Last month I had the pleasure of attending my very first comic convention out in Cincinnati, Ohio and one that happens to be the largest comic convention in the city. I’ve always wanted to go to conventions in Ohio and after checking out Horrorhound Weekend earlier in September I was glad to be attending yet another convention in Ohio a few weeks later.
Cincinnation Comic Expo is an insanely large convention that takes place inside the Duke Energy Convention Center in the heart of downtown Cincinnati. The first thing I really liked was the entryway into the convention with various comic books covers lining the sides of the entrance to get inside the convention itself by way of the vendor hall. This particular comic convention is the biggest one that I’ve had the pleasure of attending with various comic vendors, collectors, cosplay shops and so much more that you shouldn’t have a hard time finding something to tickle your fancy. My biggest complaint about this convention is that nothing was really grouped up but rather everything was mixed up. Most conventions I’ve attended in the past have things pretty well categorized together such as an artist alley and etc. but Cincinnati Comic Expo did no such thing making it rather difficult to find specific kinds of vendors such as comic book collectors or artists for that matter.
There was certainly no lack of cosplay on display here as there was lots of various cosplayers throughout the Friday & Saturday that I attended the show. Saturday was definitely a busier day than Friday and felt very congested but what I did love is just how spaced out everything was even for the large amount of traffic. The booths themselves had more space from ones across the aisle which gave more people room to walk granted there were still some tight spaces but CCE does a great job of not making you feel so close to other attendees when walking around.
CCE also did a great job of keeping their huge amount of guests confined to one specific area of the vendor hall which made traffic flow much better than other conventions that I’ve been to in my travels. Panels were a plenty as they were hosted all on the second floor of the convention center with a really nice enclosed walkway that takes you right over the massive vendor hall below so you can get a very nice view of exactly how big this convention really is. The staff along with the volunteers were extremely helpful with being able to show me where certain panels were as well as informing me of when guests would be available at their tables for pictures and autographs.
One thing that I would love to see conventions do that I haven’t seen except for at two conventions is to have an emcee of some kind to help hype the show during the weekend and ever since I went to the last convention I attended that had one I’ve been looking for that ever since and yet to my disappointment this was not something that Cincinnati Comic Expo had.
All-in-all Cincinnati Comic Expo is one that I would absolutely attend again and one that I highly recommend any convention goer check out. I just hope that in the future CCE does a much better job of keeping certain types of booths together however I really did love the Star Wars area which featured various vendors and booths all having to do with the franchise and I think that maybe that could be something done for other, more popular franchises as well for future shows. If you’re looking for your next new convention to attend, definitely makes plans next year to attend Cincinnati Comic Expo.
