Prop policy at Comic Con Palm Springs keeping event safe
Organizers at Comic Con Palm Springs are keeping attendees safe, with everyone going through security making sure no weapons come through. It’s also a policy that has played a role in the event’s move into the Palm Springs Air Museum after spending two years at the convention center.
Elaborate costumes are likely to be found at Comic Con Palm Springs, with some attendees coming with very detailed props.
“The weapons are as much of a part of the costume as anything else,” Steven Huff, an attendee from Los Angeles, said.
The cosplayers say the props can be integral to the character they are trying portray and act.
“Like Indiana Jones and his bullwhip, so with a lot of the characters, you absolutely have to have the weapon to really complete the look,” Huff said.
As a safety measure, Comic Con Palm Springs is requiring anyone who has any prop resembling any weapon to have a zip-tie be put on it to verify it’s not real while passing through security. It’s a policy fans see no issue with.
“It’s a good idea,” Doris Garcia, an attendee from Fontana, said. “That way you know it’s not real. It’s fake because props can be so life like that, that helps.”
Organizers of the event said the Palm Springs Convention Center refused to allow props to be brought in, citing recent events such as an incident last year where a man attempted to bring guns into the Phoenix Comicon there for a planned shooting of Jason David Frank, an actor who played the Green Power Ranger in May 2017. Staff said they have been using the zip-tie method without any issues and did not want to take away from the passionate work of the cosplayers and decided to move to the Air Museum.
In a statement staff at the comic convention said about the move:
“We owe you, the fans, vendors, the volunteers, and the guests all an explanation about why the move from the Convention Center occurred. In addition to other complications, the Convention Center refused to allow attendees to bring props, especially the ones that look like particular weapons, in light of recent events at major conferences, to the convention center. This would have also affected vendor sales and would have prohibited vendors from selling to you any type of weapon or weapon-like items.
We know that in the last three years how much these costumes add to our show. We know that you all work hard on making these costumes or spend money purchasing them. Many of our volunteers and security were the ones who put little piece bonding on the weapons to let security know that they were plastic so it was easily identifiable as a prop. But that was not enough for the Convention Center. So, without the convention center, we did not have a space for this year’s Comic Con until the Palm Springs Air Museum graciously stepped in to allow us to maintain #costumeintegrity.”
“With the restrictions [the attendees] don’t want to put on the costumes as much,” Chris Spellman, executive producer and owner of Comic Con Palm Springs, said. “Then it just becomes a trade show and that’s fine, but another dimension was that people got to be the characters that they love.”
Some attendees said they appreciate Comic Con Palm Springs’ prop policy but understand if other conventions decide to go with no props.
“You have to trust the show’s judgment and if they don’t want weapons, you have to respect that,” Genevieve Nylen, an attendee from Los Angeles, said. “Yeah, it’s a bummer, but at the end of the day, you have to just kind of understand what they’re trying to do.”
Spellman said his team would be exploring different venues for next year’s event and plan to continue having the same prop policy.
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