The Anaheim Convention Center held WonderCon for 2023 from March 25 to 27, 2023, a comic book fan convention by San Diego Comic-Con International. WonderCon featured exhibitors ranging from comic book retailers of cheap and/or high-graded books, independent publishers, artists selling their art, collectible manufacturers & retailers, and comic book studios. Along with panels & games about comics, tv shows, movies, the production process for those mediums, and more. I went last year in 2022 & it was mellow for the first year back from the 2020 closures, perfect for someone’s first convention, like for me. This year was so much bigger and had a lot more attendees, exhibitors, and panels. I am excited, let’s check it out!
Badge prices for Friday were $45, Saturday was $55, and Sunday was $35, along with an eye-watering $10 badge processing fee! Probably to help pay for their scheduling app for their year with Sched as it just costs $4800 for up 5,000 attendees, and there probably will be more than that this year. There are many guests at WonderCon doing signings, meet & greets, and leading program panels that would take me 19 seconds to scroll through quickly for Saturday’s show.
I attended WonderCon’s 2022 show with its first return since the 2020 pandemic closures. Talking to some of the exhibitors, that year was much smaller in comparison to previous years as WonderCon would have taken up all of the hall space and even spilled over into neighboring hotels, which it did in 2023. WonderCon in 2022 featured 409 exhibitors. The big-name publishers like Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, were not there last year, probably saving content for San Diego Comic-Con, compounding the smaller exhibit count. 2023 was anticipated to be bigger, but not super crowded like previous years.
How did WonderCon come to be? What is now WonderCon started in 1987 in Oakland Convention Center in Oakland, CA by a comic retailer, John Barrett, with a comic book convention called “The Wonderful World of Comics Convention”, then a few years later, shortened to “WonderCon”. The Oakland Convention Center currently has over 100,000 sq. ft. of event space, which probably was smaller at the time. Then in 2002, the show was gaining much popularity, then Mr. Barrett gave the management of the show to Comic-Con International, which moved the show to the much bigger Moscone Center in San Francisco. Then the show landed in Anaheim in 2012 due to construction at Moscone Center. According to Moscone Center’s website, their current exhibit space is 860,000 square feet vs. Anaheim’s 1,800,000 square feet in total of all spaces & the arena, probably making the move permanent due to space constraints & popularity of the show. In 2016, due to the expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center to get to the modern-day 1.8 million sq ft, it was moved to the 720,000 square feet Los Angeles Convention Center for that year only, then moved back to Anaheim thereafter thanks to the size expansion, making it 2.5 times bigger than the LACC, LA will never get WonderCon back now.
| City | Rounded Square Footage of Event Space | Exhibit Hall Space |
| Oakland | 100,000 | 64,000 |
| Sacramento: Comparison | 240,000 | 160,000 |
| Long Beach: Comparison. | 400,000 | 224,000 |
| Los Angeles | 878,600 | 767,500 |
| San Francisco: Moscone Center | 860,000 | 581,000 |
| Anaheim | 1,800,000 | 1,041,700 |
| San Diego | 2,600,000 | 525,700 |
| Las Vegas | 4,600,000 | 1,940,600 |
WonderCon is kin to San Diego Comic-Con as is run by the same company, or can be said is a little sibling to the San Diego Convention Center has 2,600,000 square feet of space with many of the festivities spilling out into the adjacent waterfront areas and hotel event spaces. I have not gone to SDCC yet, from what I have seen online is four days of pure chaos, fun, and a lot of lines. Even if you don’t have an SDCC badge, there are plenty of sponsored areas you can check out in the downtown San Diego area, which I want to do this year to take in the fun & chaos. Talking to some of the WonderCon attendees, they all pretty much said SDCC has become one giant media industry advertising campaign, while WonderCon is smaller & is actually about the comic books, you can easily meet & greet artists, and plenty of seating at programs.
Thursday: March 23, 2023
I bought a badge for WonderCon 2023 to go on Saturday after my 6 am shift from the hotel I work at. I am excited to see more exhibitors than last year as many of the major comic book publishers were not there last year and a lot fewer panels as well. This year there is a huge increase in exhibitors, panels, video screenings of anime, and games beyond the 7 pm closing time of the exhibit halls.
I bought online my badge for Saturday, which can be picked up at Hall D of the Anaheim Convention Center, from noon to 7 pm daily for all three days or a single day, as I did. The hotel hosted a sizable number of attendees and staff for WonderCon, some of whom even stayed with us last year. I welcomed them back as I checked them in.
After work at 3 pm, I walked to the convention center to pick up my badge to save time for Saturday since it is near where I work. When I got to the Anaheim Convention Center, badge pick up was in Hall D for attendees, staff, and speakers. You can also purchase badges if they have not been bought online yet. Giant banner ads were placed outside of the main entrance of the Convention center for a movie, Knights of the Zodiac movie on Netflix.
Before approaching the convention center at the Grand Plaza between the Marriott & the Hilton hotels, the food trucks that are part of Food Truck Smackdown, a food truck network that caters events and sells food at events such as events at the convention center, Los Angeles Angels baseball games, and Anaheim Ducks Puck Drop Patio, the outdoor food truck area. The plaza was lined with picnic tables and currently empty food truck stalls, which will fill up the next morning.
Going towards the front fountain is security, making sure that attendees don’t bring any too realistic weapon props or anything that was against convention policies. The fountain in front of the convention center is a great photo op spot for attendees, especially for attendees in costume as it is a large open area where everyone can gather around for a group photo, which we will see later. Next is the convention center, approaching halls B&C, hall A to the right, and hall D to the left, in this case, was for badge pick up.
Before entering the building, you show the security staff that you bought your badge online and you can proceed to the pickup area. Attendees who paid online will go straight to the attendee pick-up with the many available volunteers to get their badges. Then you scan the QR or barcode with the scanner and then verify with your ID. Then a badge would print out and the volunteer would put it in a badge holder. Then you go down the line to pick up a WonderCon plastic bag, a program, a lanyard for the badge, and even a photo opt. When I was done there, I headed out, then I took a picture outside with my WonderCon badge, “I am ready for Saturday!”
Friday, March 24th
On weekends I work from 6 am to 2:30 pm. Saturday gives me plenty of time to take WonderCon after work, however, I have to wait until the next day. For attendees for Friday only and three-day passes, start today. Friday’s exhibit hours were from 11:30 am to 7 pm. I work in one of the nearby hotels, I checked in exhibitors who drove into Anaheim at the crack of dawn to get their booth set up and attendees who were ready to take in the fun.
Saturday, March 25th
At the end of my shift at 2:30 pm, I changed into my regular clothes and went to WonderCon, and no, I did not wear a costume, but I want to do so now after this since so many attendees wore costumes/cosplay/masquerade in Comic Com terminology. Last year, I would say that 10% wore a costume, now, over 70% did! After this, I wanted to cosplay, and probably be a Pokemon trainer since is it my favorite video game series.
First was going through the Grand Plaza food truck area, which was packed and hard to get through as the food lines spilled into the walkway and everyone was going in different directions. After getting through the crowds, you go through a general security point where security staff just does a quick visual check for anything dangerous, and checks costume props if they are safe enough to be let in. Then there is the fountain area, where everyone in costume takes pictures and especially group photos in front of the fountain. When I passed by, there was a group of Ghostbusters on the fountain steps. Since I already got my badge, I was able to walk straight into the convention center.
Through the convention center doors were the exhibit halls and the events spaces on upper levels, comprising halls A, B, and C, roughly 448,849 sq. ft for the exhibit hall, hall D was for badge pick up at 221,284 sq. ft., hall E on the lower level was used for storage and prep areas at 143,474. The second-floor (65,583 sq. ft.) & third-floor (15,840 sq. ft.) meeting rooms, the convention center arena (7,500 seats), and various parts of the North Halls were used for program panels.
Since it was mid-day, the exhibit halls were packed. In fact, at noon, the WonderCon Instagram page said that the Anaheim Convention Center parking was full, and recommended parking elsewhere, including the Disneyland Toy Story parking lot across Harbor Blvd. Exhibitors were ranging from artists & their larger collectives, collectibles designers, resale shops of video games & collectibles for crazy markups for a profit, comic books shops that sell cheap books for $5 or less, comic book shops that sell high-end mint condition books, companies that grade books and trading cards, enthusiasts hobby groups, and so many more! The exhibit hall was so packed, it was so hard to navigate the walkways, if some people stopped in their tracks, they would cause traffic jams. I walked around for a couple of hours and captured it on my GoPro.
