PopCultHQ

February 25th signaled the third year for the NWI Comic Con in Schererville, IN.

This one-day convention had over 100 vendors, artists, artisans and guests which brought in over 3,000 attendees. This is a great con run by Brian Grabinski and his wife. There is a great sense of community throughout the whole convention and it is fun for the whole family…but crowded. Once people were inside, as long as they didn’t mind crowds, it was great.

For the space they have, this convention is fantastically organized and the layout is great. In an industry that is rife with bad conventions, over-saturation and commercialism it is fantastic to see a small convention that does everything right and manages to grow while maintaining a connection with their roots.

Unfortunately it seems that this event has outgrown itself. It needs to expand to either a a two-day con or find a larger venue. The current location in the Halls of St. George is just a little small for them. According to their website the hall capacity is 1000 people, which I am sure was exceeded at the beginning of the day.

It is a sad story about the state of this nation when a small convention such as this requires a security contingent to search bags and wand people. The security check point was the major choke point that left many of the opening crowd shivering outside in the ticket line for over 30 minutes.  Those that pre-ordered their tickets fared much better, but as you could not get children’s tickets through the Groupon deal, many were still stuck in the ticket line.

The exit situation, for at least the first hour, was a joke as you had lines of people trying to enter through the far left doors, while people were also trying to exit through the same doors.

The cosplay at the convention was stellar, and congratulations to all of them.

To find out what conventions are coming to your area next, check out the 2017 Convention list.

We at PopCultHQ are trying something different. If you went to this convention, please fill out the rating system below so that others can know what to expect from this con in the future.