ToG at the Con – Wizard World Austin 2015

Wizard World 2015 was the con that almost was not meant to be for Temple of Geek!

On Friday, I decided to take the trip to Austin Texas to head to the convention. Little did I know, Texas was being hit with a huge storm that caused many parts to get flooded including parts of Austin. I decided to turn around and try the trip again.

On Saturday, I checked the weather and learned that the rain was gone. I decided to get into my car and start heading down the road. Austin is only a 45 minute trip from where I live, so I should be there before the convention starts. Or so I thought… I was stuck in traffic for over an hour, and by the time I got to Austin, many roads were blocked off around the convention center. After traveling for almost 3 hours, I had arrived!!

Enough complaining, lets get to the good stuff. This convention did not disappoint! There was so much to do I did not know where to start. I walked the convention floor and viewed some of the art and shops. I then proceeded to the back where I met up Charles Martinet of Nintendo and thanked him for his time on Thursday when he interviewed with us.

The costumes never disappoint at conventions and this one was no different. There were so many cosplayers, I could not get to all of them to get photos. My personal favorite would had to be Testicular Cancer Randy Marsh! If you watch South Park, you will understand the costume when you see it.

The panels that I attended were great! The first panel I attended was Jason Issacs. He turned out to be a really humorous guy. If you don’t know who he is, he usually plays serious roles like Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter. The one stand out moment for me during this panel was when a kid asked him what it was like killing Dumbledore and this lady next to me getting really defensive stating “HE DID NOT KILL DUMBLEDORE!!” He is just a kid, chill.

I attended the panel “Behind the Voices with Nintendo’s Charles Martinet and Dragon Ball Z’s Mike McFarland. This was a fun panel as it started out with a quick show with the Mario Bros on stage. These guys were entertaining and were a wealth of info. So much in fact that they ran over a bit.

The final panel that I was in attendance for was the Bruce Campbell panel, well part of it anyways. I stayed for the Winner of the the Bruce Campbell Horror Film Festival Screening of “Bad Guy #2”.

When this film is available for download, purchase, or whatever, you need to watch it. It is very gory but in a hilarious way. This was by far one of the best short films I have seen.

After the film, Bruce Campbell arrived on stage. I listened to the beginning of his panel but learned that Adam Sessler was on the floor somewhere. So sadly, I left the panel on the hunt for Sessler. Jeff stayed behind to see the rest of the panel. You can read about that here.

After searching high and low, I did not find Sessler but I did find some more awesome cosplay! I continued walking the floor to view some of the other shops, spoke to Mike McFarland about a potential appearance on the Temple of Geek ToGCast, and witnessed Jeff revert to his childhood when he took a photo with Scarlett and Beach Head from GI Joe.

Sadly, the convention started to wind down and it was time for me to depart. Jeff informed me that he was going to attend the screening of Ash Vs. The Evil Dead. You can see his coverage on that event here. I took a couple more pics and with that departed the convention.

All in all, this was a great convention. I wish I was able to attend both days but you can’t control the uncontrollable. I look forward to next years con scheduled for September 23 – 25, 2016. Take a look a the photo gallery and feel free to comment below.

 

[flickr_set id=”72157660598563156″]