When I went to the Niagara Falls Comic Con for their first year at the new Scotiabank Convention Centre, it was a fairly nice experience. While it was not very big, I liked the casual, mini-con kind of atmosphere.
The lack of lineups and relatively low admission price meant that you didn't have to do much planning. After a year of conventions like Anime North - where you have to book a hotel room about 12 months in advance in order to get a good hotel, and there is so much going on that you have to do a lot of planning beforehand - it was kind of cool to see a convention where you could drop in without even pre-registering, and just have a nice day. You didn't really have to save up for it because it was relatively cheap, and the minimal programming and events meant that you didn't have to worry too much about scheduling. In a way, it was a break for a lot of regular conventioneers who put a lot more work into bigger conventions throughout the year. There wasn't too much to do, but that was ok because that was kind of the point.
Fast forward to 2014 and all of a sudden this mini-con is starting to evolve into a full-fledged, 3-day con. Attendance is up, it has expanded to 3 days, and - correspondingly - the admission price has skyrocketed and lineups have gotten ridiculous. No longer a mini-con, NFCC has now become the kind of convention that requires the kind of planning, saving and commitment that other bigger cons like Anime North and Fan Expo do.
