Idaho Fandom Con coming to Idaho Falls

IDAHO FALLS — Geeks, nerds and fanboys and girls of east Idaho, rejoice! The fandom convention gods have smiled on us once again. The Idaho Fandom Con is coming to Idaho Falls this September 13 and 14!

The March cancelation of the Snake River Fandom Con in Pocatello left local fans in the lurch without a fan event to call their own. But, with the help of many people involved with the SRFC, a local nerd is throwing together a new con to fill the void left by the cancelation of that convention.

“I watched all the social media posts from people and how disappointed people were,” organizer Mathew Jensen told EastIdahoNews.com “I started seeing posts talking about how much the Fandom Con meant to people.”

RELATED: Snake River Fandom Con canceled, but opportunities to grow local fandom live on

These posts lit a fire under Jensen and he began talking to people about reviving the SRFC. While circumstances would not allow for that, Jensen was able to determine that he could bring a new con to the area.

“I realized that I could make it work financially and make it work for the fans,” Jensen said.

Once he decided staging a new convention was plausible, Jensen created a new con, the Idaho Fandom Con. He invited members from the Snake River Fandom Con aboard to help pull the convention together.

“It’s not the same convention,” said Jensen. “It’s a new one, but it does contain a lot of the same people who were dedicated to the previous convention.”

Jensen said Idaho Fandom Con will have a slightly different approach than the previous convention. He said he wants the convention to spotlight the work of independent creators.

“Indie comic book makers, indie filmmakers,” Jensen elaborated. “You know, people who are going out and doing things on their own. We’ll still have Marvel and D.C. and the big names, but we also want to throw a little support to the little guys.”

While Idaho Fandom Con is a new event, Jensen promised that it would still feature many of the things people loved about the SRFC.

“We’ll still have the costume contest for cosplayers,” he said. “We’re looking at musical guests. We’ll still have panels. We’ll still have vendors. It will be much the same, just with a lit bit of a different twist.”

The main focus of Idaho Fandom Con will be the fans.

“We focus on the fans and fandoms,” Jensen said. “So, we’ll have ‘Star Wars’ and we’ll have Marvel and we’ll have the big ones that everyone can relate to. But the main emphasis is fans.”

“One of the things we like to say is ‘We’re a fan-mily’,” he added. “That’s essentially what we do. We include everybody and we want to be positive-oriented people.”

Jensen and the Fandom Con board are still working out details like the guest roster and subjects for panels. But he said that they’ll be making announcements in the very near future.

“We’re still kind of in the planning and development phase,” he said.” A lot of the announcements will start coming out really soon. Within the next two to three weeks is when we’re going start announcing some of our programming and things like that.”

Jensen is excited to help give east Idaho fans another chance build up the local nerd community so people who need a place to go and a “fan-mily” have one.

“People follow these stories and love these stories because they help them in their daily lives,” said Jensen. “Having the community they can go to and people they can be around that has helped them a lot, that means a lot to me. That’s one of the biggest reasons I wanted to do it.”

You can keep track of Idaho Fandom Con guests and programming, you can visit the con’s Facebook page. The event is scheduled for September 13 and 14.