FanX – Salt Lake City Comic Con

My wife and I had to opportunity to go to FanX 2025 in Salt Lake City. This convention was the last “weekend” in September. It really wasn’t a weekend it was Thursday, Friday and Saturday (thank you Utah). AS a result “B” and I took Thursday and Friday off work. My parents drove up and watched the girls for us on their way to Taylor University in Indiana (yes, it isn’t on the way at all, but they said hey would come up anyways).

So, Thursday morning “B” and I got up, got breakfast for everyone and then headed out on the 5 hour drive to Salt Lake. It was a great drive (bad gas milage though) and we had a lot of good talking along the way. Once here we checked into our hotel (very nice) and then headed over the the Salt Palace convention center. We grabbed lunch at a food truck and then went in. This is “B” very first comic con. She has been to a few Star Trek conventions with me before, but these are a whole different experience. We started by hitting Wild Bill’s for a fountain drink. I have a cup of theirs from 2018 and so you get free refilled forever for a low daily rate. “B” went the the first room we wanted to see a panel at and grabbed great seats. I met her there and we saw Freema Agyeman from Doctor Who. She was one of the companions that was associated with the Doctor played by David Tennent (my favorite doctor). She did a good job and answered a lot of questions. Then we went over to the Celebrity Row area to see who was out signing, and David Tennent (yes my doctor) was there and his line wasn’t terribly long so we paid for the autograph and got in line. He was was nice and sounded just like he does when reading the “How to Train Your Dragon” books. We even mentioned it and he was delighted by that. I also got a hand shake from him as well (always a goal of mine). Then a little more wandering and we headed over and saw Zachary Levi who was also signing autographs. He is from the show Chuck that “B” and I really enjoyed. So, got his autograph and a fist bump (he was feeling under the weather a little so no handshake). I asked him about a picture with Moral the Wombat, but he said he couldn’t, but he did ask us what the deal was with the wombat and he laughed and thought it was great. Then we rushed over to another panel where Henry Winkler, Don Most and Anson Williams, all from Happy Days, were talking. They were also engaging and told great stories. They related how they felt like a family and that made doing the show so much easier. And yes, Henry Winkler did all the water skiing, minus the actual jump, in the “Jumping he Shark” episode of Happy Days. Then it was immediately over to the Grand Ballroom where Zachary Levi did his talk. He talked a bit about the importance of love in the world and how God is so important in his life. He answered a lot of questions and was super awesome. He runs a charity called Nerd HQ that helps people get mental health counseling and he talked about that as well. After his talk we headed straight over to a panel discussion by Cathrine Tate. She was another of the companions on Doctor Who with David Tennent. She was funny (she is a professional comedian), but clearly, while Doctor Who was a big thing it wasn’t that big for her. All the panels were worth the time going to and we had a good time. There was going back to Wild Bills a couple times for refills as well through out the day – we tried root beer, watermelon, blue raspberry, and black cherry. The watermelon and blue raspberry were ok, but tasted very similar. I liked the root beer the most and “B” liked the black cherry. For the evening I had bought extra tickets to go to a karaoke concert hosted by Zachary Levi to benefit his charity. It said it was to start at 7pm, but it didn’t end up starting until almost 8:30. It as a little annoying, but oh well we did get to eat something beforehand. The concert was fun. He had people from the audience come up and sing, he sang a bunch, and he had some celebrities show up and sing as well. The truth is I didn’t know most of the celebrities that showed, but it was still all fun. They had a live band doing the music and they we great. That went until after 11pm which was unexpected, but it was a ton of fun. So that was day 1 of FanX, it was a long day with the drive, but it was a fun first day.

Day 2 started off with sleeping in a little and breakfast. There weren’t any panels we wanted to see right away so we didn’t rush to the convention. This was the day of the Doctor Who panel that David Tennent was going to be on so both “B” and I dressed up in our Doctor Who consumes for the day.

*Speaking of costumes, as expected there was so many costumes. People wearing so many different things. It is something that I enjoy in some ways and don’t in others. I am glad to people get the opportunity to express their joy in certain things in these ways in a fun environment and can feel safe doing it. But there are also a lot of people that are wearing very questionable things as well. But to each their own.

Back to day 2. We got there and once in we wandered the vendor floor a little, we got our first soda from Wild Bill for the day, and walked. We went to the Sean Astin panel first. He was just elected as the president of SAG-AFGA so he talked a bunch about what that means and what things they are looking at in the future – mostly how AI is influencing things. He was down to Earth and did a great job answering questions. We then watched the first 15 minutes of the next panel with Melissa Benoist and Tyler Hoechlin who played Supergirl and Superman on the CW network shows. Again both seemed very down to Earth, but since we didn’t watch their shows we decided to head out. We then grabbed some lunch of Indian and Japanese food, both of high were good (the Indian was much better of the two). Then it was more wandering of the vendor floor. We went by the Dragonsteel booth again (Brandon Sanderson’s group) and found out that they had a quest taking place and you could earn a prize by completing it. So, we jumped on that, and got the info on that. It required us to do a number of things around the convention like meet and author, meet an artist, buy something, eat something, got to a panel, and other things. It sounded like fun, and we were doing all those things anyways. Then we wandered and did some shopping. Then back to the grand ballroom for Danny Elfman’s panel. He is the composer of a lot of movie soundtracks – over a hundred. He has done a lot of Tim Burton and Sam Rami movies, and that was I why I was interested in seeing him. He did a good job. He as very interesting and talking about the wide range of his career. He apparently composes a lot of classical music as well. I didn’t know that. Once that panel was over it went straight into the big reason we came – the Doctor Who panel with David Tennent and Billie Piper. They came out and were very delightful. They answered a lot questions and David seemed excited to be there and Billie seemed anxious, but was still delightful. I was well worth it seeing them. After that we headed back out to the floor and did more shopping, and we finished the Drangonsteel quest so we headed back to that booth to collect our reward. After that we worked our way back to the hotel for dinner. “B” made a reservation there for a nice dinner for us that night, and it was nice. A bit overpriced, but the company was what mattered and that was wonderful. That was it for day 2. No late night event at the convention.

