Supernova Pop Culture Expo
June 18-20 @ The Dome, Sydney Olympic Park
This years NSW leg of the Supanova Pop Culture Expo took place at the futuristic Superdome at Sydney Olympic Park. An apt venue considering the milleu of sci-fi, fantasy, anime and pop culture attendees. Home to over 50 stalls of every type of merchandise available I was in geek heaven reliving my childhood memories filled with Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek and 80’s TV classics to name but a few.
I am older now and new franchises have entered the fray since then such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Twilight. One of the stars of the latter Rachelle Lefevre was on hand to answer questions and reflect on the experience of making these films with a friendly and enthusiastic audience. Sadly I didn’t get to hear all of her Q&A as I was queuing up to see a capacity seminar with Karl Urban. Affable and incredibly funny, Karl was gracious and entertaining to his fans spilling the beans on what it’s like to be an actor and behind the scenes gossip from the making of the recent “Star Trek” reboot. I also got to see 80’s icons Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch, stars and Viper pilots of the original Battlestar Galactica. Dirk didn’t look a day over his 65 years and reflected on his career from Broadway to movie of the week and action packed romp “The A-Team” which was unceremoniously cancelled in 1987. Richard also talked about his life on screen and was incredibly inspiring to would be actors and also showed trailers for 2 TV series that he is producing himself. Both great actors, willing to share their ups and downs of Hollywood fame.
Throughout the day there were Australian Wrestling shows, autograph signings and the opportunity to have official photos taken with your favourite stars. There were also displays of the latest video games, the chance to take part in trading card gaming and enter the Cosplay “costume competition”. Remote controlled R2 D2’s patrolled the exhibition foyer and numerous fans dressed up as their favourite film, TV, comic book and anime characters. The amount of work that went into some of these costumes was incredible and I tried to take as many photos of them as I could. Most of these were young teenagers but there were also many older fans as well. Regardless of the age barrier we were all hanging out having a great time. Maybe I’ll have enough guts to dress up next year!
Well done to event organiser Daniel Zachariou and his team of dedicated staff for yet another year of fantastic fun. Once again we had the opportunity to get up close and personal with our favourite heroes, something that you can rarely do at any other event – as well as meet like minded individuals and let go of our inhibitions.
You will love this if: You’re a self-confessed geek, fan of popular culture and comics and wanna get to know the people behind them.
You will hate this if: If you detest Star Wars/ Trek and co, and people dressed up as aliens, robots and superheroes.
http://www.supanova.com.au/
