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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

WonderCon 2016: The Rest, RFID Badges Suck

We came. We saw. We chilled out and enjoyed ourselves. We're sad to say good-bye to WonderCon, though it's only an hour more away (and their parking sucks) in Anaheim, it still was such a great con for the fan of almost everything. Now, left with Comikaze Expo, uggh, we will it miss so much.

Fun panels about animation from Bob's Burgers, TMNT, Clarence and Uncle Grandpa, eat ten d*cks WB animation, you should have shown off the new Justice League cartoon, not Justice League Vs Teen Titans.

It's so hard to hate Warner Bros as a whole though, you have to hate the divisions of it. WB TV or the CW, we take off our hats to you for your thoughtful panels for some of our favorite shows. Same goes for an AMC Preacher exclusive, and, yes, that's not WB. But television shows showed up. Strangely, WB film's division decided to show off the Conjuring 2 on the opening weekend for Batman V Superman at WonderCon.Fire that marketing team.

All we can say is that more TV shows, cartoons and movies should have panels at WonderCon, it deserves more to connect with fans.

The problems

There's really only two problems that we had at this WonderCon.

First off, room choices for panels. The Los Angeles Convention Center has huge rooms for panels. For some reason they gave one of the biggest to the Blood Drive. The Blood Drive could have taken up a much smaller room or even have been outside, it has a vehicles solely designed for this purpose. Why did it take up one of the largest rooms that we remember going into every Anime Expo?

That may be because of simple poor management or RFID locations.

RFID badges suck. If you're tall like some of us you may remember having to bend over and tapping. It is a minor inconvenience, but why make anything an inconvenience? Why do we even need the RFIDs?

WonderCon says it's to quell people copying a badge, then trying to get in at the same time, but it's more obvious that it's a great way to capture crowd data. Every time you tap that card you're giving WonderCon the time you leave or enter. It helps them build a model to share with there exhibitors and such.

Funnel effect, oh it became real. Suddenly, slowed down, we trudged in line to just leave the upper floors back down to the exhibit hall, because all but one opening was working to tap. We waiting and sang a song as the guards who look like they were from USC in red and gold, but were really from some security comapny that only hires people that look like they could only stop Grandmas waiting unhappily.

Why not make the RFID badge a stylish bracelet? I've used the same RFID tech as a bracelet for other events and it works fine the same way.

In short, thanks for adding a stupid annoyance to the con instead off trying to stream line fans.

We can't wait to hear the stories as these things go to Comic-Con this summer, there's going to be some fun horror stories.

Hey, though, thanks though for coming to LA, minus a few bad plans it was a pleasure having WonderCon here and getting to meet some of our favorite people on TV. Discussing how dumb Batman V Superman with big fans and just chilling to people in cosplay having dance battles.

Thanks for all the fish.