Today I’m participating in Top Ten Tuesday. This meme was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week there is a new theme/topic, and participants choose ten books that fit it.

This week’s theme is a non-bookish freebie. I recently attended the Fan Expo Chicago 2025 convention and had a blast. So, I’ve decided to share my 10 favorite moments from the convention. I didn’t take a ton of pics while I was there. I tend to prefer being in the moment rather than experiencing stuff through a camera lens. Although, I have included some pics of things I acquired at the convention just to break up the monotony of words. 🙂 Without further ado, here are my 10 favorite moments from Fan Expo Chicago 2025!

• Finding some awesome custom LEGO minifigures. I’ve been wanting a 13th Doctor minifigure, and I was finally able to find one, along with a 4th Doctor minifigure, too. Of course, I also couldn’t pass up Superman, Krypto, and Ahsoka. 🙂

• The sketch duels. This is one of my favorite things to do at comic cons. I love watching the artists create their work, and I always try to catch as many of these over the course of the weekend as possible.
• The art, in general. I spent so much time exploring artist alley and found some really great stuff. You can see my favorite piece that I picked up down below.

• The panel with Catherine Tate and Mandip Gill. It quickly turned into the Catherine Tate show and was a laugh riot. Tate is just so funny, and her panels are always so fun despite her not knowing much about Doctor Who. lol.
• Getting to meet Mandip Gill and have her sign one of my Doctor Who comics with the whole fam on the cover. She was SO SWEET, and we chatted for a bit about how unfair it was that Jodie Whittaker was hogging pretty much all of the Doctor Who comic covers from her run. lol. Then we manifested that I’ll be able to get the rest of the fam to sign the cover, too. 🙂

• Randomly bumping into the writer of the Doctor Who comic and getting her to sign it, too. The con gods were smiling down on me. Right after meeting Mandip, I happened to pass by the table for the writer of the comic, Jody Houser. So, I was able to get her to sign it in addition to purchasing some of her adorable artwork.

• The panel with Manny Jacinto. I adored his character in The Good Place, and his character in The Acolyte was one of my favorites. I enjoyed hearing him talk about his experience working on Star Wars. Hopefully, he’ll get to reprise that role one day because it seemed like it really meant a lot to him.
• Getting to meet a local author and buy some of his pretty books. You all know I’m a sucker for pretty books. It is even better when those pretty books are written by someone in a town not too far from my own. I bought some of Brendan Noble’s books after chatting with him at his booth about his work. I look forward to reading them!

• The panel with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. This was a really fantastic panel, and the energy in the room was so electric. It was a sold-out room, and it meant a lot to me to be with so many other people who love the Star Wars prequels. The movies (and actors) received so much hate for so long, and I loved seeing the actors get the credit they deserve for bringing the larger-than-life Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to the screen. They also did a lightsaber twirl on stage, and it might have been one of the best moments of my life. 🤯
• Meeting Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. The Star Wars prequels were my entire childhood. I’ve watched those movies hundreds of times and could probably recite them. So, getting to meet and take a picture with these two was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

There you have it! My favorite moments from Fan Expo Chicago 2025. Do you enjoy attending conventions? This was my first one since before COVID, and I’ve really missed getting to go to one or two each year.