Greetings Broadway lovers and welcome to our coverage of the one and only “BroadwayCon”. This convention celebrates and specializes in all things Broadway and if you’re a fan of the theatre then this is the kind of event that you want to participate in. For the last few years its been held at the New York Hilton Midtown but now as we come out of the pandemic, it would be held at the Manhattan Center and some parts of the nearby New Yorker Hotel.
For the opening ceremonies we had to head up to the Grand Ballroom which is on the seventh floor. There are only two small elevators in the building and the other option is a lot of stairs which makes me not really enjoy this venue unless I am hitting a show at the lower level Hammerstein Ballroom. That was where the Marketplace was being hosted and I will be exploring that at length soon enough.
As you can see the event was requiring that all patrons and vendors keep their faces covered with some kind of mask. Having worked in COVID safety on Broadway and watching that kind of necessity being moved on from, I felt that it was a tad excessive but I can see where they are coming from.
One of the special highlights was the panel that featured Hilary Clinton, Vanessa Williams, Julie White, Donna Murphy, and LaChanze.
Now it was time to wander the Hammerstein Ballroom area where the Marketplace had been set up. Much like my adventures at New York Comic Con for PiercingMetal, the vendors and exhibitors are of great interest to me. Also, the attendees of this convention often show up in Broadway-themed cosplay. This Wicked Witch of the West from “Wicked” looked great.
This was one of the first cosplayers from “Beetlejuice” that we would see. That’s a show I’d like to catch.
This is Kevin Tuerff, one of the original people that the “Come From Away” play is based on. He was super cool to chat with and he was showcasing his new book “Channel of Peace”.
Now I am a big collector of trading cards and have a big batch of assorted superhero cards and things related to KISS. That drew me to the offerings from “The Lights Of Broadway” which are Show Cards. All feature illustrations of a wide variety of Broadway shows and the actors that made them famous.
I always would see this Broadway merchandise kiosk near the TKTS Pavilion so I was glad to find them at BroadwayCon.
Milling about the convention you can also find actors like Cara Rose DiPietro (in purple). She was charming and was enjoying herself for sure.
One of the interesting vendors I met was the folks from “Stagedoor Boxes”. This is a subscription box that plays along with assorted shows and sends you monthly Broadway swag. Think of this as a Loot Crate but with a Broadway twist.
I love good branding for sure and Monica Yap sure did her enterprise proper by calling it “Pinbill”.
We met the folks behind Scenery at our very first BroadwayCon but they were only present this time around in product and being represented by another exhibitor. I hope they are doing well as I loved this idea.
That’s going to bring me to the end of the photographs that were taken on Day One of the BroadwayCon. Now before you get upset, please know that I have some others from the same day and then from Day Two. I wasn’t going to be attending the third day of the event based on scheduling. Before you head off the website, please enjoy the opening ceremonies that I captured. I did miss a few seconds.
I hope you enjoyed the first installment of our BroadwayCon 2022 coverage. Please stick around as the second chapter will post tomorrow. As always we ask our readers to please help support our endeavors over on the important Social Media profiles of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. We are doing all sorts of things on these networks and would love to have you along for the ride. See you next time.
Official: http://www.broadwaycon.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bwaycon