Hello Friends,
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| Enter A World of Geeky Delights |
So this past Saturday I attended my local convention the Smoky Mountain Geek Expo. It was making its triumphant come back after Tropical Storm Helene got it canceled last year. I was so happy to be back.
History:
This convention started in 2022. It was put together in part by Lee White who owns Geek Mountain in Canton, NC, go check it out it be small but it's awesome, and Lee is such an amazing and welcoming guy. I found out about it by seeing flyers for it at the 2022 Spring WNC Comic Con. I was ecstatic to have a local con, not local in a regional sense, literally local.
Characters:
Me: I was Dean Winchester from Supernatural. I will do a little write up about my journey to this cosplay... At some point maybe. But yeah I was armed with salt packets and my dagger, fake of course.
My Friends: Captain was Sylvie from Loki and Fangirl, who opted out of cosplay ,cause not only was this her first convention this year, she'd just had surgery a few weeks before, so she wasn't up for cosplay, so she donned her Scoobynatural shirt and a crocheted wrap she'd made for Halloween.
The Road to the Con:
So my friends showed up that morning. As I walk out Captain, our driver, rolls her window down and says"Hey sexy thing, going my way" or something to that effect. I don't if it was cause I was Dean or just to goof with me. I was probably blushing a bit. I go to get in the back seat and Captain warned me she hadn't got it vacuumed from where her dog Brianna had been riding in the back. I looked and there was a lot of dog hair.. I didn't want Dean walking up to the con covered in it so I went back in the house, grabbed two large towels and fashioned me a seat cover. Then we started down my piece of crap road. I'm not kidding when I say my family has cursed this road for a century since my great great Paternal Papaw use to use it to get to his home further up on the mountain. Well as we're being jostled I was about to say the line Captain's Brother told her and a friend that we love to say at times like this "Hold on to your uterus's girls", I was fixing to say it when it hit me... neither of my friends have uterus's anymore. I told them that and we had a good laugh.
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| Jack, Captain's Car Skeleton, is the death of the party. |
I actually ended up laughing at one point cause I saw Captain's radio display and it was the song Don't Fear the Reaper, which had been used in Supernatural. Well the day was gorgeous, and just a lot of signs it was going to be a good day:
When we get there we were shocked at the line. Now I don't know if this is normal cause we got there an hour later or cause, and this is my hope, that it's getting more popular.
So after a few minute wait, we got inside in a timely manner, and got stamped. We were officially at the Expo. Sadly the air conditioning was on the fritz this year so we were toasty I was just grateful I was in my 11th Doctor costume.
The Con:
After signing the posters they get guests to sign. My friends got stopped by the 501st Legion who asked Captain what planet was she from. She informed him she wasn't good at improve and said Asgard.
The Expo had some new merch and this year they had pins! I was so excited. See I always get pins at cons and occasionally ren faires I attend. I blame my biker Uncle. I saw his riding vest that had all these pins on the back from all the biker rallies he'd been to, and I wanted to start something like that for my events. So I started getting pins at all my cons. Now I've gotten pins before at this con, but what made it special,is that this pin is specifically for this con. I've rarely had where cons actually sell pins for their events, and those that did I couldn't afford them, but yays this one I could. I told the woman at the booth all this and she said she'd tell the guy over it they were a good idea.
Merchandise:
I drooled over so many things this year. This year a table had so many Wonder Woman things. Some vintage. It wasn't the only one either. I got some great pieces for the collection, which we'll cover in the haul section.
There was a lot of Godzilla this year. It made me so happy. There was a woman helping her son run a booth whose shirt proclaimed she was a Godzilla Mom. I told her of our VHS Godzilla collection as a kid.
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| The booth's owner said he was the best intern |
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| Moisturize Me! |
There were some surprises at the booths this year like these Lady Cassandra from
Doctor Who...pot holders? I wanna say these were by
Twisted Sisters... If it isn't and you know who it is let me know. I saw the most beautiful glass work by
Stoplight Stained Glass. I'm telling you if I'd won the lottery or that inheritance from a kind unknown rich relative had come in, I would have purchased his Leonardo of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stained glass piece.
