Well, can you believe it? Fan Expo 2025 has come and gone. All that planning, all that travel, we did what we came to do and now we get to see the fruits of our labour! I’m so proud of you all, so get ready for a really long post-con message.
Thank you for your help!
As you know, I am really excited to see what the future holds for the Canadian Regiment and Halo cosplayers in general. Events like these really help get the word out there that making armour is something that’s not just doable, but super fun as well. I want to thank the Division staff members who supported the booth application and helped advise me through that whole process.
What would a booth be without a super-cool Halo-themed backdrop and 405th banners? I don’t have these resources personally, but thanks to the lovely folks in the Midwest Regiment, I was able to borrow the backdrop, retractable banner, and vinyl banner! These items really took the booth to the next level, so thank you for that.
Cadet helping me load up the Midwest reg.'s booth supplies at Orgins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio
I was also able to create additional 405th branded items for the outreach table thanks to the quick responses and feedback from
Asgardianhammer .
Thank you to those who helped set up the booth!
KaeSpoon celmor1785 Benis Wenis YTunz and also Ben’s lovely mother; you guys are great! Thanks for showing up before the show started, setting up the backdrops, flagpoles, table, and prop rack. Thanks for the snacks too, ben! Those were a real life saver.
Setting up the booth on Wednesday Evening
Thank you to all of you guys for representing the community in your awesome cosplays all weekend! You are all real troopers. I think this is the most people I’ve seen rep the community who can all wear their suits for literal hours at a time. Thanks for getting your suits all the way into the city, being willing to suit up in the hot parking garage, and getting so many photos with attendees! You each made so many people’s days by being there. You all look absolutely phenomenal.
I had a wonderful evening with you guys at the Amsterdam Brewhouse! It’s always a treat to go out with y’all! Thanks Ben for being such a good sport about us singing you happy birthday XD
The gang at the Amsterdam Brewhouse
Super big thanks to everyone who made the brutal early morning commute into the city and got the suits camera-ready before 9:00. Those photos look amazing! Beating the heat and the crowd was really nice, but I know it really took a toll on our energy level. I’ll give you assurance that next year we won’t be doing a shoot that early. Thanks for being so willing to give it a shot for me on my first year organizing. Make sure you all give Riley a massive thank you for going WAY above his usual photo count for the rate we paid. We paid for 35 photos and received 117 because of his generosity. It wasn’t expected, nor is it expected in the future, but we will gladly receive those awesome extra shots we got!
Group shot, Saturday morning
Thank you
valyriel KaeSpoon and
celmor1785 for helping pack up the booth and load up the car. I know everybody wants to get out of there on Sunday night, but you all made the sacrifice to get stuck in traffic to help get everything cleaned up – right down to sweeping the floor.
And now for the Super-special thank-you’s
valyriel , you were such a big help. It really feels like you’ve been doing booths with us forever because you immediately got into repping at the outreach table, telling people about the community, making sure the less-flexible folks in armour were taken care of, and just generally doing an all-around bang-up job. You did so much without even being asked and I appreciate your hard work very much. You gave us so much of your time this weekend, and we all greatly appreciate the work you did. Thank you.
AtomicDeadlock , thank you for joining us in the Canadian regiment for your first in-costume event with the 405th! You’ve done immaculate work with your cosplay. I can’t believe your first suit looks that perfect! It was great getting to meet you and cosplay with you, and thank you for all your help with the booth.
Bunty Scrungus and
Raime , it’s always a pleasure to get to hang out with you guys. I think might be actual ODST’s because I think I saw you more in-armour than out of armour lol. Thank you both for being in the photo-op area with your awesome suits and being all around wonderful people. An event in Canada wouldn’t be complete without the two of you!
PaiganBoi , as we all know, we suffer for our art, but know all that effort does not go unnoticed! You have always given so much for the community, and I want to give you a massive thank you for everything you did this past weekend, but also for everything you’ve done in general for the 405th. You saved my butt on Sunday morning by getting the booth set up when I missed my train, you arose at the crack of dawn to take the annoying bus into the city for the photoshoot, you were in suit all day every day you were with us, you never hesitated to encourage people to join the community, but now only that, you also put yourself through many nights of little sleep con-crunching your own suit and also two other entire suits for the event! That’s legendary. It was so nice to be with you again. Thank you for all your hard work. Pass along to Aaden and (gah I forget the other one’s name!) that it was wonderful to have them too.
Pixelcube , you do everything you can to make my crazy ideas and plans work. You didn’t even flinch at the idea of a late dinner followed by an early morning, you wear your suit all day as though it’s as easy as sitting in an air-conditioned office, and you were my go-to example when people asked if it was even possible to make a suit of armour without 3D printing. You were a great inspiration to many of the folks who stopped by the booth. It was great to see you again, and thank you for coming out!
YTunz , thank you for coming all the way up into Canada to help out one of your fellow regiments! Your work throughout the entire weekend is greatly appreciated. You have such a wonderful big-picture yet down to earth mindset. Everything you do is very thoughtful, practical, and intentional. Your support throughout the entire weekend kept us going and makes me wish to do more events together. If you weren’t colonial, I’d be asking you if you’d be interested in a staff position in the Canadian regiment lol! Thank you for everything. Be sure to give you mom a massive thank you as well! She’s so cool.
Benis Wenis , congratulations on winning that cosplay competition man! It’s so impressive that your first convention with the 405th, and your first suit of armour, at your first cosplay competition and you take home a brand spanking new gaming CPU! Your suit looks awesome, and we’re all happy to welcome you to the community as not just a regular ol’ member, but as a Spartan.
