So an unusual development for this year but this is actually my first convention review of 2025. I’m scaling back my traveling to pursue other types of adventures. Though I had to make time for the 10th anniversary of an event I’ve attended so many times before. Going into the anniversary there were a couple of things I was really focused on. The celebrations for the milestone and if any improvements were made to crowd control. In response to the issues this event had the last two years they expanded to take up more space at the convention center which did have an impact as we’ll talk about in a bit.

Starting with the guests Huntsville once again impressed. They had icons including the wrestler Sting, actors like Will Shatner, musicians including Weird Al and of course a slew of voice actors and comic book artists. Huntsville never disappoints with its talent but recently it’s become almost impossible to even walk in the autograph area during peak hours on Saturday. The extra space did have an impact as walking around was noticeably easier. Though I’m hesitant to say that as better doesn’t mean ideal as the crowd was still a problem. For their biggest guests the convention did a great job adding overflow lines to help with foot traffic but there’s still enough of it that I had to be very careful not to bump into people. In the grand scheme of things though I’ll call this a win as long as the convention doesn’t settle and continues to refine the crowd control to get a better handle on a hopefully improving issue.

The vendors leveled up this year as the extra space meant more to shop around at. Like the guests the vendors had an impressive variety of items, but I noticed it featured a lot of returning vendors. I don’t have a problem with returning vendors, but as a returning fan myself it usually means I already have the items they have that caught my interest. So as a result my merch haul outside autographs wasn’t all that much but I still managed to find a few gems including an Anya plushy from Spy X Family and some more metal cards for my growing collection. The only real concern I have is again crowd control. There were areas in the vendors hall where someone standing at the booth to shop would cause foot traffic to stall. That made it hard to shop on Saturday especially, but like the autograph area it was still much easier than the last two years.

The panels were interesting. The panels themselves had the same approach as they had in previous years. Two panel rooms often times featuring a few guests for fun Q & A panels. The part that most intrigued me was how the rooms previously used for panels were used to expand the vendors/guest hall so new rooms were used for the panels. This made them much more out of the way than they were because these rooms were on the other side of the convention center. I personally have no issue with this as I don’t mind the walk myself, and I love how everything was labeled so they were so easy to find. So the experience is the same, but you do have to do a bit more walking to get to them, but in my opinion it’s something I welcome to improve the crowds a bit.

As for it being the conventions 10th year I didn’t see a lot that really felt like it celebrated the milestone. The convention overall felt the same as it always did where it’s an event more geared towards a shopping and guest meeting experience. Though for the convention merch they did include a 10th year challenge coin and as some of you know I love adding coins to my collection. So I splurged and got one of each coin and I thought they were amazing. Outside of the merch it was hard to notice it was a milestone year for the event, but the new merch was really great.

Overall I was really happy with my experience this year. While the changes to the convention didn’t solve the crowd control problem and they still have a ways to go this was a massive step in the right direction. I had a great time meeting guests and had an easier time doing so this year and the shopping was great. Though with so many returning vendors my shopping experience was shorter than last year. I did welcome the easier if not ideal shopping experience all the same. With the convention finally moving in the right direction to solve key issues that were present in previous years, I’m excited to see where the next 10 years takes an event I hold near and dear.