Get ready, Toronto, because Fan Expo Canada is heating up this year with its incredible lineup of guests, panels, activities and activations.
The Fan Expo begins on Thursday, August 22nd and runs through August 25th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The Expo is a home for all types of fandoms from genres such as comics, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, gaming, and anime. In addition to celebrity autographs and photo ops, the convention offers an impressive selection of shopping experiences with exclusive merch and the latest fandom items.
“At Fan Expo, you meet new friends. You learn about new genres that you love and didn’t know about. You meet someone wearing a costume that blows your mind and you want to stop and ask them about it, maybe take a photo with them if that’s OK with both of you,” Andrew Moyes, vice president of Fan Expo HQ, told Now Toronto earlier this month.
Currently, Fan Expo HQ is the world’s largest producer of Comic Con events, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees from around the world. According to Moyes, the convention has doubled its number of events in North America from eight to 16.
“We’ve grown in terms of our footprint and that’s also helped us really leverage our scale to continue to understand what the fans want, what the fans want across North America, so we can really process that and incorporate that knowledge to provide the ultimate fan experience for everyone, no matter where we are. All of our markets are important to us,” he said.
Moyes says the event is a celebration of all aspects of pop culture and invites all fans to enjoy the festivities it has to offer.
“There’s something at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where you can celebrate with the community. I think that’s the other really great aspect of this event. It’s a place where pop culture lovers can come together and actually celebrate together in a safe environment,” he said.
Moyes goes on to reveal the new highlights that people can expect this year, such as the Comic Explosion, new activations, and Idol Fest.
“We’re really excited about Comic Explosion. It’s a new event that we’ve never done before this year, and it’s kind of like a comic book clash art competition. It’s on Saturday night in the Rec Room, a really great way for people to immerse themselves in comic book art and have some cocktails. There’s going to be live music,” he said.
“We also have Twisted Tunes, which is a really great activation, so they have a bunch of voice actors, maybe the voice actor from Winnie the Pooh or all kinds of voice actors that go and read a script from a major movie, which is really, really fun. Also, in the anime space, we have Idol Fest, which is really good,” he continued.
Other new features include a special question-and-answer presentation by Twisters with Oscar winner Helen Hunt, an exclusive look at the costumes of the new Disney+ Marvel series “Agatha All Along”, a meeting with the “Trailer Park Boys” and “Princess Margaret’s mission to beat cancer”.
In addition, Idol Fest is expected to attract anime fans, as anime groups sing and perform choreographed dances at the festival while the audience cheers them on. Since anime is an extremely popular genre, the convention aims to promote other anime-related events such as the Maid Café, similar to those held in Akihabara, Japan.
As a reminder for fans, the convention center consists of a North and South building, and the South is home to some amazing activation events from Paramount, Disney, Prime Video, Xbox, AMD, Hasbro, Squishmallows, Cineplex, eBay, Lego, and more.
“Paramount is going to have a really big expansion. Disney is going to have a really big expansion that they’ve built around ‘Agatha All Along,’ the new series that they’re going to launch. From what I understand, it’s going to be a really immersive experience. It’s going to be a Beetlejuice Activation too. Lots of gaming, Bell eSports has a huge build up where there will be demonstrations and different ways to get involved there,” said Moyes.
For those heading to Fan Expo for the first time, Moyes recommends the following way to spend your day, starting with getting a four-day pass in advance.
“…Look at the schedule on the website. You have to make a kind of matrix of what you want to see, because included in your ticket are these really great opportunities to see these big celebrities speak on a panel.”
If a guest can’t afford an autograph or photo from a celebrity, Moyes said they can still participate in the question-and-answer session and hear the behind-the-scenes information about the event.
While it is important to stick to a schedule, the Vice President also encourages guests to leave some moments for surprise and joy.
Guests can purchase tickets at fanexpohq.com. Single-day passes start at $39 and four-day passes start at $140.