Day 3 came and a week prior this day was an extra day that didn’t have anything I really HAD to do, but a couple things that could be good, but if we were talking about heading back home to Boise early in the day. BUT THEN FanX announced that Jerry O’Connell was added to the guest list, and that a Sliders panel was being added to the schedule Saturday evening. The thing was that Cleavant Derricks and John Rhys-Davies were both already attending the convention, but there wasn’t anything special they were doing that I was interested in. But once Jerry was added there was now 3 of the original cast from Sliders attending, and I was like, “Yes please!” I loved Sliders when it was on back in the 90’s (well the first 2 seasons were really good, and the last 3 well…). So, I talked it over with my family and they all said it was fine that “B” and I stay until after that panel. So that was added to the schedule. The day started with “B” and I getting there and heading to the “Bug’s Life” panel. It wasn’t great, so I am not going to talk on it. Then “B” and I wandered the vendor area and picked up a few more things and got some more soda. The big thing during this time was that we we over to Celebrity Row where all the actors/actresses were. And I was able to get Cleavant Derricks’ signature. He was on the show Sliders and he was super nice. We chatted with him for a while about life, the picture I got signed, his brother, and about how he has a Tony and played the Wizard in Wicked both in a tour group and then on Broadway. It was a lot of fun. I was hoping to get Jerry O’Connell’s autograph at the same time, but there as an update at his booth stated he wasn’t going to be there until 1pm. So, we then wandered a bit and then got back to get in line to get his autograph. When we got over to his table we saw that he was there, but not at his table. He was hanging out at Cleavant’s table. In fact, he was in front of the table talking with the fans there. So, we got in line. The line moved SLOW. The reason was two fold: Anyone with VIP tickets moved to the front of the line (well 4-1) and Jerry was talking with everyone. In fact while in line he would pause signing autographs to go up and down the line of people and say, “Welcome to the Sliders ride, sorry for the delay.” and he would shake hands and do quick chats with the people in line, then return to the front and sign and talk. We finally made it up to the front. Now, we have this wombat that likes to meet people, but the thing at conventions now is that celebrities make money for picture now and so getting pictures usually costs extra and I am not going to pay extra. I asked Cleavant earlier in the day and he was super happy to take the picture, and he insisted that “B” and I were in the picture as well (no extra charge). I noticed the Jerry was talking selfies with everyone that was getting an autograph and I couldn’t believe that everyone was paying the extra fee for it, but when I got close I heard his table handler telling people, “Jerry is pretty much taking pictures with everyone so you don’t have to pay for it.” So when we got up to him we got the autograph and asked about the wombat picture – and he was more than happy to take the picture with all of us. I learned later that this was Jerry’s first convention ever on his own. He had only ever been to conventions with his wife as a plus 1 and done things. So, I think he was excited. Then we hurried back to the grand ballroom to go to the Brandon Sanderson panel and the line was enormous. “B” was grabbing lunch and I stood in line. I was hoping we would get in there were so many people. Yes, we got in, and didn’t miss much by the time we were in. He talked about upcoming things coming out, and then answered questions from fans. It was crazy what he was able to answer about his universe. There were some very obscure questions and he was on top pf all of them. It was amazing. Then he did a reading from a book he said he will most likely never release. It was funny. It was cool seeing him talk. After that was William Shatner (Captain Kirk!). I have seen him many times before at Star Trek conventions so this panel wasn’t a surprise. It was all over the place. He just talks and talks and talks about whatever he wants to talk about. It was entertaining, but I don’t know if he actually answered any question that was asked of him – which was only 2 or three in 45 minutes because he would go on and on about all kinds of stuff that he was thinking about when not exactly answering the question. After that an hour break, and then back to the grand ballroom for the Sliders panel with Cleavant, Jerry and John-Rhys Davies. It was a great panel. Jerry made sure to acknowledge and thank the ASL people that had been there all weekend. And then he spent almost the entire panel on the floor next to whomever was asking a question of the panel. He was just so engaging with people. The panel was fun. They complained about where the show went, they complained about how there hasn’t been a reboot yet, and they complained about other things. They joked about how awful the panel was since all they were doing was complaining, but it was fun. They didn’t just complain they were happy, they talked of the great times they had, and they tried to make it clear that all of them were actively trying to find a way to get the show rebooted. It was a great panel.

That was it. Then “B” and I got to our car and drove the 4.5 hours back to Boise. We got in around 12:20am Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot more fun with my wife then all the comic cons I went to on my own. I just wish it was Friday-Sunday rather than Thursday-Saturday. Oh well.

I thought I would do a photo dump here at the end this time. So, here is a variety of pictures from the show – make sure to click on them to see them full size.