The most successful geek culture gathering in the Minneapolis/St Paul is officially
Twin Cities Con, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Every year, this convention is growing in attendance. We thought last year’s attendance was amazing, this year seemed almost double! With extra fans in attendance, the organizers decided to add an extra security screening to get into the Exhibit Hall… which caused delay to get into the room.
It took me 30 minutes to get in on Friday morning and it took me an hour to get in on Saturday morning. I did miss some panels due to waiting in the line, and I have read online that others have missed photo ops. I can’t take credit for this, but someone suggested to get a wrist band or a stamp to indicate that you’ve gone through security … so you don’t need to go through that long process of standing in line.
What is worst is the unnecessary zig-zag line that you
have to go through to get to the front door. See
laughable video of fans walking in the zig-zag line.
SpringCon at Bloomington Armory (29 April 2023)
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Other than that, I was really glad to see such a healthy turnout for these types of conventions. As you know, we are longtime fans of
Spingcon /
Fallcon,
Nerdin Out,
MN Toy Posse,
MN Fan Fest (RIP),
Wizard World Minneapolis (RIP),
Planet Comicon, and more… so believe me, when I tell you, that Twin Cities Con is one of the best comic book conventions I’ve ever attended. I’ve said it’s “our favorite big ‘comic’ convention in the area” when I went to
Twin Cities Con 2023, and it still stands.
The two big panel rooms were the main ballroom and the smaller “Hero” room, on the first floor. The gaming room and additional panels were on the second floor.
This year, there were additional programming panels (and party rooms) at the
Hyatt Regency, which requires you to walk a few blocks using the Skyway System. Some rooms required that you were staying at the hotel, as it needed a room key. This is great news if you were staying or parking at the hotel, but it felt like it was a little too far away from the Convention Center (according to Google it is half a mile away).
We mostly stuck to the two main rooms, so I’ll briefly recap them.
FRIDAY
Starting at 2pm, there was a chat with Sarah Natochenny, Haven Burton Paschall, and Marc Thompson, from
Pokemon. We all know there’s a strong anime fanbase at the show, so plenty of diehard Pokemon fans were in the audience.
Twin Cities Con Friday Badge (08 Nov 2024) (art by SnakeSimpArtz)
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I already mentioned how impressed I was with the
Helluverse strong fanbase, and they were the dominate fanbase at the Twin Cities Con this year. Fans were so ravenous for anything Hazbin, that fans were seeking to buy used Friday-only badges (which had characters drawn by SnakeSimpArtz). I have never heard of
Helluva Boss (YouTube) or
Hazbin Hotel (Amazon Prime) or
ZooPhobia (Web), but now Vivienne Medrano is on my radar as a creative force. The turnout to the Vivienne Medrano, Morgana Ignis, Brandon Rogers and Alex Brightman, panel was the most I’ve seen for Friday.
Of course, the force was strong with emperor Ian McDiarmid (
Star Wars)… making his first appearance in Minneapolis. The guy was quite witty and funny, it’s clear that it wasn’t his first rodeo.
Over at the Hero stage, they talked to voice actor Josh Keaton, Wes Johnson (who does ‘Voice-A-Palooza’ at these shows), and finally
Demon Slayer actors Griffin Burns and Zach Aguilar. I would say
Demon Slayer was hot last year, but the trend seemed to have died down this year.
SATURDAY
We actually missed early panels with
Adventure Time’s John DiMaggio and Olivia Olson (due to standing in the security line). We did manage to see
Stephanie Beatriz… who is from
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but everyone there seemed to only know her form
Hazbin Hotel.
Speaking of which, the
Hazbin Hotel panel had the biggest attendance. There weren’t enough seats on stage for all the voice actors: Erika Henningsen, Vivienne Medrano, Morgana Ignis, Kimiko Glenn, Amir Talai, Blake Roman, Joel Perez, Krystina Alabado, and Brandon Rogers. It was clear that the cast were having the time of their lives. Some (such as Erika Henningsen) extended their appearance, due to strong demand from the fans.
I was looking forward to hearing
Lou Diamond Phillips, who talked about his most famous role of playing Ritchie Valens in
La Bamba. The big room wrapped up with the popular
Saturday Cosplay Contest.
At the Hero stage, we saw Troy Baker (famous for playing Joel in
The Last of Us video game), and
Star Wars writers Timothy Zahn and John Jackson Miller.
SUNDAY
Starting early was
Encanto’s Dianne Guerrero (who is famous for playing Crazy Jane in
Doom Patrol) and Jess Darrow.
The Flash’s star Grant Gustin was a big draw. He was only available for Sunday, so it felt like he headlined the show. I didn’t see too many Sunday-only badges, but if there were some, I would bet it was because they were strictly there to see Gustin.
Next was
The Boy Meets World chat with Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel, and Rider Strong. Followed by Wes Johnson’s Voice-A-Palooza featuring Mallorie Rodak, Josh Keaton, Sarah Natochenny, and Haven Burton Paschall.
Closing out the show was the
Sunday Cosplay Contest.
At the Hero stage, we have
AmaLee, then comedian
Brian Posehn. Posehn was a massive comic book geek (collects Neal Adams, loves “The Judas Contract” by Marv Wolfman and George Perez).
I don’t know what Twin Cities Con have planned for next year, but sign me up. I just hope they address the security/line problem. I’m not saying no security, but perhaps do a wrist band or figure out a way to do it better. No one wants to spend an hour standing in line.
Twin Cities Con returns November 7th to 9th, 2025!
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #1 (Apr 1985)
SUPERMAN KLASSIK #4 (Germany) (1991)
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