New Las Vegas convention aims to let attendees ‘enjoy just being geeks’
Wrestlers, voice actors, genre stars, comic artists and the guy who created the Iron Maiden mascot known as Eddie will descend on Las Vegas next spring as part of a new convention.
Unicon, scheduled for March 5-7 at the Expo at World Market Center, is designed to unite various fandoms in one convention.
“We just wanted to get everybody under the same roof and enjoy just being geeks,” says Rob Radcliff, the Unicon talent director, who’s partnered with Rogue Toys owner and “Pawn Stars” expert Steve Johnston to launch the event.
The convention has been in the works for roughly a year, Radcliff says. It will fill the hole in the local con calendar left by ToyCon, which had its final gathering in March.
Radcliff got lucky and signed up “Terminator” star Michael Biehn before it was announced that he would be in Season 2 of “The Mandalorian.”
Among the other guests who have committed are wrestling legends Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and voice actors Jim Cummings, who’s spoken for Winnie the Pooh since 1988, and Bret Iwan, the voice of Mickey Mouse since 2009. Unicon will provide a reunion of the main voice cast of the animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” that ran from 1987-1996.
Unicon also will attempt to assemble the largest gathering of cosplayers as recognized by Guinness World Records. To participate, you’ll need to pre-register and make sure your costume took actual effort.
“We had to send them a list of approved characters,” Radcliff says of the Guinness officials, “so they can go through it and make sure that all these characters are legit and not just some guy showing up in flannel saying he’s Peter Parker.”
Tickets are $30 per day and are available at unicon.vegas.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on Twitter.
