Sometimes, I think, you have to get out of your comfort zone in order to connect with someone you love in a space they feel at ease. That’s the idea that led my family to Fan Expo in Vancouver earlier this month.
Fan Expo is basically a big festival in Vancouver devoted to all things people are fans of – from super heroes to super strange stuff you can only find online.
There are booths with merchants eager to sell you whatever fan memorabilia you long for and stars from fan-favourite shows who will sign a poster and take a picture with you, for a price.
But the best thing about Fan Expo is the extraordinary lengths fans go to dress as their favourite characters and the fun of taking your picture with those best-dressed fans, for free!
We saw a 50-something-year-old man dressed as Aladdin with Abu the monkey on his shoulder, riding a remote-controlled low flying carpet.
We saw centaurs and kittens, Anime characters and Ghostbusters, bad elves and good witches and many other photo-worthy oddities.
So, what did we dress up as and why exactly did we enter this realm of crazy costumed fans?
First the why. We did it for my daughter. Although she hated the thought of us all doing something just because she wanted to do it, I saw it as a new way to reach out to her, meet her where she’s at and get involved in her world. I also hoped it would connect us a little better because mothers and their teenaged daughters can sometimes feel like they’re opposing magnets, unable to draw close.
Our family decided to attend Fan Expo dressed as a themed group in steampunk attire. Steampunk is a kind of science fiction genre that incorporates 19th century costumes with steam-powered machines, and we all set to work making our costumes about a month before Fan Expo was set to start.
The process of creating, bouncing ideas off each other and sharing techniques was bonding in itself and as the date drew near we all got excited for our first family fandom experience.
Going to Fan Expo dressed in a corset, heels, gears and a gun wasn’t on my bucket list, but spending the day with my daughter, my son and my husband, sharing new experiences, having a ton of fun together and rekindling a bond with my teenager definitely was!
Walking with someone you love through something they love is a great way to grow relationship, and I plan to do it more often, even if it takes me far from my comfort zone because, to me, connection is more important than comfort.
