SALT LAKE CITY — Dan Farr is looking forward to Halloween — a night where people will be wearing masks, embracing cosplay and embracing the superhero characters they know and love. He wants to see the masks. He wants to see the costumes, the cosplay and the captivating aesthetics. A night where everyone can be someone different — a night where the world stops and we embrace our favorite heroes, characters and stories.
It’s not surprising Farr looks forward to Halloween. His entire life centers around a similar concept. He sees thousands of people in masks every year. He spends time with someone pretending to be a Jedi, and others who want to be Batman or Spider-Man for a day.
But a dark villain — like a character out of some popular graphic novel — has brought a new round of problems to the world. Masks are now shields to protect. Costumes are worn to avoid handling hazardous materials. New stories about superheroes are in short supply. Movie theaters are empty. Fans are under lockdowns and quarantine.
And so Farr — like so many others in the comic book convention industry — was forced to adapt. The Fan X Salt Lake Comic Book Convention was canceled before it got off the ground. It will return in 2021 with new safety measures in place and new plans for how to bring people back together.
But FanX isn’t alone. San Diego Comic Con and plenty of other conventions were forced to adapt to the pandemic, adding virtual events and offering new experiences for fans.
Farr recently told me about his plans for the 2020 FanX event, and the convention that we’ll never get to see. The grand plans are now up in the air. And questions still linger about what it will take to bring fans back together again to celebrate.
Adapting to a pandemic
Farr wanted FanX to happen. He tried to get it done. In fact, when we spoke back in April, it seemed like a real possibility the convention would happen.
“We’re still moving ahead, planning for the event, anticipating that things will be more back to normal. I’m sure it’s not going to be perfect by then,” Farr said at the time. “We are just planning for the event to happen. Of course, if it’s recommended that we not do it from the government, from the governor’s office or from the mayor’s office then we’re not going to push ahead with it.”
He planned a convention where washing hands, having hand sanitizer, wearing masks would likely be recommended. A lot of ideas were on the table, he said.
But the show ultimately didn’t happen, and it was for a bunch of reasons.
Economics played a role. Vendors wouldn’t have seen as much traffic, which would discourage them from attending the show in the first place. Most venders will only want to attend if they know they can sell enough product to the fans.
Celebrity schedules might have played a role, too. Anyone under lockdown because of the pandemic might not travel for an event like this one. So fans would then hold off from buying tickets. And so continues the cycle.
And the event would have lacked the energy that’s normally there, Farr said.
“If it was really sparse and felt sparse, I think the opinion that people ... wouldn’t feel that energy as much. And they feel that it’s not as successful as it needs to be,” Farr said.
It’s a struggle several other comic book conventions had to deal with.
Warner Bros. announced an online-only event to celebrate many of its properties called DC FanDome, which was a free “immersive virtual fan experience” back in August. The event showcased several of DC Comics’ top properties, including “Wonder Woman 1984,” “The Batman,” “The Suicide Squad,” “Black Adam,” The Arrow-verse TV shows and Zack Snyder’s cut of “Justice League,” among others. Commercials for the event ran on national television. Fans can still access panel videos and information on the DC FanDome website.
Back in July, the San Diego Comic-Con hosted Comic-Con At Home, which livestreamed some panels to guests and then were made available on YouTube thereafter. The convention lasted for five days. There were fewer panels for sure, and none of them had any major stars (Marvel, for example, didn’t have a panel). But it was still something to re-create the convention experience.
Similarly, Topps Digital DigiCon 2020 held a virtual convention with multiple speakers from different trading card companies. Brands like “Star Wars,” Disney, the MLB and the WWE were all featured at the event. Trading card conventions often require people to walk through to buy cards. But even an event like that had to be slowed down due to the pandemic.
In similar fashion, FanX decided to hold some virtual meetings with celebrities — like Jess Harnell, of “Animaniacs” fame.
“I think it’s a positive thing. I think it helps people still feel a connection to a certain extent. But I don’t think by any means it’s a replacement for what we had,” he said. “I think it’s more of a holdover than it is a substitute for it.”
What the convention would have been
The convention would have had social distancing. There would have been temperature checks. It would have taken longer to enter. The event staff would have worked “to make it feel more safe for people.”
Less people would have been allowed into the event. He said it would have had somewhere close to 8,000 people, including vendors. Normally, there’s 30,000 people on the floor at once, according to Farr.
And he had already begun the planning stages for who was going to appear. Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Jaleel White (Steve Urkel from “Family Matters”) were locked in. The future seemed bright.
According to Farr, the show had other deals in the works that now remain unsure. For example, he said a star from “Supernatural” — who had been under contract with only one other convention — was likely going to appear at the show. For Farr, this was a really big deal. “Supernatural” has developed a heavy following. Its stars rarely get to make appearances at conventions other than the major ones. But, he said, one of the show’s stars — he did not mention which one — was slated to attend.
And FanX had a “Boy Meets World” reunion planned, which would have been another big event for the convention.
“We never finished booking in the guests that we had planned already.”
What FanX will do
Creating a show for 2021 is already well in Farr’s mind. He understands the dream experience he had planned for 2020 might not work out.
Celebrities he had asked to attend the 2020 event remain in doubt. Contracts are always up in the air. Schedules always shift. And then there’s the pandemic itself, which raises questions about who will want to attend events.
He specifically referenced William Daniels, who plays Mr. Feeny on “Boys Meets World.”
“The actor who plays Mr. Feeny in the series is older. It just depends on if COVID is out there, if he feels like exposing himself to crowds and things.”
“You know, there’s just a lot that could have changed but obviously we’re gonna do what we can to bring the same group back together again that we had lined up,” he said.
A lot of what happens next depends on how the United States handles the pandemic moving forward. A coronavirus vaccine could come by the end of the year, and it likely wouldn’t be until mid-2021 that enough people would have taken it to begin assessing if normalcy will return.
Other experts suggest it won’t be until 2022 when the world returns to normal. Whatever normal looks like in a post-pandemic world.
For Farr, he still has the optimism he held when we first spoke in April. Yes, he had to put off the FanX convention. Sure, he might have lost an exciting celebrity appearance.
But the fan experience will always remain.
And when normalcy returns, the fans will be waiting.
“We do think that because ... it will have been two years by the time we get to our next event that there’s going to be such kind of pent up demand for this type of thing that will probably, we’ll go with most aggressive celebrity lineup that we had,” he said.