Los Angeles Comic Con took place on October 11-13, 2019 at the infamous LA Convention Center. Los Angeles Comic Con is the last major pop culture event of the year in Southern California. LACC, formerly Comikaze, has grown from a dealer hall in Kentia Hall to taking over half the Los Angeles Convention Center. While a fraction of the likes of Anime Expo, LACC felt more crowded than previous years. LACC did bring in much more attendees into South Hall’s massive dealers hall. Saturday was the most crowded of all days with reports of people waiting up to a few hours to get through the doors. Pop culture and cosplay is showing no signs of slowing down. This was definitely a growth year for Los Angeles Comic Con.
Our team attended on Saturday and Sunday. Most of our team lives with anxiety and does not like the crowds. On high traffic hours, our team hid in the gaming room, World 8, in the concourse. The game room had console gaming, tournament style gaming, and table top gaming. If you wanted in with a D&D campaign, you had DM’s with a ton of experience to get you through a quick campaign. This area was relaxing and a good spot to cool down from the hustle and bustle of the LACC.
LACC also prides themselves on A-list nerd culture guests. This year brought in the cast from X-Men: The Animated Series, The Office, Pokemon, and Steven Universe. These reunions brought in cosplayers from the respective series. I saw so many mutants on Saturday! Autograph lines made up a quarter of the dealers hall. I ended up getting signatures from the stars of Steven Universe for my LACC souvenirs. Additionally, these reunions had panels. I watched both the X-Men and Steven Universe panel. The theme of the con seemed to be diversity and inclusion. Voice actors from X-Men talked about how fans had reached out to them on how much they related to the outcast mutants. Steven Universe’s cast was happy to finally give representation to space rocks. Panels were held on the main stage – standing room only for regular attendees.
The main stage also had a few contests through the weekend. I stuck around for the kids cosplay contest. About 60 young people entered in costumes they bought, pieced together, or had the help of their parent / guardian. The event was hosted by Amber Arden and Julien. Both brought amazing energy to the stage making all the kids feel comfortable on stage. There’s a certain charm of seeing young cosplayers on stage. A few of my favorites were the Robocop, Predator, Costco Sample Employee, Anabelle, among others. As a cosplayer, I love supporting our community whether young or seasoned.
Cosplay is an integral part of LACC. Popular costumes came from Spiderman, X-Men, The Joker (2019), Kimetsu no Yaiba, Steven Universe, and Disney. There were several cosplay meet ups during the day. I attended the traditional Disney meet up on Sunday of LACC hosted by Robert T Photography. This was a great way to meet other Disney cosplayers and to see the level of creativity fans put into expression fandom through craft.
The dealers hall took over the entirety of South Hall. It was very shoulder-to-shoulder crowded. I do not recommend being in the dealers hall on Saturday if you have anxiety or claustrophobia. Most of the aisleways were narrow. Sunday was a better day to explore the dealers hall. Funko pop figures took over the shopping area. In spite of being called a “comic con,” I could count the number of comic dealers on my hand. Because of the proximity to Halloween, LACC always has interesting gothic themed dealers selling taxidermy, candles, scented soaps, etc. This is a neat space for indie artists and for people who live Halloween year round.
In conclusion, LACC is definitely growing. If you were to attend the weekend, I would recommend getting into the LACC early. If safe and accessible public transit is available to you, I would highly recommend training into the LACC. Parking can run between $20 to $40. Parking spaces do fill up before noon on Saturday. It would be wise to arrive early. Quick service grab and go food can be hard to come by. We made the mistake of relying on the food trucks. A snack sized fries cost $15. LACC is not stingy about bringing in outside food. Going on Saturday and Sunday would be our recommendation, but certain guests may only appear for one day. It’s best to check in with the LACC webzone.
Overall, we still recommend checking out LACC. The area is not the most ideal for a family friendly comic con, but the guests make it worth it. While people were having trouble getting into the con on Saturday, LACC made a statement they would discount ticket sales for LACC 2020 for 2019 attendees. Until then, we will see you at Chara Expo!
Written by Eri Kagami
IG: @erikagamisews
Twitter: a@erikagamisews