Nine Comic-Cons Later…
Comic-Con is not for the faint of heart. You need a load of adrenaline, caffeine, and determination to power through five days of crowds and long lines to see your favorite cast, show, film, or comic-book artist.
For the past eight years, Comic-Con has been the one event my family prioritized every summer. Our hotel was booked thirteen months ahead of time, and our SUV would be filled with bags of free swag.
This year would have marked my tenth year attending Comic-Con, but in 2016 I studied abroad at the University of Cambridge.
A DECADE OF COMIC-CON?! WOW.
2018 was a special year that finally marked my coming-of-age at Comic-Con. I was no longer camping outside the San Diego Convention Center (I stopped doing that in 2013 for a Teen Wolf signing) and I was no longer lining up five times at a booth to snag more swag.
I had the grand opportunity of working behind-the-scenes as a social media freelancer for Nerdist Industries. I collaborated with social media manager, Michelle Buchman, who was an extremely kind and amazing person to work with.
My weekend was filled with live Nerdist and Geek and Sundry panels that were populated with excited fans who found shelter in the air-conditioned Sparks Gallery in Downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp District where the Nerdist House took place. With an open bar and free snacks, fellow nerds and geeks were ecstatic to have cocktails with their favorite Nerdist and Geek and Sundry hosts.
This was byfar the cherry on top among my top Comic-Con experiences over the past years.
I learned more about working for a media corporation. I was observant of the hard work that was executed into planning a large-scale five-day long event. I met friendly and easygoing folks from Legendary Digital Networks, the largest media company supporting Nerdist, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, Geek and Sundry, and The Player’s Tribune. Seriously, these people were great company to be around the whole weekend and I am lucky to have met such humbling industry folks.
Nerdist and Geek and Sundry are entirely new subgenres of entertainment that introduced me to a very special niche of digital media that celebrated nerd culture.
Nerdist currently has over 2 million followers on Youtube, with its other subsidiary, Geek and Sundry having over 500k+ followers.
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I gathered social media assets for Nerdist’s popular hosts: Dan Casey, Kyle Hill, Jessica Chobot, and Aliza Pearl as well as Geek and Sundry’s Erika Ishi, Trisha Hershberger, and Marisha Ray. I captured a lot of group pictures that were later shared on Twitter.
One of the top highlights was watching Because Science live with Kyle Hill. That guy has an incredible amount of energy that makes me enthusiastic to learn about science. He makes science fun and easy to understand. You don’t need to read academic articles or spend hours of research digesting theories you can’t understand, Kyle is an eloquent speaker and a charismatic person. Even if questions were hypothetical about Thano’s ring power.
After coming back from covering Nerdist News and Geek and Sundry at the Convention Center, I was in for a huge surprise when I saw Paul Bettany at the Nerdist House!
Following that panel, I saw Rob Paulsen, voice actor of Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Baby Looney Toons. He performed a live skit of an iconic song from Animaniacs that teleported me back to my early childhood. I was stoked and extremely nostalgic.
Saturday morning, I was in for a surprise. I covered Square Enix’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider where Camilla Luddington, voice actress of Laura Croft, guest starred in Game Engine’s live show with Trisha Hershberger and Erika Ishi. It was an amusing event where I saw a live anaconda curled up next to Trisha, Erika, and Camilla. Next, was a crunchy adventure, Trisha and Erika dared to eat fried scorpions, centipedes, and cockroaches.
Here’s a picture of me following Kyle Hill around with a slithery snake.
Lastly, but certainly not least, I had the esteemed privilege to check out the Taco Bell Activation.
Taco Bell held a futuristic restaurant in Gaslamp’s Greystone’s Restaurant that celebrated the silver anniversary of Sylvestor Stallone’s Demolition Man. Imagine a fine-dining experience with Taco Bell and a virtuoso pianist playing classic bangers. Futuristic cocktails and robots welcoming you at the door.
I was also in for a bigger surprise when the Senior Manager of Public Relations and Brand Experience of Taco Bell, Matt Prince, sat down with me to welcome me to the Taco Bell experience. It was a very wholesome and humbling experience to hear about how his eight month long venture of planning with Warner Brothers Pictures successfully came into fruition. Meeting with him enhanced my experience at the activation. Thank you, Matt!
Outside of the Nerdist house, were several experiential marketing campaigns advertising the latest products and television shows. Amazon held its own event activation, open to the public, on 7th and Market to show live demonstrations of their newest products, Alexa and Fire TV. NBC Universal was within everyone’s foresight before heading inside the convention. Their newest show, The Good Place, occupied the empty space by Tin Fish restaurant, attracting fans to enter a mysterious version of heaven. There was also a mysterious Purge City store down the street from the Nerdist House.
It was a fun experience to participate in Comic-Con through another lens. The press lens. It was through this experience that I genuinely enjoyed working with a develop to plan events and do a crazy amount of publicity to get people excited. I am grateful for work experiences such as Nerdist because it piqued my interest in media management and public relations rather than the unexpected ventured of a director. I learned that the media industry holds a lot of versatile job rankings that aren’t limited to becoming a writer, director, or a producer but also a media relations professional who is adept in planning and handling high-profiled clients.
This was a wonderful experience working with Nerdist Industries and Legendary Digital Networks and I hope to work with them again.
