FanX® Salt Lake Comic Convention™ (https://www.fanxsaltlake.com/) announced celebrity guests and two new programs for the 2018 convention on September 6-8, 2018.
New guests for FanX 2018 include Tom Welling, Chuck Norris, Tricia Helfer, John Wesley Shipp and the cast of RWBY, including Lindsay Jones, Arryn Zech, Kara Eberle and Vic Mignogna.
- Norris is an actor, producer, author and martial artist. He’s starred in a number of action movies, including Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee, Missing in Action and The Delta Force. Norris also starred in the TV series Walker Texas Ranger. In addition to acting, he is a New York Times best-selling author, and has become a cult hero for the Chuck Norris Facts that highlight fictional exploits and blows them out of proportion.
- Tom Welling is best known for playing Clark Kent on the WB hit series Smallville and Marcus Pierce in Fox’s Lucifer. On the big screen he’s starred in Cheaper by the Dozen and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and The Fog.
- Helfer is a model and actress. She played Cylon Number Six in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, Evan Smith in the TV series Suits and is now a main cast member for Fox’s TV series Lucifer. She was also the voice of Sarah Kerrigan in the Starcraft 2 trilogy.
- Shipp plays Barry Allen’s father and Garrick/Flash on the CW’s The Flash. Prior to this role, he played Barry Allen in CBS’s The Flash from 1990-1991. In addition to his roles as The Flash, he’s appeared in Dawson’s Creek, Guiding Light and As the World Turns.
- RWBY is an anime web series set in the fictional world of Remnant, where youth train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses to protect their world from the creatures of Grimm. In the series, Jones voices the character of Ruby Rose, Zech voices the character of Blake Belladonna, Eberle voices the character of Weiss Schnee and Mignogna voices the character of Qrow Branwen.
“We say this all the time, but this year will be our biggest and most exciting convention,” said Dan Farr, Founder and Producer of FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention. “The celebrity guests we announced today and since November are incredible, and we have many more guests to come. We’ve built such a strong reputation that celebrities are calling us and asking if they can come to FanX, and so many that have been here really want to come back. We’ve worked hard to build this reputation and recognize that we couldn’t have done it without our incredible fans.”
New to FanX 2018 is the League of Utah Volunteers (LUV). LUV was created to unite FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention fans in volunteering and making a difference in the community. Click here to join LUV. The full press release announcing League of Utah Volunteers is also available today.
In addition to LUV, FanX organizers also announced a new program called the FanX® S.T.E.A.M. Competition™. S.T.E.A.M. stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics, and the competition is designed to stimulate students of all ages. The competition is designed to encourage learning and creativity, with a focus on the science, technology, engineering, art and math of science fiction and comic book stories. Beginning next month, Utah students can begin to compete in a variety of competitions centered on these pop culture S.T.E.A.M. topics. Finalists will be judged at a panel at FanX in September and winners will be selected from each category. Incredible prizes will be available for the winners. For more information or to compete, click here.
“I’m excited about FanX 2018 because there is already so much momentum this year, leaving no doubt this one will really be something special,” said Bryan Brandenburg, FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer. “The combination of the celebrities, comic creators and artists, authors and panels attending this year, and the new additions like LUV and S.T.E.A.M. will help make 2018 an amazing event that will be even more difficult to beat next year.”
To date, FanX organizers have announced a number of big name celebrities and fan favorites, including Evangeline Lilly, Tim Curry, Karl Urban, Jennifer Morrison, Jason David Frank, Paige O’Hara and Robby Benson, Paul Reubens, Gaten Matarazzo, Amy Jo Johnson, Mark Sheppard, Barry Bostwick and author Brandon Sanderson.
Lilly has starred in a number of Hollywood hits, including Ant-Man, The Hobbit trilogy, The Hurt Locker and Real Steel. She currently is Marvel’s only leading lady with her character in the title of the movie. She also played the lead role in the TV series Lost. Later this Summer she’ll star in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. In 2013 she published her first book, The Squickerwonkers, a graphic novel about a young girl that joins a group of outcasts that all have very particular vices.
Curry has starred in a number of fan favorite roles, most memorably as a villain in movies such as The Hunt For Red October, The Three Musketeers and Muppet Treasure Island. He’s best known for his role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and for his voice work in The Wild Thornberrys and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Most recently, Urban starred as Skurge in Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok. He’s also starred in some of the biggest blockbusters, including Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, The Bourne Supremacy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess.
FanX organizers expect to have almost 40 film/TV celebrity guests, over 100 artists, authors and panelists, and will continue making guest announcements weekly leading up to the convention in September. The convention will include hundreds of hours of panel programming and over 400 vendors filling the entire Salt Palace Convention Center. Expected attendance is more than 100,000 over three days.
Tickets to FanX® 2018 are on sale now on the website, https://www.fanxsaltlake.com/.