Because the first Salt Lake Comic Con was such a success in the fall of last year, they decided to put on another event this spring called FanXperience on April 17-19. The lineup was pretty spectacular when they first announced it and it just kept getting better and better. I was blown away by all the big names that came to Salt Lake for this event. Among the many celebs, I was most excited for Karen Gillan (I literally screamed when I saw the announcement), Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and James Marsters. Andrew grew up watching Star Trek, so he was pretty excited for all the Star Trek: TNG cast members as well as Sir Patrick Stewart himself.

The TARDIS is a huge draw and a must with my costume.

Since I basically plan my life around Comic Con events, I was pretty sad when I had previous commitments that hindered my plans to attend the 3 day weekend of FanX. In the end, I had to prioritize and I was only able to attend Thursday. Even though I missed out on seeing most of my must-see actors, I was able to catch a couple of panels including the Boondock Saints reunion panel with Sean Patrick Flanery and the James Marsters panel. As with last year’s Comic Con, the panels were very low-key comprising mostly of Q&A from the audience.

Boondock Saints panel with David Della Rocco and Sean Patrick Flanery

Although I’ve never seen Boondock Saints, I found Sean Patrick Flannery to be pretty entertaining. My love for his role in Simply Irresistible made up for my lack of Boondock knowledge and he was pretty funny all around.

James Marsters panel (with Dan Farr)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was definitely what first introduced me to the world of sci-fi and all things geeky so seeing James Marsters was a must. I saw him in the Buffy 20 year anniversary panel at San Diego Comic Con years ago, but that was a group panel which is hugely different from solo panels. I admit that I didn’t know much about the actor at all but this panel made me want to know more. I had no idea how extensive his acting career has been and I just loved how intelligent and insightful he was. I was surprised by how little Buffy talk there was with more questions about the actor and his other projects.

Expo hall swag

With the rest of my time at FanX, I wandered the exho hall with my cousin Ellie who was dressed as a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who while I wore my Tenth Doctor costume. She was stopped and complimented a ton and we got a couple of pictures together as well. It was only afterward that I realized that neither of us got a picture of ourselves on our cameras.

Andrew attended FanX on Saturday. He will eventually write his own post about it. Stay tuned…