FanX Salt Lake brings three days of pop culture awesome to Utah

By Tanya Cook, Sept. 13th, 2018

Fans of comic books, sci-fi and fantasy shows, anime, and gamers gathered at the Salt Palace Convention Center in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah last weekend Sept. 6-8, 2018 for an epic comic convention. Programming at FanX Salt Lake kicked off on Thursday afternoon and ran through 10pm Saturday night. Popular celebrity guests included: Rainn Wilson (The Office), Evangeline Lily (Lost; Ant Man and the Wasp), Chuck Norris (You don’t Google Chuck Norris, he Googles YOU), and Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, Thor: Ragnarok) and many, many more.

This reporter was especially excited to see ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and Gabrielle themselves, Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor. Although Xena finished its original run over 16 years ago, fans of the show, called Xenites (or as Lucy Lawless lovingly calls them “Hardcore Nutballs”) are extremely passionate! Lucy and Renee’s autograph lines were some of the busiest all weekend and their photo ops some of the most coveted. Luckily, I was able to snag a front row seat for the Xena panel featuring Lawless and O’Connor. The duo did not disappoint. They seemed as delighted to be seeing each other as seeing the fans. Although still friends, their work frequent prevents them from appearing at cons together and so the Xena Panel at FanX was the first in several years!

There was a bit of a SNAFU with photo ops on Friday. Unfortunately the printers broke down and continued to malfunction all weekend, causing long delays for those waiting for photos with their favorites. EPIC Photo Ops and the FanX Volunteers and event staff did their best to keep everything moving. Ultimately, EPIC emailed those who ordered photo ops, profusely apologized, and offered everyone a free digital image of their photo to try to compensate for the lost time and in some cases, lack of a physical photo.

I was in line for a photo with Renee O’Connor (pictured with Lucy Lawless) when one of these delays happened. Lucky for us, we got to chat with the lovely Ms. O’Connor for about ten minutes while they attempted to resolve the issue. If you’re in the LA area this month, be sure to check out Renee in the upcoming production of ‘On Clover Road’ at ‘On Clover Road’ at Little Fish Theater!

Another unique guest at FanX was Rainn Wilson, perhaps best known for portraying Assistant to the Regional Manager, Dwight Schrute, on the American version of ‘The Office.’ Despite the glorious beard he now sports, Mr. Wilson displayed echos of his character Dwight during his panel. When asked who had the better beard – him or John Krasinski (Jim Halpert), Wilson responded “My beard would dominate his beard. Like an alien in ‘The Quiet Place.’

In response to a fan question about his favorite prank that Jim played on Dwight, he said the time Jim moves Dwight’s entire desk to the bathroom and then calls Dwight, forcing him to answer the phone in the bathroom. When a fan asked if he was still “kind of friends” with ‘The Office’ co-star Jenna Fischer, Wilson called Fischer live on stage and left her a voicemail filled with audience cheers (and profanity). Wilson is currently portraying Harry Mudd in a recurring role on ‘Star Trek: Discovery.’

The Bending floor at FanX was one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen and included several large displays. A few of these amazing displays are pictured below.

Saturday night wrapped up with another FanX exclusive: ‘Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.’ Every year the Utah Browncoats screen ‘Doctor Horrible’ and run a prize drawing for charity.* This year’s beneficiaries were Equality Now and animal shelter Best Friends: Utah. There is simply nothing like singing along and hating on Captain Hammer with 800 of your new best friends.

Stay tuned for more on FanX in “FanX Part 2: Charity and Social Activism at the Convention” coming soon!

*Note: A ‘prize drawing’ is similar to but not to be confused with a raffle: Which is sort of (?) illegal in Utah.

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