking lot which is where the ATM machine was located. I know that it is sometimes convenient to use cards to pay for purchases but sometimes one does need money on hand which is why it would have been more convenient to have a nearby ATM machine. Again this was a minor nuisance but it would have made things a bit convenient.

The venue:

Stall layout at ICON 2016

The larger venue meant that you could move around freely and didn’t have to jostle around hordes of people or squeeze past people in order to see the stalls and displays. It allowed some breathing room and for people like me who do have some issues with being in confined spaces surrounded by lots of people, this did help quite a bit. It afforded more space for the table top and role playing gamers as well and there was some room for those who brought along their own board games to sit and play with friends or those interested to play with them.

Star -the 27 year old owl at the Lory Park Zoo and Owl Sanctuary stall (Photo: Annari du Plessi)

The Panels and Special Guests:

I thought that the panels added something else to the event as it gave people something else to do other than just browsing through the stalls or playing board games. You could attend the various panels which were held on all three days featuring the special guests. Some of the panels were on topics as diverse as the state of comics in state South Africa to The ethics of “The Walking Dead”, so there was a bit of variety. I thought that these were quite well handled and although I couldn’t attend all of them I did manage to sit through some of them and listen to some insightful discussions. The Special guest, Raymond E. Feist (the author of the “Riftwar cycle” books) gave a fan Q&A session and was on hand to sign books for fans. It was quite exciting having him there but I made the mistake of not bringing any books for him to sign (bad pangolin, I should feel bad). The other notable guest in, my opinion, was Jason masters. He’s the artist for the James bond comics published by Dynamite comics, and at least in his case, I managed to get him to sign one of my 007 comics. That comic now sits in my signed comics collection *cue fanboy squeal*.

The level of organisation of the event:

I appreciated the level of organisation that went into the event. All the panels, for example, started more or less on time and things like the stalls were in place by the time the doors opened. Nothing felt rushed so there was a lot of care taken in setting up the hall both from the organisers and the stall holders, in order to ensure that the stalls and the board gaming areas were set up in preparation for the throngs of people that would be making their way into the hall.

Helmet from Medival Fight Club SA (Photo: Annari du Plessi)

All in all, I thought that this was the best ICON I had attended. I know that I have only attended 4 ICON events to date but this does not take away from the fact that I have at least some experience with the event and the community as a whole. Despite the above mentioned minor gripes that I had with the event, I did enjoy the experience immensely. It was quite a well put together event that had a number of highlights. Since this new venue afforded the organisers a new and better way of engaging with the growing geek community, one can only imagine what the next event is going to be like. I certainly cannot wait to be there and to experience the next exciting event which is surely going to top this one.

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Metal Pangolin

His arms are heavy, knees weak, eyes are straining, ‘cause he’s been reading comics from DC, Marvel, Image etc. more than even he can name them. He’s nerdy, but on the surface he looks calm and ready, to review comics, and lets not all forget that, when he writes stuff, it makes people laugh out loud, in real life, he almost never opens his mouth , so watch out....

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Article Tags: board games · Comics · featured · ICON 2016 · Jason masters · raymond feist

Article Categories: Events