Salt City Collect-A-Con

This past Sunday on May 4th, Urban Geek CNY attended the first annual Salt City Collect-A-Con at The American Legion in Eastwood. We were super excited as Syracuse does not typically have many events of this nature. There 5 rooms of toys, collectables, comics and games. There was a room with free Table Top Gaming, a Marvel vs Capcom 3 tournament and a COD: Modern Warfare tournament. The Lego Users of Central New York also had a room set up with an extremely elaborate display.

One hand at the event were many local vendors including event creator Larger Than Life Toys and Comics (Located inside the Great Northern Mall), Clutterducks Emporium (Brewerton, NY), Voltage Video Games (Syracuse and Manlius, NY). Game Stop and Sony were on hand to demo XBox One and PS4, as well as Ghostbusters of Upstate New York, who were on hand raising money for Golisano Children’s Hospital (as well as protecting the event from ghosts).

All of the vendors on hand were super friendly and knowledgable not only of their products but of the culture as well. Some artists were on hand doing custom pieces as well as selling their own art work. One of the biggest things we enjoyed the most were the conversations. Every vendor had a wide variety of items but had one topic they were most passionate about where it was Marvel Comics, Batman, Star Wars, whatever it was they were open and willing to talk about it. Sometimes these type of events can look like a flea market to outsiders, however it is those conversations and that passion that makes this event and all comic, collectable events so amazing.

This was a great, family friendly event (as most cons should be). We can only hope that this event was successful enough to allow for a second event next year then a third, a fourth and so on. It would be amazing for Syracuse to have a true comic and collectable convention every year and Salt City Collect-A-Con most certainly has the potential to become just that. Things we would like to see at future events include – more comics, special guests, single room format as opposed to the broken up rooms and more cosplay.

This was a 5 out of 5 event and I would encourage everyone to go to The Great Northern Mall and check out Larger Than Life Toys and Comics, you may just be amazed and what you can find.