It’s been a long time since I attended a pop culture-style convention (think “Comic-Con”), and I was super excited to hear GalaxyCon was coming to Oklahoma City Memorial Day weekend. Susan, I, and the kids all spent some time at GalaxyCon this weekend and boy was there a lot of things to see and do!

Like many conventions, GalaxyCon has many events around the country each year and the Oklahoma City event took place at the Oklahoma City Convention Center in the heart of Oklahoma City, just south of the Paycom center and connected to the Omni Hotel. Last year Susan and I attended the Oddities and Curiosities Expo in the same location, but that show only took up half the convention floor space. GalaxyCon not only filled the entire space but had panels up on the second floor!

We saw kids who were six and adults in their sixties dressed in costume. There were costume contests at the convention, but a lot of people just enjoy dressing up. We recognized some of the costumes like Napoleon Dynamite and Mr. T, but a lot of them seemed like videogame characters we didn’t recognize. We sure recognized this pint-sized bounty hunter who was outside the convention, getting his jet pack fitted before entering.

The inside of the convention center was a bit overwhelming at first until we got the “lay of the land” so to speak. Essentially, the convention was split into the celebrity autograph section, the vendor/booth section, and the special event section. The video game and arcade section were in another room, and all the speaking panels were in rooms upstairs. There was no shortage of things to see and do at the show!

Susan and I walked through the celebrity autograph/meet-and-greet area a few times. Autographs seemed to range between $40 and $80, depending on the celebrity with the biggest stars commanding the biggest prices. Above you can see the line of people waiting to meet George Takei (Sulu from Star Trek). I was embarrassed by how many of the celebrity names I did not recognize, but there were plenty of people lined up to meet many of them so I was in the minority. I’m not sure how many celebrities were present but I would estimate that it was somewhere around 50-60. For professional wrestling fans, there was an entire row featuring Jeff Hardy, Lex Luger, Jerry “The King” Lawler, Mick Foley, and a few others. Some of the bigger names we saw were Chris Parnell (Saturday Night Live) and Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster). One of the funniest things we heard was Joey Fatone being identified as “that guy from Impractical Jokers” instead of “that guys from N’SYNC.”

Also in the celebrity/guest area was my pal Guy Hutchinson, who was sitting next to Dana Snyder and Andy Sipes. We were able to chat with each of them for a few minutes there but there was always someone waiting behind us in line, so we tried not to take up too much of their time!

Next up was the vendor area. There were over a hundred different booths filled with artwork, toys, crafts, costume accessories, play weapons, and more.

One of the best booths at the show was my friend Drew Stone’s Jurassic Park display. Drew has painstakingly recreated not one but two Jeeps from the film. He also had multiple dinosaurs on display, and an area set aside with multiple classic Jurassic Park videogames for people to play. Every time we walked past Drew’s booth there was a line of adults waiting to have their pictures taken and children waiting to pet the dinosaurs!

There were multiple Star Wars booths, lots of comic and videogame-related booths, and so, so many Ghostbusters! If there’s something strange in your neighborhood I’m not sure who you could call because all the Ghostbusters were set up at this convention.

Next to this room was the videogame room. While Mason was there he participated in a Super Smash Brothers tournament. There were lots of arcade games available to play, and even more comic, videogame, Twitch, and YouTube personalities to meet.

Because we had weekend passes, we ended up going to the show multiple times over the weekend. That worked out great. There were a lot of things happening on Saturday, but that was also the busiest day. Friday and Sunday were better days for spending time talking to vendors and celebrities because it wasn’t quite so busy.

I guess attendance was good because GalaxyCon has already announced they will be returning to Oklahoma City in 2025. WE can’t wait to go back, and they even take volunteers to host panels so who knows what might happen next year…