NYCC is one of the largest conventions in North America, this year was no exception and offered a ton of attractions and had something for the fanboy of every type.

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This was my 4th year in attendance and once again enjoyed myself thoroughly, even more than last year. To note, it’s one of the more expensive cons I attend, mainly due to the hotel prices (NYC) and food costs (restaurants and food trucks). The ticket prices are actually very fair, but there does seem to be a shortage of 3-day tickets. When they first went on sale, I was quick to refresh the page and was put in queue for about 40 minutes, when the page finally loaded the 3-day tickets were all sold out. So what did I do? I bought Friday, Saturday, and Sunday badges. This was about 1.5x more expensive than a regular 3-day pass. Had I known that those would've sold out so quickly, I would've opted for a 4-day badge which didn't immediately sell-out a week prior.

I can only imagine this may cause more issues for next year now that everyone realizes how rare the 3-day tickets are and will easily pay out the $10 extra to ensure a 4-day ticket. I know that increasing the attendance cap is not a realistic solution as it’s already quite crowded, and the Fire Department wouldn't approve of it… I’m hoping something can be changed for next year as I didn't find it particularly fun to swap badges on my lanyard each day.

I stayed at the Skyline hotel which was about 12 blocks away, so it was a good 15 min walk with my Camera case in tow. Bare Burger was less than two blocks away so that’s where my roommates, Chantal, Wes, Candace, and Megan had dinner two of the nights. I’m certain Alex would have loved the food and we miss her!

My roomies and I visited the Bare Burger restaurant, twice. We ate at the famous Shake Shack Sunday afternoon, and man are those burgers delicious. I wish I had ordered more so I could still keep eating them 3 days later. I had a blast meeting up with lots of new people and am surprised by how many people know of my work/of me. I'm just looking to create pretty images and covering convention stuff! : )

The drive down was about 9 hours long, pretty good really. The drive back was a bit worse with the crazy traffic in Manhattan (25 min just go make a loop around the con to pick someone up). The traffic inside the con area was also pretty congested, but didn't stop me from enjoying the con!

I got to meet-up with Kamui, Yaya Han, JayceeCosplay, and a few other people I don't get the chance to hang around with on a regular con basis. What would I do without my friends at conventions~

Here are the positives of NYCC for me:

-There was virtually no line up on Friday at 11am, just walked up and pick-up badges. That was awesome.

-Construction was pretty much all done on the Javitz building! There was only some minor other construction going on outside the facility.

-The Tunnel and Concreate jungle is an amazing place for photographers. I hope NYCC continues to offer this open area as a place for groups to gather in future years.

-The wide variety of industries, guests, panels and cosplayers is fantastic.

-The layout of the lower autograph area is really nicely done; so you know it’s JUST for autographs/Photo Ops. This is a great example of how differently it can be done when compared to Fan Expo which had the lines extremely cramped together beside sales booths and only tape on the floor to indicate where how the lines should proceed.

-Advocating for “Cosplay is Not Consent”, glad to see they are rallying behind that.

-The mobile app was once again nice and useful this year. Very similar to the Guidebook app that other cons seem to use.

-Simple Lanyards being offered for free once you were in the con.

-Entrances/Exits easy to get to and quick to process

There really aren't many negatives, but here are my nit-pickings:

-The badge graphical designs are so-so, we had Walking dead themed badges last year, let’s try something new.

-Some of the food prices are quite expensive, not the fault of the con but wow.

-Not the con’s fault, but the general prices of hotels is higher than most other con cities. The discounts are nice though.

-Mailing out badges is great way to reduce lines (not that they were long to begin with), but perhaps open up mailing options to Canada if possible for next year?

-Despite the NYCC app being available for download, some descriptions were missing and it only showed the main 3rd floor area in the map.

-Some of the lines that form inside the Dealer’s area can get a bit blocky and end up halting traffic. Similarly, lines for some of the guests I wanted to check-out were capped easily. Bill Nyeeee~~

-Lack of Water stations. Maybe its an incentive for people to buy $3.85 bottles of water...

-Some harassment incidents that were happening outside of the con area.

So as you can tell I really didn’t have any issues with NYCC despite some of the costly elements and would love to return for a 5th year. I'm hoping to go for a Press Badge next year as it seemed to prove a popular option for other photographers.

If you haven't been to NYCC, it's worth checking out as you'll definitely find something of interest.

Check out the Gallery to view all the photos I took.

You can follow me on Twitter as well!

Till next year,

Mike