Calgary Expo 2019 Coverage

April 30, 2019 at 5:19pm
By Jason Stettner

We were once again fortunate to cover the Calgary Expo 2019 which presents a number of events throughout a weekend. It's a fairly big deal and the largest of its kind within the city. Our team was slightly smaller this year as our photographer is out of the city. We were however able to still grab just as much, if not more content with some interviews this year. These were with a representative of the show, and some of the cosplayers that were attending.

While there we also grabbed some cosplay photos from those we ran across and those are split across the various days. We missed the first day however and this was due to Avengers: Endgame coming out that night. You can’t blame us, we also took a snow day on Sunday as the previous evening had a wicked blizzard. We actually just left as it was really coming down, rather crazy quite honestly.

Despite issues, I felt we did cover some great things and presented those in a number of articles. You can check out a video of some content below, some of it is brand new and other parts are recycled content. Limited days presented some problems, next year we aim to deliver footage of all cosplayers we grab photos of, or as many as we’re given permission/have time to do so with.

This year felt a bit different than in years past. It seemed like the guest weighting wasn’t as heavy and this led into some smaller crowds. Saturday was packed as always, but Friday was rather empty and even then the Saturday wasn’t as crazy as usual. It was also a bit different as they had new security measures to follow traffic moving around at the show. This was common when I visited CES this year, not a big deal.

They did however greatly alter the flow of traffic, leading to an empty Coke Stage area which is often filled with people interacting. That was disappointing, just how empty that area was. A number of booths were also empty slots, which is something I’ve never seen prior. The cosplay was just as quality as usual, and there were some great panels present. I felt that organization could have been better in regards to knowledge for those near the doors. Many of the staff didn’t seem to know where things were when I asked for help. Again, it flowed alright and those are just some elements of the show I noticed this time around. It also felt slightly scaled back as the event didn’t make use of the Agrium or as much of the outdoor areas.

Moving past that, we saw some great panels. Zachery Levi put on a good time, Rose McIver was charming and David Hayter was really friendly with the crowd. The Back to the Future cast also fun to watch. You can check out details about those panels in our hub, and general coverage from the show including interviews that we conducted. We’ll most likely be covering it again next year.

View our Cosplay Highlights
View our Calgary Expo 2019 Hub