Lastly, but most definitely not least,
KaeSpoon and
celmor1785 , you guys are the true camps of the weekend. You put in the most hours, the longest days, from Wednesday morning until Monday evening you guys worked hard to support this whole operation, and you aren’t even local to the regiment! You are both so easy to get along with, wonderful to work with, helpful, and thoughtful. Thank you for catching those early morning trains, getting shy of 5 hours of sleep to make that photoshoot happen, eating microwaved egg sandwiches each morning to save on money, sharing the cost of all those Ubers we had to take, and on top of that you were still super active in the photo-op area as well as the outreach table. You both absolutely killed it. Massive thank you to the both of you.
To those who couldn’t officially be apart of the booth but were still able to stop by, particularly
Schankerz ,
Ryujiro , and
Kolala , thank you for making sure you stopped by and said hi. It was wonderful to see you again/meet you.
Booth analysis/feedback
I am beyond pleased with our presence at Fan Expo this year! It’s because of all of YOU that events like this can happen. It’s because of YOU that the people of Toronto are now more familiar with the 405th, Halo Cosplay, and what they can do to get started on making their own suits of armour!
Cards
I brought about 400 business cards thinking I would have oodles left over, but we managed to run dry by Sunday morning! You guys were very good about making sure the pile on the table was stocked and that people were picking them up. I’ll be sure to have more for next year. Any questions/suggestions regarding cards are welcome!
A very good chunk of my deployment trading cards were handed out as well! If you guys are interested in the optional deployment process the 405th offers, I would recommend it! It’s nice to be able to get some objective feedback on your suit, get that fun Spartan number on the forums, and get official 405th trading cards to hand out to other members and to the public. I think it would be fun to have a few piles or different member’s trading cards next year.
Booth Cleanliness
Putting the wooden UNSC crates on top of the table to hind our water bottles and loose items really helped keep the booth area clean. Thank you all for throwing your garbage away quickly and using the space behind the prop rack to keep large bags. I think this is the cleanest and most clutter-free Canadian regiment booth I’ve been apart of. As with anything there’s always room for improvement, but we’ll be good if we keep up this trajectory of cleanliness. Question/concerns/suggestion about this are welcome!
Suiting up at the car
I think keeping the car in the south garage all weekend and using it as a storage locker and changing area worked well! Obviously it’s not as ideal as an air-conditioned private changing room, but it’s the best we would do with what we got. Thank you for using it as much as possible to keep our totes out of the booth. I will always request a changing room inside the convention centre of course, but I think if we don’t get it, the car is the best we can do. Ideas for improvement are welcome.
Booth layout/location
Having and end-cap booth this year was also nice. It allowed us to spill out into the aisles a bit, as well as in front of the booth. I think besides being allotted more space, the end-cap booth is really helpful to give us all some breathing room. I’ll be requesting an end-cap next year, if not more space. I think our location was also nice; lots of traffic but not too much. It felt like we had a steady steam of people visiting but never a huge crowd. What are you guys’ thoughts on the space? What could be improved/requested next year? Remember, this is a public forum, representatives from Fan Expo and many other conventions can AND DO read these threads, so constructive criticism only please.
The booth layout worked nicely too. Along with having the 405th logo everywhere, you were all good about giving a short elevator pitch to introduce people to what we do. I would say that most people who stopped by or even just took a picture left knowing what the name of the community was as well as what we’re all about. Questions, concerns, ideas for improvement welcome on the booth layout.
Manning the booth
We always had members at the outreach table and in the photo-op area. We were never without people manning the booth. Thank you for all your guys’ hard with doing that. I did feel we had a lot of people in the booth on Saturday, but that’s to be expected. Once a good chunk of you went for an explore the booth felt balanced. I hope that you all felt you were able to get a good amout of time in the actual convention itself throughout the entire weekend.
Besides telling me which days you guys were going to be there, we didn’t really have any sort of schedule. What are you guys’ thoughts on trying shifts? The reason I didn’t do them this year is because the schedule is often not followed, and what ends up happening is a few people wind up covering most of the day, while others cover just their allotted time or less and are gone the rest of the day, making people’s contributions very unbalanced, which isn’t fair. Without a schedule, I found that everyone made the booth a priority, and only left if they knew someone was able to voluntarily stay until they returned. Perhaps instead of doing an hour-by-hour sign up sheet, we could do a morning/afternoon sign up with overlap in the middle. Thoughts/questions/concerns?
Photoshoot/Member’s photos
The photoshoot on Saturday morning got us some truly excellent photos! It was quite the trek for a lot of people though, so next year I definitely won’t be doing shoot that early in the morning. Besides that, I think the shoot went great!
If you desire, you can help me offset the cost of the photoshoot by sending me money either through paypal or e-transfer. My email is
Nathan.tebbens.sc@gmail.com. We originally decided on an hour, but we ended up using two. Anywhere from $7-15 is greatly appreciated!
Finally, if you took photos, be sure to upload them to this shared google drive: 2025 Fan Expo Toronto - Google Drive
You can find the photoshoot pictures on that drive as well!
Make sure you ask before posting someone else’s photos. DeltaRiley has given us permission to post his photos. Do not post pictures of any of our members who have their helmets off without their explicit permission, even if their cosplay isn’t designed to hide their face. Thanks for your cooperation.
That’s the end!
Well, there’s always more to talk about, but this post is over 2400 words already so I think I’ll leave it there. Thank you again for you hard work and your feedback. You are all what makes this regiment and this community such a wonderful place to be. I hope to see you all again next year. I’m so proud of all of you.
