BookCon Review 

BookCon Saturday May 31, 2014

Happening the same week as the awesome BookExpo America (BEA), BookCon established itself becoming a very successful first year con. It was exciting, many different genre of authors attended, free books, and always a hoot to meet other book lovers such as myself.


Pros
Always the highlight at conventions for me is going to the panels. The ones that I could attend, I already recorded and posted them on Fort Fandom Youtube Channel. Please check those out when you can.

I had a fantastic time meeting Cassandra Clare twice in one week. I met Cassandra at West Chester Philadelphia for her City of Heavenly Fire book tour on Friday May 30th and Saturday at BookCon. It was just a fantastic TMI weekend, and I got the famous Shadowhunter Tarot Cards done by Cassandra Jean at Cassandra Book tour (screams!!).

Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Maggie Stiefvator

The Epic Storytelling panel with Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles), Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments Series) and Maggie Stiefvator (Shiver Series) was hilarious. All these lovely ladies was sharing funny stories together, discussing their books, future projects and answering the audience questions. At the end of the panel, all of the fans walked out with a signed copy of The Magisterium Series: The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black, and also Sinner by Maggie Stiefvator. I have read The Iron Trial and wrote a non spoiler review on the blog. Just click here and it will direct you to that blog page.

Veronica Roth, Danielle Paige, Marie Lu, and Alaya Johnson

Another panel I attended was Dystopian future panel with Veronica Roth (Divergent Series), Alaya Dawn Johnson (The Summer Prince), Danielle Paige(Dorothy Must Die) and Marie Lu (Legend Series) as they talked about there books in the Dystopian world fandom. Although I have only read the Divergent series which was amazing, after this panel I'm definitely going to pick up all the other authors books in the future. The more they kept describing the different aspect of their books, the more I needed these book like yesterday.

Cons
BookCon had it's fair share of hiccups dealing with lines, staff and overcrowding. With my con experience, I already knew I had to get in line two hours in advance to acquire good seats at these panels. Many new comers attending this convention were getting frustrated over the panel line issues. It was understandable, but at the same time, this is what happens at conventions.

Another issue I had at BookCon was staff understanding the convention rules. On the website they stated that they wasn't going to clear out every panel. When I asked to confirm this information just to be on the safe side, the staff members had no clue. One staff member said they was going to clear the panels after every guests and then another said they was not. That frustrated many of us congoers waiting in line for two hours wanting to get good seats.

In addition, I had an issue with staff handling crowd control. There needs to be a better way to control the lines then being pushed around like cattle in a pen. Also, the staff need to be more vocal on what line people are standing in. Some people didn't know they was waiting in line for Cassandra Clare panel thinking they was waiting in line for Stan Lee. I know this is a first year con, but I hope staff become more vocal, maintains the lines better and follow rules as a collective group for next year.

Furthermore, the autograph section was the biggest issue at BookCon that seriously needs to be addressed next year. The lines was ridiculously long and it overcrowded the show floor area of being unable to walk around comfortably. I really hope BookCon move the autograph section off the show floor area completely. The two suggestions I hope BookCon take into consideration, is move the autograph section either downstairs where New York Comic Con (NYCC) had their autograph section or where the Artist alley was for NYCC as well. The autograph section can not be on the show floor area next year or overcrowding will continue to be an issue.

Next Year BookCon 2015
BookCon will expand into a two day event in 2015. BEA will run from Wednesday May 27th to Friday 29th and BookCon will run Saturday May 30th to Sunday May 31st 2015. Since 10,000 attendees showed up for BookCon this year, I think this was a wise decision. However, I wonder how the layout is going to work on a short time frame to dismantle BEA section since that had the biggest area at the convention. Or, will they keep it up and transition BookCon over into BEA territory. It would be interesting to see how they figure this out when the time comes next year.

With all the negatives from BookCon, I will attend next year convention again. I love books, NYC is close to Philly, and I want to see the improvements they do with this convention. I hope BookCon is around for many years in the future because it is very rare to gather many of my favorite book authors in one place.

BookCon will be May-30-31 2015.

BookCon Website