Another year goes by and yet again I find myself at what I can best describe as the ole faithful of conventions for me. Lexington Comic & Toy Con remains as the convention I’ve attended the most because it’s close to home, has a lot to offer and rarely disappoints. This year I went with my usual routine of going on Saturday and spending a day at the event by driving up early to get a decent parking spot and getting back fairly late. With a nice trip to Olive Garden afterwards for my wife and I.

Lexington has become a rather tricky event to review mainly because I keep coming to it and it manages to retain the stuff that makes it great. So like the last two or three years they kept to their very reliable three, two, one method to organize everything. The third floor had vendors, the second floor had panels and photo ops, and the first floor had most of the guests. This is still one of my favorite set ups because it’s just so easy to find everything an easy to get everywhere. You enter the building and you’re practically at registration, then right after that you have the vendors. Then it’s just riding escalators to get to the floor you’re wanting and all of the convention stuff is a short walk away. For a convention to be at the size this one is and to have everything easy to find is really impressive and is one of the features I like most about coming here.

As for the vendors once again they’re great. Lexington does get a lot of the same vendors to come back but those vendors offer some awesome merch and I’ll admit I’m also friends with a few of them so that has a lot to do with it as well. You have my friends from Loading Crew Crafts but I was also able to find some cool stuff I’ve never seen before. My wife got a handcrafted Snorlax glass piece used to hang up for decoration and I managed to find one vendor who made Pokemon cards where the art is of an anime character and a Pokemon. They had a deal where you could save money if you got three but I really couldn’t narrow it down and wound up with four. They also had a replica of Oppa from Avatar the Last Airbender and even the cosplayer that hosted the Power Rangers Maid Cafe in Chattanooga Comic Con 2023.

The guests were incredible, but at this point that should be no surprise. My wife was really excited to meet an actor from Charmed, some actors from My Hero Academia who have never been this close to home before, lead actors from Arrow, some wrestlers and a wide variety of comic book writers and artists. This convention excels at providing a little something for everyone and the layout was the same as previous years. In the first floor you have a room full of autograph tables where you walk in a counter clockwise rotation around the room and stop at the actor you want to meet. Kind of like a lazy river at a waterpark and if where you need to go is behind you then you have to rotate around to get back to it as that keeps the foot traffic moving. It’s an efficient method that once again managed to make the process of meeting actors very easy. Now some of the actors and all of the comic book creators were on the third floor in the vendors and since I won the Power Rangers comic last year I found myself getting more into comic books again so it was a treat meeting some of these creators for the first time such as Ray Coffman and Shawn Pryor.

Next up we have panels. Lexington once again kept to the same formula for the panels and had a series of events featured around the guests and different events for each day. Now this event had John Barrowman so as you all know I had to go see that panel as it’s one of the most chaotic panels I’ve ever been to. They had a wide variety of Q and A panels featuring the guests but because they only have one panel room they’re only doing one panel at a time. I know I love a lot of fan panels and interactive stuff but I think having entirely guest panels works here as Lexington has always been more about the interacting with your favorite creators kind of event rather than a social gathering with fellow fans. With that being said that could be starting to change as Lexington has adopted the Ribbon game which is a staple at conventions that I greatly enjoy. The idea is guests, vendors, panels etc will have ribbons to distribute for various reasons of their choosing for you to put under your badge. It functions similar to video game achievements but at a convention and is a great way to not only encourage socialization at a convention but also exploration to get people to see more than just a few select areas. It has me considering the idea of making Lexington a multi day event for me going forward.

We do have to get into the negatives and first is the photo ops. A great experience but when I went it felt like they were running quite a bit behind. Now I’m not sure why but this also isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this at Lexington. It’s actually why I don’t find myself particularly interested in their photo ops. I actually debated getting one of the Arrow cast but decided not to. The actual process of taking the photo and getting it was very smooth and I loved that but where they ran behind it took longer than I expected which is time away from doing other things. Plus it felt like a lot of the photo ops were scheduled near panels of the same stars. For example a few people were late to the John Barrowman panel because his photo op was right before it and the room almost entirely filled up before they could get there. Luckily it didn’t so there were seats left but it does make me wonder if they could plan for some kind of maybe five minute window in between to ease that process. Though in the grand scheme of things this is a very minor issue as I didn’t see any reason why nobody could do both photo ops and panels.

The only other issue I have is the expense. The reality is Lexington has gotten rather expensive. For a Saturday pass for my wife and I we spent about $140 which is less than two weekend passes at other events we’ve gone to. In one case we got a three pack of weekend passes for both of us to attend three events for not much more. Now to be fair Lexington has a lot to offer for those who want to meet talented creators. However, the reality is if Lexington is going to keep steadily going up in price I have to be more considerate of that in deciding whether or not I want to go. Before it was always just a plan to go to the event and hope they have people we want to meet. Now the expense makes that a requirement for us as it’s just too much money for this trip to be something we plan on a whim anymore. In this case we absolutely got our money’s worth but we almost didn’t go because many of the guests we wanted were announced later in the roster.

Overall Lexington once again proves it is the well organized event it has been for some time that facilitates easy access to some of our favorite creators and brings in people that normally aren’t seen anywhere close to home. The vendors and panels were a lot of fun but the photo ops ran a bit long. The only real issue is the price. Where the price of admission is going up it’s gotten to a point where it’s a major factor behind our decision to attend this event. If Lexington continues to bring amazing people we haven’t met yet to our area that won’t be an issue but if for any reason the roster doesn’t include anyone we’re interested in seeing the expense will ensure we won’t go.