Get ready Toronto because Fan Expo Canada is bringing the heat this year with its incredible lineup of guests, panels, activities and activations.
Fan Expo starts on Thursday, Aug. 22 and runs until Aug. 25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The expo will be home to all types of fandoms from genres such as comics, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, gaming and anime. In addition to celebrity autographs and photo ops, the convention offers an impressive array of shopping experiences with exclusive merch and the latest fandom items.
“Fan Expo is a place where you’re going to meet new friends. You’re going to find new genres that you love that you didn’t know. You’re going to bump into someone wearing a costume that blows your mind, and you’ll want to stop and ask them about it, maybe take a photo with them, if that works out for both of you,” Fan Expo HQ Vice President Andrew Moyes told Now Toronto earlier this month.
Currently, Fan Expo HQ is the largest producer of Comic Con events globally and attracts hundreds of thousands of guests from around the world. According to Moyes, the convention has doubled its events across North America from eight to 16.
“We’ve grown in terms of our footprint and that’s also helped us to really leverage scale to continue to understand what fans want, what fans across North America want, so we can really digest that and feed that knowledge into delivering the ultimate fan experience to everyone, no matter where we are, all of our markets are important to us,” he said.
Moyes says the event is a celebration of all things pop culture and invites all fans to enjoy the festivities it has to offer.
“There’s something down at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for you to come and celebrate with the community. I think that’s the other really big piece about what this event is. It’s a place for lovers of pop culture to come together and actually celebrate together in a safe space,” he said.
Moyes goes on to reveal the new highlights people can expect this year such as comic explosion, new activations and Idol Fest.
“We’re really excited about comic explosion. It’s a new event that we’re doing this year that we haven’t done before, and it’s kind of like an art battle meets comics. So, it’ll be down at the Rec Room on Saturday night, a really great way for people to get immersed in comic art, have a few cocktails. There’ll be live music,” he said.
“We also have twisted tunes, which is a really great activation, so that’s where a number of voice artists, it might be the voice artist of Winnie the Pooh or all different voice artists that go and do a script reading from a key movie, which is really, really fun. Also in the anime space, we have Idol Fest, which is really good,” he continued.
Other new features include a special Q&A screening of Twister with Academy Award winner Helen Hunt, an exclusive look at the costumes from the new Disney+, Marvel series “Agatha All Along,” a hangout with the “Trailer Park Boys” and The Princess Margaret Quest to Conquer Cancer.
In addition, Idol Fest is expected to draw in anime fans as the festival is where anime groups sing and perform choreographed dances as an audience cheers them along. Since anime is a hugely popular genre, the convention is aiming to push other anime-related events such as its maid cafe, similar to the ones in Akihabara, Japan.
As a reminder to fans, the convention centre includes a north and south building and in the south is where some amazing activations take place from Paramount, Disney, Prime Video, Xbox, AMD, Hasbro, Squishmallows, Cineplex, eBay, Lego, and more.
“Paramount is going to have a really big build out. Disney is going to have a really big build out that they’ve built in relation to “Agatha All Along,” the new series that they’re going to be launching, from what I understand it’s going to be a really immersive experience. There’s going to be a Beetlejuice activation too. Lots of gaming, Bell eSports has a huge build out where there’s going to be demonstrations and different ways to get involved there,” Moyes said.
For those going to Fan Expo for the first time, here’s how Moyes suggests you spend your day and it starts with getting your four-day pass in advance.
“…Go through the schedule on the website, you have to do a bit of a matrix of what you want to see, because included in your ticket are these really great opportunities to see these big celebrities speaking in a panel.”
If a guest cannot afford a celebrity autograph or photo op, Moyes says they can always attend their Q&A and have the opportunity to hear them speak about behind-the-scenes facts.
Though it’s important to curate a schedule, the vice president also encourages guests to leave some moments for surprise and delight.
Guests can purchase tickets on fanexpohq.com. Single day passes start at $39 and four-day passes are $140.
