Walker Stalker Con Boston 2015: Reviewing the panels, level of celebrity-interaction and more

This past weekend, Aug. 22 and 23, the Westin Waterfront in Boston was taken over by zombies. Okay, so it was really just people dressed like the undead. Regardless, it was a great weekend for zombie or zombie hunter wannabes, as it was the weekend of The Walking Dead-themed convention Walker Stalker Con.

It was two days full of panels, mingling with actors via photo ops, autograph sessions and special events, vendors of all kinds selling their wares, and just plain fun. And I have to say, especially considering this is only the second annual Walker Stalker Con Boston, I was thoroughly impressed by all it had to offer.

For starters, it was run really well. While not all volunteers knew exactly what they were doing, everything happened exactly according to schedule, without a feeling that fans were rushed at celebrity booths or cut off in panels. There was a volunteer everywhere you went, if you had a question, and if they didn't know the answer, you could just turn around and ask someone else. In addition, the volunteers provided extra entertainment by engaging the actors in a Nerf gun and occasionally Silly String war throughout the weekend.

No lines for any one celebrity — even the most popular ones (among them, Tyler James Williams and Emily Kinney, a.k.a. The Walking Dead's Noah and Beth, respectively) — were ever insanely long or chaotic, perhaps because of the amount of options people had or because things were spread out.

The fact that things were so spread out — three of the vendor/actor rooms were on one side of the hotel and one room plus the panel area were on the opposite side — was a little annoying in terms of time constraints getting from one area to the next and made it hard to remember what was happening in what room and where that room was. But if that really did have anything to do with limiting the crowds in each space, it was worth it.

Now for a reflection on the panels and events.

The panels were held in a pretty poor spot — a tented floor space outside of the hotel. It was freezing in the space and all day Saturday those on stage had to talk over a concert happening at a venue next door. The panels also could have been a little more fan-driven and intimate — a lot of them were primarily controlled by moderators, but fans still got plenty of time to ask their questions and the actors were all very engaging and charismatic, so overall the panels were a good experience.

As for special events, day time activities included a virtual gaming experience and the Apocalypse Zombie Experience, a walk-through game where you got to shoot "zombies" with laser rifles (tickets sold separately from general Walker Stalker Con tickets).
On Saturday afternoon there was a costume contest featuring two categories: the stalkers and the walkers. Two sisters won — one as Bullet-to-the-brain Beth and the other as the Teddy Bear walker from the beginning of the show. The competition was fierce.

There was also a brief musical performance from Katelyn Nacon (Enid on The Walking Dead) between panels Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday night there was an Emily Kinney concert. She got the worst of the noise competition, as the concert next door was loudest and biggest during her set at 7:30 p.m., but she rolled with it. Kinney joked about it and was able to focus on her performance flawlessly despite the distraction. Her music style was a little more bubble gum pop than I, as well as I think many guests expected, so it was a little too soft for that time of night, especially with the music playing next door. But she kept the audience's attention by being charming and funny in between songs. She was engaging, sweetly and sincerely telling stories about the meaning of the songs. And although the sound might be bubble gum-ish, she has a great voice and the content of her songs is mature and thoughtful, so older audience members could relate to them and be invested.

Later that night, after Kinney's concert, there was an "after party" at the hotel's comedy club Laugh Boston. It took a while for things to get started, as people slowly started arriving and were more concerned with getting drinks and eating the (free!) appetizers provided than dancing. But soon people started taking to the dance floor by the DJ — who was pretty good — and something awesome happened.

Actors showed up unexpected. Ming Chen from AMC's Comic Book Men and Travis Love, a.k.a. Shumpert from The Walking Dead, arrived first and just casually hung out among fans. Soon, RJ Mitte, a.k.a. Walter White Jr. from Breaking Bad, and Corey Brill (Pete), Daniel Bonjour (Aiden) and Michael Traynor (Nicholas) from The Walking Dead also appeared. Bonjour didn't stay long and Mitte stayed by the bar talking to fans for most of the night, but Traynor, Chen, Love and Brill even hit the dance floor a bit. It was such a welcome surprise and all the fans handled it well — asked for pictures, chatted with the actors, but never mobbed them so they could just mingle casually and keep it delightfully real and informal.

On the subject of actors and the interactive experience with them, which I think is the best part of a con, this convention was probably the best of the three cons I went to this month.

In terms of actors in attendance, there weren't huge names, but the sheer number of actors more than made up for that. With 35 actors present, the total amount of guests far exceeded Boston Comic Con and EyeCon's One Tree Hill event. This likely contributed to shorter lines, since everyone was spread out among the different actors. Additionally the actors that were there were still plenty important and interesting, and most of them were quite charming.

It was very fan friendly — everyone got decent face time, and could go up to the actors just to say hello, without buying selfie photo ops or autographs — and it was very media friendly. I could actually have a one-on-one chat with the actors if their managers had approved it.

I was disappointed that some of the bigger names (either career-wise or in terms of The Walking Dead significance) like Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, Once Upon A Time, Revolution), Nestor Carbonell (Lost), Emily Kinney and Chandler Riggs (a.k.a. Carl on The Walking Dead) were not taking interviews, but again, everyone else made up for it. I was particularly surprised by how nice and funny Michael Traynor and Corey Brill were, since their characters are not so good. Daniel Bonjour was soft-spoken but also very sweet and gracious. Melissa Ponzio (The Walking Dead, Teen Wolf, Chicago Fire) had full conversations with all her visitors, warmly shaking their hands and being genuinely attentive to them.

One fan, Lanie Shine, and her mother, Patty Shine, from Plymouth, were pleasantly surprised at how friendly Michael Cudlitz (Sgt. Abraham Ford on The Walking Dead) and Josh McDermitt (Eugene on The Walking Dead) were. They especially liked that McDermitt would joke around a lot with fans, stroll through the crowd casually, and he even photo bombed a picture Lanie and her friends were taking.

Lanie Shine, 14, was also happy about her experience meeting Chandler Riggs — the main reason she'd wanted to go to Walker Stalker Con.

"I cried after the first time," said Shine, who has an Instragram account dedicated to Riggs (xlovechandler).

It was her first convention ever, and she loved the weekend as a whole.

"It was awesome, I met friends and when I left them I cried," she said.

One person who wasn't totally pleased with the weekend was part of Zombies United Now, a zombie makeup artist company under Three Black Sheep. She said that they didn't fare as well as expected, and that many other vendors she talked to said the same. She cited the fact that Comic Con happened so close to Walker Stalker Con as a possible explanation. Still, her colleague pointed out that they still had a fun time, and liked that there was so much to look at.

Whether people purchased items/services or not, there were certainly a lot of options. From T-shirts upon T-shirts, to jewelry, to bright colored cosmetic contact lenses, to art, to toys, to fake weaponry, to real weaponry including mildly sharp Katana swords, to old fashioned soda, there was every random thing you could think of.

I myself tried Wild Bill's Olde Fashioned Soda Pop — a franchise company that offers vintage flavors and mugs at conventions, fairs and other similar events. I chose the Blazin' Black Cherry flavor. It was sweet — tasted like pure cherry — but good.

I went home with a Wild Bill's mug, a bright orange T-shirt featuring Daryl, a little less money in my bank account, and the memory of a great, immersive convention experience I'd easily recommend to others.