Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo 2014

This year, Jared and I decided to attend the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo (CCEE) as a mini vacation for ourselves. Jared is not going to PAX in Seattle this year so he decided to do this instead. We bought weekend passes so that we could attend Thursday through Sunday, April 24-27. We had an awesome time although I think I still need to work on my inner nerd since I didn't get a lot of the costumes or references throughout the weekend.

Since people usually dress up or cosplay for the expo, Jared decided to dress up as Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jared had his whole costume planned including carrying a golf-bag carrying a hockey stick, baseball bat, and golf clubs. The day before the expo started, Jared discovered all of these were explicitly banned as weapons from the expo. Waa waaaaa. Jared ended up using the golf bag anyways but used it to carry a poster-tube instead.

Jared's "Casey Jones" costume.

Obviously Jared wasn't the only to dress-up for the expo. There were tons of cool costumes including aliens, ninja turtles, X-men, super heroes galore, and many more. I only happened to take a few pictures of people that dressed up, but they were pretty impressive.

Belle and the Beast

Optimus Prime!

Our friend, Emily, also put a lot of time and effort into making her costume for the weekend. She dressed up like "Elsa" from the recent Disney movie "Frozen". She did an awesome job!

Emily's costume from the back. She left glitter wherever she went.

Emily's "Elsa" costume.

On Thursday, Jared and I stood in line to get a photo with Giancarlo Eposito. He's famous for his television acting, particularly in the series Breaking Bad which just ended last year. I've never watched the show but Jared is a big fan. Basically, Giancarlo's character is famous for killing people with a box-cutter...pretty scary. I didn't realize until after the picture was taken that he was actually holding a box-cutter to my neck...uhhhh.

Giancarlo Esposito holding a box-cutter to my neck. Yikes!

We saw quite a few famous people over the weekend. I happened to snap a picture of Tom Felton, famous for playing Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, even though I wasn't supposed to. I didn't exactly feel like waiting in line and paying $40 for a photo with him...sorry.

Over the weekend, I was most excited for The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings aspect of it. 

Me and my buddy Smeagol/Gollum.

They had Sean Astin (who played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings) and Billy Boyd (who played Peregrin "Pippin" Took in the Lord of the Rings). I was able to attend a panel with both of them on Saturday morning and enjoyed hearing about their experiences filming the movies. Jared and I attended another panel on Sunday morning with Sean Astin. We were extremely lucky to get a place near the front of the line because the line-up for him was HUGE! I couldn't believe how close we actually were to him.  It was definitely cool.

Sean Astin 

Jared was most excited for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aspect of the expo, hence his Casey Jones outfit. Jared got autographs and a photo with Kevin Eastman, the creator of the ninja turtles and the original cartoon. On Saturday, Jared also got to meet some of the voice actors from the original cartoon. We met with Jared's friend Mindy and her boyfriend James and all got in together for a group shot with the voice actors. I think Jared cried for joy. 

The voice cast of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon plus Mindy, James, Jared and I.

One cool thing that we got to attend was the "Aliens Exposed" show after the expo on Saturday night. Our friends Nathan & Emily volunteered throughout the weekend for the expo so they were able to get us free tickets for the event. This was the first time the cast of the Aliens movie had been together since the movie. They all seemed pretty cool, I guess. The most exciting part was when Sigourney Weaver walked out on stage and everyone started yelling and cheering loudly. She has been in quite a few  movies but is well-known for her role as "Ripley" in the Alien series. 

It was a great weekend, overall. We did a LOT of walking and got quite a bit of merchandise which Jared was really excited about. It was a nice break from the usual and nice for Jared and I to spend some time together, even if we were surrounded by thousands of other people. Definitely a successful weekend!