Of course the year's trend
Labubu made a minor appearance. I saw little Lego Labubus amongst the sea of Lego figures. There was even 3d printed Labubu faces at one of the booths
Loved seeing my Morgan's Comics peeps. Hope to start visiting them regularly before long. If your in the West Asheville area look them up their awesome folks with great merch.
Costumes:
I saw a Beetlejuice cartoon item at a booth. Person beside me was like they'd have to get this cause of their tattoos. As I was taking this of them I was thinking this Hazbin Hotel Alastair costume looked familiar. I quickly realized why. They informed me they'd been the one I'd done the Dean vs Alastair photo with at the Spring WNC Comic Con in May. Turns out we live in the same town! I also saw a TV Demon from the show there... I hope they played nice...
Of course there had to be someone dressed as characters from
K-Pop Demon Hunters. I mean even if you haven't seen it, you've heard the songs, their music is so popular it's made it to
Jaques the Whipper's banned song request list.
The purple haired one, I'm not able to watch the show no clue who she is, and I talked about the mashup fan art people have been doing of K-Pop Demon Hunters and Supernatural. *Ah man! I should have done a fun mash up with them as Dean! ><*
The Dude of The Big Lebowski graced us with his laid back presence. Dudeists rejoice! Not kidding it's a thing.
Our con extended to a second building this year that housed gaming tables, VR gaming, and the Cosplay Contest. I encountered beautifully made costumes, I'm not sure who he was but it looked great.
End of the Con:
As we were taking our leave we ran into my holler adjacent neighbor, who I mentioned in my
Helene post.
It was his first time there, he'd come with a collector friend. We talked about a neighbor of ours who'd been ill, and the potential poltergeist house on said neighbor's Mom's land. You'll hear about this in next week's post.
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| Beautiful views from the grounds the con was held on. |
Famished we went to the nearby Waynesville institute
Ammon's Drive Inn and Dairy Bar, I've been coming hear since I was a kid, I think it opened the year I was born.
I got a Double Cheese Burger with Mustard and Ketchup cause of course Dean's gotta have a burger, and Tater Tots
The Haul:
So let's get into the con haul... Up first is Pins, key chains, and shirt department.
The pewter Wonder Woman pin and shield were each only a dollar at this one booth. I wished I knew the name of the store. It was a great thrifty geek find. They explained these were over stocks they were trying to move. I had a lovely conversation about
Supernatural with the booth owners. One guy and I talked wanting to go to the Charlotte Convention, how at the canceled con last were we gonna have a actor from the show as a guest, and told them about
The Horror Band Wagon's hilarious reaction to the "Skin" episode of
Supernatural. Seriously
watch it, their reaction to the transformation scene will have you in stitches... The woman is in season 2 of her first watch through. The shirt was my big spender item, Five whole Dollars. It was made by
Gifternaut.
The robot pin is from the official Geek Expo merch table, the D20 that rolled a one was from a D and D table that had these pins that his kids made. I was drawn to it cause it perfectly reflected my mental state the last few weeks: "How can I Live, Laugh, Love in these conditions?!" Captain said it spoke to her too.
Next up is my sticker haul. Stickers are great inexpensive items to get from cons if your don't have a lot to spend. I got a bunch of
Supernatural stickers, no shock there, from the booth I usually grab some I believe they are called
Steam and Steel Apparel. I also was apparently drawn to unicorn and skeleton stickers that day.
Lastly my candy haul! Upside to having cons near Halloween is you can get some.. to quote an orange cartoon cat "...candy, candy, candy..."
As always the Smoky Mountain Geek Expo is such a welcoming place for us geeks/nerds in Haywood County. If you are in or around Waynesville, North Carolina next year on October 17th I ask you to come in and stay for a spell.
Live Long and Prosper,
*Thrifty Geek*
