Five reasons to get excited about the 2014 Saskatoon Comic & Entertainment Expo

Saskatoon Expo to take place Sept 20-21

The Saskatoon Comic and Entertainment Expo is making a triumphant return to Saskatoon this weekend.

Amidst the special guests being flown in, the Expo will feature over 200 exhibitors, vendors and artists, along with programming panels, Q & A’s, workshops, and a costume contest.

Sounds like a grand time but just in case you needed some more convincing here are five reasons to get excited about the Expo!

Freddy Krueger comes to Saskatoon, triggers bad dreams of those in attendance

Freddy Krueger, the sweater clad maniac from the Nightmare on Elm Street series, once made me pee my pants when I was nine at a birthday sleepover. I had to pretend to trip and pour a glass of water on myself so no one would notice. But I still got made fun of by all my dumb little thug friends. That said, I’m pretty sure Robert Englund, the actor who portrayed ol’ burny face Krueger, is a nice guy. But I’ve got a few choice words for him. Also, autographs!

Sabretooth comes home

Tyler Mane aka Daryl Karolat, the actor who portrayed Sabretooth in the X-Men movie, was born in Saskatoon. Having also played roles such as Ajax in Troy and Michael Myers in the remake of Halloween and its sequel, Halloween II, Mane also spent several of his formative years as a professional wrestler. Also, according to various sources, he appeared on Party of Five as “Mr. Mayhem.” Weird.

Cosplay!

We’re not sure what the best part of cosplay is: the fact that you can totally make a kick-ass costume and be revered for it, or the many, many photo ops that occur from it. Still working on my Ratatouille outfit…

Think of it as a giant shopping mall except everything for sale is awesome

Bring money: there are all sorts of exhibitors selling everything from Hulk gloves to Star Wars shot glasses. But there’s also a tonne of illustrators selling original artwork as well. Maybe they’ll sign it for you if you’re nice?

Rest assured: there is probably something for everyone to enjoy

And by everyone we mean everyone who even remotely likes anything to do with sci-fi or fantasy, comics or capes. Even so, the amount of things to look at can be staggering, so we asked promoter Emily Expo what she tells first-timers to comic-cons.

“My main piece of advice to anyone going to a convention, whether they are veteran or a first-timer, is to keep an open mind,” says Expo. “Be open to checking out genres or artists that you wouldn’t typically look into. That’s what I would do when I first started going to these conventions. I didn’t have a lot of experience with anime at the time and I gave it a shot and now I’m a fan because I made that conscientious decision.”

– Featured image via Flickr user “rean1985”: Creative Commons