The robots from BSR were out in force this past Saturday, April 20 at SLC Nerd hitting the floor, chatting up fellow geeks and nerds, meeting lots of great people, and just overall soaking up the awesome experience. Ben Fuller, Gangrene Productions and all of the sponsors put on a great convention – this is a wrap-up report with some highlights from the day.
The Big Shiny Robot Booth!
Of course, many of us local bots from BSR! were manning our first convention booth. Lucas (Kill-tacular-tron), Bryan (Swank-mo-tron), Tom (Zombietron), Rich (Triscuit of Doom), Kiley (Vagatron), Nick (Proletariatron), Adam (Sithbot), Jimmy (Mexicus-Prime), Tyler (Baldassbot), and Tyson (Arse-bot) with the help of Ryan the Intern (Tetriminobot) were all manning the booth. We had free pins and stickers for those who stopped by, along with some t-shirts and shot glasses for sale. We had a lot of great and interesting people stop by to chat us up, and of course, hit up some free-play of Injustice: Gods Among Us, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Super Street Fighter 4.
Tom and Rich did an awesome job at hosting our Super Street Fighter 4 tournament in which participants competed to win some awesome prizes, including a pair of Astro a50’s to the overall winner. The competition was stiff, and drew a good crowd who came to watch the matches. Thank you to all of our competitors! And special thanks to our sponsor for the Street Fighter Tournament, Secret Compass, who were kind enough to provide some kick-ass Street Fighter busts for second and third place! Taking home the top prizes were as follows:
1st Place – Gustavo – Pair of Astro a50’s and an original Ryu sketch courtesy Steven Crowe
2nd Place – Renzo – SF4 Bust, courtesy Secrect Compass, and a print of Ryu courtesy Steven Crowe
3rd Place – Scott – SF4 Bust, courtesy Secret Compass
Also at the BSR! booth, Tyson was manning the recording of segments for the Big Shiny Podcast with a various collection of other robots, including interviews and updates from throughout the day – all of which will be available later this week. Available right now, however, is Kiley’s interview with the very cool Ted Raimi! Mr. Raimi took some time out of his packed SLC Nerd schedule to sit down and chat, and you can check out that interview here.
This was our first time hosting a booth at a local convention, so thank you to all of you who stopped by to chat with us, play some video games, and participate in an interview!
The Booths!
There was an awesome collection of booths at SLC Nerd this year – everything from authors to artist, and vendors to story-tellers. There was something for everyone, and the best part was it was all family friendly! We tried to stop by as many booths as we possibly could, but here are some of the highlights – but we assure you, this is only a taste of the awesomeness that was contained within the walls of this convention!
- Bryan Young – Author – Our own Swank-mo-tron was splitting time between his own booth and the BSR! booth and running some journalistic round-tables, and giving a VOXnerd speech! With as busy as he was, you could still find him at his booth most of the time, talking about his various novels and short stories to everyone that stopped by. He was also offering a free sample of some of his work. If you picked up the two-chapter sample of “Operation Montauk”, you’re probably going to want to pick up the full-length novel!
- Heather Ackley Art – Heather, a former Big Shiny Robot herself in day gone by, had worked tirelessly leading up to SLC Nerd on some great Star Wars: The Clone Wars pieces. Not only did she has original works for sale at her booth, but plenty of prints available as well. When last we checked, her Adventure Time print was the top seller, but Rex from The Clone Wars was getting some love too! You can check her stuff out at http://www.heatherackleyart.com/
- Night Flight Comics – Mimi Cruz and company were in attendance supporting the local comic book shop and holding a blind auction for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!
- Epic Games – While making the rounds between booths during some spare time, I stumbled across Epic Games and had to stop and look around if only for the fact they actually had the A-Wing expansion to the X-Wing Miniatures game. I spent a good amount of time talking with the owner who was very excited to tell me about their new location. Fans of the store surely know they will grand re-open this Thursday, April 25, at their new location at 3958 W. and 3500 S. but for those unaware, there are a TON of good reasons to stop by, and not just because these guys are passionate about gaming and interacting with the community. Not only does their new location have enough room to support 200+ people for gaming sessions, but they are going all out for their first week with gaming tournaments, Magic: The Gathering drafts and a host of other cool reasons to swing in and see all their new stuff! Check out www.epicpug.com for all the details, and keep an eye out for me and some of your other robot writers who will be hosting game tutorials in the near future! -Sith-bot
- Steven Crowe – Artist – Steven Crowe is an incredibly talented artist who was at SLC Nerd showing off his stuff and promoting his and Mark Raines’ upcoming comic book. He was even nice enough to provide some great awesome Ryu prints as prizes for our Street Fighter tourney! Be sure to watch out for Big Shiny Podcast interview with him later this week! In the meantime, check out some of his work at http://stevencrowe.deviantart.com/
- Paper Wasp – Megan Mitchell – Megan was out at SLC Nerd representing her art at Paper Wasp. Our own Mexicus Prime picked up a great print called The Fisherman’s Daughter from her great offering of items for sale. We had a chance to speak to Megan as well for the Big Shiny Podcast, so watch for her interview later this week! In the mean time, check out her stuff! http://paperwasp.bigcartel.com/
- Scatterbrain Tees – The folks from Scatterbrain Tees were there selling selections from their geeky inventory of shirts!
This is just a small taste of what was at SLC Nerd this year! Fear Factory was there zombifying patrons, the Hello Sweetie and Dungeon Crawlers podcasts recording live, and many more artists, creators and vendors!
The Cosplay!
With SLC Nerd being a smaller, local convention, we didn’t expect to see as much cosplay as we did – let alone the quality of the cosplay! All throughout the day cosplayers were walking around the convention floor in some amazing costumes, always willing to take a picture. It wouldn’t have truly felt like a geek convention without these people and the hard work they put into their cosplay craft! From Snorlax to River Song, these cosplayers represented several different tastes of geekdom!
The Panels!
The day was packed with several panels, including “The Horrors of Utah”, “The Utah Comic Book Connection”, and “The Role of Celebrity in Geek Culture”. Also on the schedule for the day was 16 different “VoxNerd” presentations. These presentations were 10-15 minutes long and included topics such as role playing, cosplay on a budget, becoming a dragonslayer, imperial espionage, and even a talk on why we love zombies by Ted Raimi!
Frankly, to try to sum up how great SLC Nerd 2013 was in a single wrap-up post is nearly impossible. There were so many great people there manning different booths, so much entertainment, just so much to take in. Ben Fuller and Gangrene Productions put so much work into this, and we can’t thank them enough for allowing us to be involved and sponsor their event and for all their hard work in bringing all of this geekery together under one roof.
We hope to see you all at SLC Nerd 2014!
