We reach the Pier around 3:30 local time, already fairly in pain. We’re now in our late 40s, clearly not at peak health as our photos might attest, and perhaps should’ve thought a little harder about our tourism strategy. It didn’t help that temperatures had been in the mid-40s all day, or that light rain at one point dampened our clothes and spirits while we looked for things to do. As part of her big birthday weekend we parked two blocks away from the Pier for $24, but then spent the four hours preceding the con walking all over downtown Chicago - over to the Magnificent Mile for a stop, down to the lakeside park area, over to the Loop for light shopping, then all the way back to the Navy Pier for our feature presentation. That’s why Anne and I arrived at the show Friday afternoon already dead tired. If that’s too rich for your blood, there’re better offers to be had with certain parking apps, as long as you don’t mind the extra walking. If you’re planning to hang around the area for more than a few hours, $30 is pretty competitive with the exorbitant Chicago parking scene. For those who prefer to steer their own destinies, the Pier has its own parking garages with 1500 spaces available at $30 per day. The trains will only get you so far and require a Plan B to span the remaining distance. A lot of folks can take buses, cabs, Uber, or Lyft into the area. Beyond the Pier’s shops, restaurants, Children’s Museum, climate-controlled Ferris wheel, and other forms of entertainment, on the second floor near the eastern end is a Festival Hall with a 60-foot ceiling and tens of thousands of square footage waiting for big companies to come fill it with booths, fans, and fun. Few attendees knew Navy Pier has an event space big enough to hold a con. Whether due to creative choice or limited options so late in the year, Ace instead took place at Chicago’s famous Navy Pier on the shores of occasionally beautiful Lake Michigan. We’re used to Chicagoland cons taking place in large-scale venues such as McCormick Place and the Donald E. The creators were previously the bigwigs behind the Wizard World empire, but parted ways a while back, decided to do their own separate thing, and took all their learned lessons and deep Hollywood connections with them. This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the inaugural Ace Comic Con Midwest, the third show from the new geek-convention company that previously exhibited in Seattle and in Glendale, AZ, before turning their attention to someplace within our driving distance. Just me hanging out with Emmy Award Nominee Zazie Beetz.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |