I consider myself a science fiction nerd but a couple a weeks ago I knew that I was so far removed from it when I went to Galaxy Fest in Colorado Springs hosted at the Antler Hilton. Galaxy Fest is a convention for science fiction, steampunk, anime, fantasy, horror, and more. It's a venue to cosplay a favorite character or make up one in a safe fun environment. Galaxy Fest is also a family friendly con with events for the everyone. The reason I was going was that this is the Dr. Who's 50th anniversary and my grandson, Aidan who is a classic Dr. Who fanatic.
We were only going to be there over night but it was a four day event that started the preceding Thursday. Arriving early Saturday morning, we were privileged to have met at the registration station, Frazer Hines, who was a companion of the 2nd Dr. Who, and two other English personalities, character actor Colin Spaull, and Peter J. Wacks who is editorial director for Telos Publishing in the UK. My grandson has watch the 2nd Dr. Who DVDs many times over and was thrilled to be able to have his picture taken along side Frazer Hines.
At 11 am was the first panel we were attending with Frazer Hines and Colin Spaull. Panels are in a large convention room where they talk about themselves, the genre they are famous in, and for answering questions from the audience. We were surprised to find that they added another celebrity from Babylon 5, Claudia Christian. It was a very entertaining panel with Claudia Christian speaking about an incident at the NY Comic Con where she was shot by a fan of hers. She referred that all was in her autobiographical book and that we should buy it. Frazer Hines also referred to his autobiographical book but he was hilarious in his stories about his days on Dr. Who. Colin Spaull is a character actor who has been in the classic Dr. Who series with Colin Baker and in the newer version with David Tenant. My grandson even asked a question for Frazer Hines.
The con has multiple rooms; convention ball rooms for guest speakers, a vendor room where you can buy toys, cosplay accessories, books, DVDs, and more, the celebrity room is where the special guest sells their books, autographs, photos, and more. Throughout the hotel are hallways where vendors sell special items like artwork, armor, like the one vendor who was selling Boba Fett gear from Star Wars, and a bakery that will make any kind of sci-fi/fantasy bake goods.
Like I said before, this con was very small but with the popularity of science fiction genre, Galaxy Fest will grow. I'll catch you at Galaxy Fest 2014 in Colorado Springs.
