MegaCon draws tens
of thousands to I-Drive.
It takes a team of four people to successfully navigate Scott Sims around the MegaCon showroom floor when he’s in his homemade, 40-pound Warhammer Marine costume.
That’s because Sims, a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran, can’t see anything low to the ground when he puts the foam helmet on.
“So if little kids come up to me, I’ve got to have somebody watching on all four sides,” Sims said Saturday, the third day of the wildly popular comic-book, science-fiction and pop-culture convention. “Otherwise people bump into me or I bump into them.”
At least 80,000 people were expected to descend on the Orange County Convention Center on Saturday to celebrate their favorite shows, characters and fictional universes during the annual event.
MegaCon was expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to the International Drive destination between Thursday and today, its last day.
The four-day event includes celebrity panelists such as actors John Cusack and George Takei and comic-book creator Stan Lee and vendors selling everything from elaborate wigs and costumes to comic book figurines and collectibles. One couple even got married.
Sims was one of thousands who transformed themselves into something bigger and more exotic than their everyday looks for a full day of cosplaying — costumed roleplaying.
He spent about $300 creating the costume, based on a tabletop battle game where players control armies of elves, orcs and other magical creatures. “This suit in particular is a
simple physics fact,” said Sims, of Winter Springs. “I’m king of big, so I need a suit that I can wear because I can’t wear a Dead Pool or an Iron Man one like that because of my shape.”
Sims came in at just about 7 feet tall in the suit.
Before doors opened Saturday morning, Gary Sterley stood on the second floor of the convention center looking down at the scores of fans filling the main atrium.
The pieces of his own Warhammer 40,000 Crimson Fist 1st Company Sergeant Space Marine suit were neatly organized at his feet.
The 35-year-old Orlando man said the suit makes him feel like a different, more outgoing person.
“I used to do cons a lot, but in plain clothes,” Sterley said. “And they were great, but I’d stay for about a halfhour, hit the floor, do a loop and bail. But in costume it’s a totally different experience.”
Sterley knows when he puts on the suit he won’t be able to walk more than a few feet before someone stops him for pictures.
Angela Sterley is her husband’s keeper in that regard.
“I love this, but I’m not involved in the making at all,” she said. “But he obviously needs a lot of care and handling when he’s in the
For the horde!
For more of MegaCon 2016 — and its avid fans — see a video and photo gallery at suit.”
She spent Saturday standing guard as her husband was greeted by fellow cosplayers, Warhammer fans and children enamored with the intricate details of the suit, which cost $1,400 and took seven months to build.
“A lot of times he can’t see the reactions,” Angela Sterley said. “So I really enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun to be the handler, basically.”
Not every costume Saturday was a dramatic showstopper like Sims’ or Sterley’s.
Some, like Faith Long’s take on Vanellope von Schweetz from Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph movie, were a simple nod to some of their favorite things.
“I’ve loved Disney every since I could remember,” the 24-year-old Orlando resident said.
Like many in attendance, Long described herself as an introvert who felt comfortable portraying a character.
It was the size of MegaCon and the fact it draws fans from all over the country that gave her the confidence to wear fake pieces of candy in her hair, just like the zippy, animated von Schweetz.
“If it’s something like this, where I don’t know these people and there’s a very small chance I’m ever going to see them again,” Long said, “I go all out.”