{"id":32696,"date":"2015-09-13T02:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32696"},"modified":"2017-07-07T10:57:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T14:57:57","slug":"markets-in-everything-fan-expo-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/09\/13\/markets-in-everything-fan-expo-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Markets in everything, Fan Expo edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The Walrus<\/em>, Jonathan Kay<\/a> explains how Ron Weasley (and the whole Fan Expo celebrity photo “experience”) made him both sad and $300 poorer:<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Jonathan Kay. Click to see full-sized image at The Walrus<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fans of the TV show Entourage<\/em> will remember the second-season episode in which Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) heads to San Diego\u2019s Comic-Con International, dressed in prop-wardrobe Viking costume. Drama, we learn, had appeared in a (fictional) show called Viking Quest<\/em>, starring as the warrior Tarvold. On the fan-convention circuit, Drama explained, he could rake in big money by signing autographs, and set conventioneers\u2019 hearts aflutter with Tarvold\u2019s signature cry of \u201cVictory!\u201d On Entourage<\/em>, this seemed funny. In real life, I recently learned, it\u2019s sad.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, I took two of my daughters to the 2015 instalment of Fan Expo Canada, billed as \u201cthe largest Comics, Sci-fi, Horror, Anime, and Gaming event in Canada.\u201d More than 100,000 fans show up annually for the four-day exhibition, which now sprawls over both buildings of the massive Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Under one roof, I was able to meet a life-size My Little Pony, compete in a Catan<\/em> tournament, playtest emerging console video games, commission custom panels from famous cartoonists, pose with life-size Futurama<\/em> characters, buy a fully functional 3D-chess set, and generally revel in all the various subcultures that the rest of society stigmatizes as dorky and juvenile. My girls and I have been to Fan Expo Canada three years in a row, and we always have a good time.<\/p>\n

But my daughters are getting older. This year, for the first time, they were after more than just a Harry Potter wand and a Gryffindor T-shirt: They wanted to meet the real-life Harry Potter<\/em> movie stars appearing at Fan Expo. Expecting to encounter nothing more than a real-life version of Drama\u2019s Viking Quest<\/em> subplot, I acquiesced, and we wandered over to celebrity row.<\/p>\n

I was shockingly naive about how this process works. Before Sunday\u2019s celebrity adventure, I\u2019d assumed that one could mingle about and snap pictures with fan-con celebs for free, taking out your wallet only when you wanted a signed photo.<\/p>\n

In fact, the best way to describe Fan Expo\u2019s celebrity protocol is as a sort of Chicago Mercantile Exchange for human beings. Instead of live cattle, lean hogs, skimmed milk powder, cash-settled butter, and softwood pulp, this big board (displayed above) lists prices for Billy Dee Williams, Gillian Anderson, Danny Trejo, Neve Campbell, Norman Reedus, Skeet Ulrich, Zach Galligan, and fifty other stars and quasi-stars. The precision of the numbers suggests a fine-tuned demand-driven adjustment process that any commodities trader would recognize. Williams (Lando Calrissian from Star Wars<\/em>, but you knew that) was listed at $57. Anderson (X-Files<\/em>): $91. Danny Trejo (Machete<\/em>): $74. Neve Campbell (Scream<\/em>): $97. Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead<\/em>): $130. Skeet Ulrich (Jericho<\/em>): $68. Zach Galligan (Gremlins<\/em>): $63. Just my luck: Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley, Harry Potter\u2019s red-haired sidekick) was listed at $142 \u2014 highest on the board. I wanted to bail out. But having made the mistake of getting dragged this far, turning back wasn\u2019t going to be a good-dad move.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At The Walrus, Jonathan Kay explains how Ron Weasley (and the whole Fan Expo celebrity photo “experience”) made him both sad and $300 poorer: Fans of the TV show Entourage will remember the second-season episode in which Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) heads to San Diego\u2019s Comic-Con International, dressed in prop-wardrobe Viking costume. Drama, we learn, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,25,28],"tags":[1137,441,122,85,101],"class_list":["post-32696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-economics","category-media","tag-harrypotter","tag-marketsineverything","tag-movies","tag-sf","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8vm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32696"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32700,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32696\/revisions\/32700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}