It is that time of year again when MegaCon, Florida’s largest comic book, anime, sci-fi, and gaming convention, starts up again. MegaCon will be at the Orange County Convention Center this weekend, Feb. 17 through Feb. 19.
For those who are not familiar with MegaCon, it is one of the largest “nerd” conventions in Central Florida. MegaCon showcases dozens of booths ranging from comics, tattoos, video games, art, and more.
“Megacon was awesome! So full of energy and it’s nice to see people having fun and dressing up and not caring what other people think and just being themselves! It was really fun,” said AnnMarie DeCarmo, commenting on her experience of MegaCon last year.
MegaCon is a place where people come together and express their inner nerd, where people can dress up as their favorite super hero, cartoon, or video game character. In fact, people who do not wear a costume are few in comparison to those who do.
“There are so many people who wear costumes that sometimes I feel out of place at MegaCon if I don’t wear a costume, but MegaCon is a lot of fun,” said Jessy Missigman who has been to MegaCon for the last few years.
MegaCon also hosts quite a few celebrities. This year, MegaCon is inviting Stan Lee, who is a comic book legend and is executive producer for most Marvel movies, Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter, several actors from the cast of Star Trek, and more.
Not only are there several celebrities attending, but there are dozens of booths to look forward to, for example “Ink Fusion,” a tattoo group that will be there creating original tattoos for people, there will be a MovieStop booth, several artists will be there to showcase their work, booths with toys and figures will be displayed, as well as life-sized weapons from cartoons and video games.
Throughout the weekend, there are contests that people enter each day, on Friday some of the contests are the “Quick Draw,” which is a twenty minute drawing session where there are two rounds, round one on Friday and round two on Sunday, and whoever the judges deem is the best artist wins a prize. On Saturday is one of the most popular events – the “Anime Costume Contest.”
There are also several gaming tournaments during the convention. On Friday, there will be a “HALO: Reach” free for all tournament. Saturday there will be a “Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3,” “Soul Calibur 5”, and a “Call of Duty: MW3” tournament, there will also be casual play the whole weekend.
Saturday has the most events planned and celebrities are normally out signing and taking pictures with their fans. The show room is also open longer during Saturday, while at night, after the show room hours are over, there is also a large rave that takes place, but one can only go if they pay for their Saturday ticket.
Friday tends to be the day to “scope out” what to do for the rest of the weekend and to take a look at the shops, while Sunday is the day that everything for sale gets a bit cheaper and people buy more from the shops.
Ticket prices for MegaCon are $25 for one day or $60 for the whole weekend. Check out megaconvention.com for places to buy tickets and to find out more about what will be available throughout the weekend.
