Buffy The Vampire Slayer

NYCC ’07: DAY 1 COVERAGE INDEX/DAY 2 PREVIEW

The New York Comic Con kicked off by all accounts a successful Day 1 Friday. Newsarama was there of course covering all the major panels, sponsored by Comicraft’s ELEPHANTMEN #7, on sale right now from Image Comics and in index of all our coverage follows below, along with a preview of Saturday’s LIVE! panel coverage.

As for Friday’s action, the crowds for New York Comic Con began forming at midnight the night before Day 1.

No, really.

NYCC’s Greg Topalian told Newsarama that guests looking to attend the Slayer Tales With Xander, Kendra and Drusilla panel (the opening panel on Saturday) arrived late Friday night and camped outside the Javits Center in order to be the first to get into the hall and the panel on Saturday morning. By 8:45 am, the line to enter the center was at least 500 people long, and growing steadily - in 20-degree New York blustery weather.

Inside, however, a controversy was already brewing, as some guests had managed to get inside the building and were already in line outside the hall where the Slayer Tales panel was to be held. The crowd erupted into shouting when NYCC staffers told them that the people who had been outside since midnight would be allowed in first, and then the people who had managed to get inside would be allowed into the panel, if there was still room.

Topalain said he understood that people would be upset with the decision that was made, but he felt, under the circumstances, it was the fairest thing to do, admitting that there was no way to make everyone happy in such a situation. He added that the number of people who were waiting outside for the Buffy panel were known to be there for that specific panel, as they had been talking with the security staff throughout the night, as they tried to stay warm.

A similar situation had occurred on Friday, Topalian said, when fans were lining up at 7:30 am in order to get a limited number of tickets for autographs. Originally, NYCC announced that the tickets would be distributed beginning at 3:00pm, but given that they already had far more people in line than they had tickets, the call was made to distribute the tickets to those who were in line early.

“Again, we felt it was a fair thing to do, but yeah, there was no easy way out of it,” Topalian said, explaining that they were between two very difficult decisions: ask the people who had been in line since 7:30 am to leave and come back, or to distribute the tickets early, and prevent a huge line from growing throughout the day, when the number of tickets available would be far outstripped by demand.

Also causing confusion were exhibitors and press who were told that they could not enter the building by any other entrance than the main one, which put them into the same line with guests, forcing them to wait to get inside.

By 10:15 am, there was still a healthy line to get into the main floor, and moving slowly. At 10:45am, the line runs the length of the Javits center and then turns to run down The line goes down 40th street and is moving, but growing. Both private security and on duty NYPD are keeping the line moving, making sure it doesn’t block any streets.