At 5 pm was for the forum panel program: Beyond Vasquez Rock: Shooting Locations for Star Trek. Star Trek has been part of Paramount Studios since 1966 and is still a strong driving force for the SciFi genre today. Shots on the USS Enterprise were done on sound stages in the Paramount Studios back lots, however, when the crew members needed to be beamed down to an alien planet or back on Earth at the Starfleet Headquarters, they used actual locations around Los Angeles & San Francisco. Vasquez Rocks Natural Area of Los Angeles County Natural area is home to the Gorn scene, it is located 40 miles away from the studios, north in Agua Dulce. The Anaheim Convention Center was even used as a Starfleet Headquarters in the Picard series, about 33 miles away. There are so many more locations and It was cool to learn about many of the shooting locations. The program was led by Larry Nemecek, who does these types of tours for Trekland Treks, who can curate which locations you want to see and even recreate the shot from the shows & movies. There were many Treckees in the audience, many were old enough to watch the original series, and some of us mostly watch the newer animated series, Lower Decks. Thankfully, there were plenty of seats available so everyone was fairly spread out.
After the program, it was 6 pm and it was an hour left for the exhibit hall, so I had to make a purchase fast. First was a Japanese capsule ball stand, many different machines with different video games, TV, and movie series. I got a capsule ball for a Pokémon, which I got Pikachu! The second item was an art print, while many artists did not catch my eye, one did, James Mulligan! He is an artist with Disney since 1993 and does amazing artwork with Disney characters. The one I got was Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, I am not sure if they were just outside of a random temple or the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, but I am telling myself the latter. The print was $40 for 11 in by 14 in. and I also bought a protective sleeve since I am sure I would eventually bend the paper. I was so happy! However, I wanted to go to one more program.
After I put the art piece in the back of the car, I got a quick bite at one of the adjacent hotels since the food trucks just closed as the exhibit hall closed. Then I went back to the convention center meeting rooms for the final panel of the day, Cheat Code: Start of Change of the Rules of Gaming and Entertainment. Moderated by video game Mr. Francis Kong, he talks with Mr. Tom Kalinske: former CEO of Mattel & Sega, and Dr. Ernestine Fu: Stanford Frontier lab, a technology startup for Stanford student’s ideas, which included Snapchat & the technology for Pokémon Go. Both are venture partners with Alsop Louie, a venture capital investment company for startups. I took down plenty of notes since filming is not really allowed since holding a phone up for an hour would be in others’ view the whole time. Francis alternated between Tom & Ernestine about their work experience & how their industries changed over time, this will be a linear timeline for clarity.
Mr. Tom Kilimske started in the 1960s to help make the Flinstone vitamins, however, the U.S. Senate misconstrued it as drugs, but he showed them that kids can get their daily nutrients in characters that they recognize and flavors they love, then the vitamin was approved, and help to disrupt the nutrition supplements industry and open the doors to product marketing with kids entertainment. Then he was hired by Mattel where he help revive many now classic toy brands that were declining in the 1970s by streamlining the branding for each toy line along with expensive and large add-ons. For example, for Barbie, color branding was all over the place and not really popular, Tom had the idea of branding the color to be pink and making the slogan “A girl can be anything.” Now Barbie can get her own car, dream house, own career, have a boyfriend/husband, and expand their imagination. Likewise for Hot Wheels, streamline color to blue & orange, expand to real & concept cars, large tracks & playsets, and more. However, the color branding created a color bias of pink for girls and blue for boys thereafter.
In 1980, Mattel released the Intellivision home video game console to compete against the Atart 2600, and Intellivision II in the Spring of 1983 to be smaller & cheaper. However, later that year, due to the too-large market for home video games, and much poor development quality of games, crashing the video game market. In 1985, Nintendo helped revive the video game market with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), with their seal of quality, to show that the games on the console are of Nintendo quality.
In 1990, Tom was hired by Sega to help launch the Sega Genesis & the Game Gear, a direct competitor to Nintendo’s NES, the Super NES, and the GameBoy. He led marketing against Nintendo for being market too much to kids, by marketing Sega consoles to teens & older, the color screen of the Game Gear, the more advanced technology of the Sega Genesis to the NES, and even the cooler mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog.
Dr. Ernestine Fu was born & raised in Northridge and went to Stanford for all of her schoolings for business up to her PHD., where she got her start in a venture capital company, Alsop Louie Partners, which typically funds startups. She was also featured in Forbes magazine in 2011 for her fleet of balancing school, work, and the social life of a venture capitalist.
The program was all over the place and reorganizing my notes was a lot, so that will be a post for another day.
After the panel, I took a quick peek at the Hilton since they hosted games there, but used it as an excuse to look inside. It was really fun to see the event back to its former capacity and getting to see it in person this year vs. last year was amazing. I want to go to San Diego Comic-Con in July, just visiting the outside of the convention center since there are so many things to do outside, and badges were gone in a blink of an eye.
AntSol Travel 
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