I took a hiatus from this event a year ago due to the price, but after looking at the changing dynamic of conventions, I’ve come to realize that there’s simply a new normal for convention budgeting. So, factoring that in, I decided to splurge and return to a convention that I’ve attended more than any other.

As always, this event features an incredible array of guests. You have stars from Power Rangers, icons in voice acting, wrestlers, comic book artists, TV stars, and more. It’s a guest list with a bit of something for everyone. Continuing with previous years, the majority of the guests can be found on the first floor in a room dedicated to them. It’s spacious, well organized, and was never crowded, despite having several packed lines. The lines also moved rather quickly. I was surprised to see more guests on the third floor as well. In previous years, most of the guests on the third floor were specific to the comic book industry. This time, however, they also added a lot of the voice actors and wrestlers here. It was a little confusing seeing them so spread out, and it took longer to find everyone I wanted to meet compared to previous years.

I have pretty similar thoughts regarding the vendors as well. Most of them were on the third floor as expected, but the artist alley was on the second floor. At first, I thought it meant it would be harder for the artists, because it took more effort to get to them in comparison to the rest of the vendors. It actually wound up being the opposite. The vendor’s area was so crowded that it became nearly impossible to shop at times, while the artist alley was spacious. A great example of this was when I participated in a scavenger hunt organized by some of the artists. I found all of the ones on the second floor easily, as I had room to stop and look around. I was not able to find all the ones on the third floor because the crowd was too much.

In all honesty, though, I don’t think the crowd has anything to do with the vendor’s layout. There was quite a bit of space to work with, but what happened is there were simply a lot of people there, and many of them stopped in the middle of the aisles to chat. Where there’s no area for people to hang out a lot of the fans choose to do so in the vendor’s hall. As far as the merch itself, it was a phenomenal selection. I got to try out a game currently in development called B-Lock. I found all kinds of stickers and even found a new card game to check out. I love finding new to me stuff, and there was a lot of it here. It’s a great selection and honestly a solid layout, but the crowd needs to be better managed.

The panels were fun too. This is one of the weaker areas of the event, as they don’t have a lot of panels to choose from. With that being said, the panel rooms were nice and easy to get to. Most of the panels feature the guests doing Q and A events, but they were a lot of fun. I went to the Araura panel as it’s a series I’m heavily invested in and had a wonderful time.

I also love how the ribbons were a thing again this year. Though a lot of my comments carry over from the vendors. When exploring the artists in the second floor, I was able to find ribbons easily and grew my collection fast. That was also why I did the scavenger hunt, which was fun and earned me another ribbon in the end. I also got a few ribbons from the guests and those made for fun additions to the collection and encouraged me to splurge on autographs. When it came to the third floor, I didn’t get any ribbons. I’m sure there was a lot to find, but the crowd was overwhelming at times. It just became too hard to really stop and look, and as a result, I was less invested in trying.

So overall, Lexington once again provided an incredibly fun time. I found lots of stuff to spend money on, amazing new things to try, and spent quite a bit of time there. The problem is that the crowd has gotten to the point where something has to be done. Maybe encourage more stuff to be spread out so that the crowd disperses more. Most of the convention takes place in the vendor’s hall on the third floor, so by default, that’s where most of the crowd is. It’s simply gotten too crowded to be able to do things effectively. I probably would have spent even more money if I could have shopped the entire time comfortably. Otherwise, it’s still an amazing event.