New York Comic Convention and Anime Festival

It was almost the same time last year that I purchased tickets to attend the 2011 New York Comic Convention and Anime Festival. The festival, which took place during a four-day weekend in October, rented out the entire Jacob Javits Convention Center and saw an audience of over 105,000 walk through the doors. 

Although the festival was plentiful with comic book designers and collectors and there was an entire floor devoted to anime culture, NYCC featured other aspects of pop culture. There were panels regarding popular TV shows, upcoming movies and even what to expect in video game technology. I saw a panel on The Avengers, The Walking Dead and even Batman: Arkham City - all starring the actors/actresses and behind-the-scenes artists responsible for producing each product.

This year's New York Comic Convention and Anime Festival is expected to draw in more people than last year. From October 11-October 14, the Javits Center will see dozens of popular comic book artists and pop culture icons speaking in panels and hosting meet-and-greets with fans. Although the festival isn't taking place for another month and a half, people can be expected to see Adam West, (Batman, Family Guy) Christopher Lloyd, (from the Back to the Future trilogy) Tom Felton (from the Harry Potter movie series) and Sean Astin (from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) just to name a small amount. Artists from The Walking Dead comic series, Amazing Spider-Man comic series and Hellboy comic series will be on hand. Even the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, Axel Alonso, will be on-hand at the festival.

Best of all, the convention offers many pricing options for attendees. For those who are die-hard fans and have the money to spare, there is a 4-day pass. For those who can't take off that much from work, there are also 3-day passes and individual day passes. (Friday-Sunday) All passes range from $35 to $85. 

After attending 2011's festival, I walked away with some promotional items from various companies. Expect to see something very similar this year.