I’m in between Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con so I thought now would be a good time to share a bizarre story from one of my first years at SDCC. ^_^

One year in the early 2000’s (I think 2003 but not entirely sure) San Diego Comic-Con and GenCon were back to back weekends. This was when I was still at Score Entertainment and managing the DBZ CCG hummer tour. Both cons were the biggest cons of the year for us so we had to have the hummer at each of them. The issue was that unless I drove like crazy from San Diego to Indianapolis I wasn’t going to be able to get the hummer to GenCon in time for set-up. The solution for this was to put the hummer on the back of a truck that would have two drivers taking turns at the wheel so they could drive non-stop all the way there. There was only one catch. To make it to GenCon in time the hummer would have to be driven off the Comic-Con exhibit floor (we had it on our booth) in less than 15 minutes after the show closed to get it on the truck.

This was barely enough time to get all the attendees off the show floor let alone roll up the aisle carpet to clear path for us to drive it out. We luckily were able to get special permission from Comic-Con and the fire marshal. We thought we were good so when the show closed I was ready to drive it out in about 5 minutes. Some attendees were still on the floor so we had con staff guide us out asking people to clear a path. We got about 20 feet away from our booth when a guy came running over screaming at us to stop the vehicle.

It turned out this guy was the former fire marshal and was loosing it on the massive safety violation he was seeing before him.  He started to argue with the staff and told them off for trying to move the hummer before the hall was fully cleared. My boss jumps in and starts quickly pleading our case and showing the written permission we were given to move this out. While this is all going on right in front of me I look at the clock on the dashboard. We had about 5 minutes left to get the hummer out of the hall. Bonus: the gas tank was on empty (a safety requirement for bringing in vehicles into a building) and only had enough fuel to get to the truck and I was there wasting gas with the engine still running.

Luckily the current fire marshal came by and cleared things up rather quickly. I started to slowly drive out of the hall again. I couldn’t go more than parade speed since the carpet in the aisles was still down and there were a few people in the hall. After what felt like forever I was able to turn off the main aisle and head towards the dock door opening. Only 20 feet from making it out the door with a few minutes to spare!  There was only one problem. There was a guy blocking my way that wasn’t seeming to hear the con staff asking everyone to move out of the way for me to drive out.

As I drove a bit closer I noticed who it was. It was Lou Ferrigno. The Hulk. Sitting on a stool, eating a sandwich, right in the middle of the aisle. Since the staff wasn’t going to get him to move I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked at the dashboard clock again. Two minutes. So I decided to take a chance and play chicken with a guy twice my size. I had one major advantage though, I was incased in military grade vehicle that was made to take an RPG strike when needed. So I locked the doors, rolled up close enough to him so he could see me, and stared him down. Not even sure I blinked during this time.

He moved and I drove off the convention floor with out further issues with a minute to spare.  We made the truck in time and got the hummer to GenCon before set-up.  I’m pretty sure I was more of an announce to Lou than a threat, but overall I was just glad he decided moving over to finish his sandwich was more important than staring down a kid in a giant metal box covered in cartoon characters.