TL;DR – We explore the biggest pop-culture event in Brisbane.

Disclosure – I paid for my entry and everything you see purchased in this article.

Exploring Supanova Brisbane 2022  –

In the Spring of every year, a range of cultural events descends on my home city of Brisbane. You have the Brisbane Festival, Riverfire, Brisbane Film Festival, and Brisbane Supanova, to name a few. I used to go to Supanova every year, but it has been a couple of years since I last felt confident walking into a crowded space, especially a convention. However, with PAX Aus being a successful trial ruin, it was time to return to my local pop-culture event. 

The morning of the convention was a glorious day, sunny but with a slight breeze that kept [most] of the humidity away. I started with a walk through the Southbank Parklands, where the Jacarandas and Bougainvillea were in full bloom, before discovering, because it was Saturday morning, that the Southbank markets were running. Each stall was filled with exciting titbits for sale, and I may have let my wallet loose right there if I was not preparing it for what was to come. 

Knowing it was going to be a long day, you needed to get some food into you, and on one of the roundabouts on Grey Street, you have Mexican restaurants on three of the four corners and well, who am I to disagree? I thought I would go with the healthy option and have the mushrooms, mushrooms on fries, but that still counts … right …? 

The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is one of those places I have been to on multiple occasions, yet every time I go, I always forget which way to get to the entrance. Well, on Supanova day, that is not an issue because all you need to do is follow the cosplay, and oh, was there some good cosplay.

Because it has been a time and a half since I have been to a convention, I always forget one of the most important aspects of getting there … The Line. As far as queues go, this was a multiple-looper. But it did move at a quick pace, and a shout out to the volunteer who was the “the queue loops around me” guy.

When you enter the hall, you discover that it is broken into four distinct sections. The food trucks smelt terrific, and I almost regretted getting food before walking in until I remembered the lines. Then there are the retail outlets, then Artist Alley, and finally, the meet-and-greet zone. 

I was trying to be good, but there were so many amazing artists in Artist Alley, all selling fascinating works and crafts. I told myself before going in that I could only get one thing, and after much deliberation, I settled on a Pokémon terrarium because, if nothing else, I am on brand. The only question was which one to get. Now that was a difficult choice. 

After spending the day meandering between stalls, or just moving with the crowd, meeting some old friends, taking a picture in front of a giant Wednesday Adams poster, and then sitting down because I am not as young as I used to be, I went to the other major part of any convention, a panel. On Saturday, there were several options, but I made sure that I caught Evan Evagora from many things, including the recent Star Trek: Picard. And can I say that he was an absolute delight. From funny stories about the audition process to gently explaining to people what an NDA was to apologising to his mum for swearing, the whole panel was a bunch of fun.    

Now I could have stayed for more, but my social interaction metre had hit zero, and while I am trying to get it to last longer, you need to know when enough is enough and listen to your body and what it is trying to tell you. But overall, it was a fun day getting back to Supanova. There were so many artist stalls that I am not sure I saw them all. The one thing that is for sure, I will be back next year if I can.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you visited Supanova?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images are by the author