The Salt Lake Comic-Con always has me buckled in for a rollercoaster of emotions: joy, excitement, nervousness and a little bit of claustrophobia, but never before has disappointment been on the list.

As much as I love the convention and hate to give it a poor review, the SLCC was a bit of a flop.

Let’s start from the beginning. My Thursday and Friday experiences were actually enjoyable.

The con floor was packed, and as usual, there was plenty to see. Unfortunately, they changed the layout of the vendor hall this year, making it difficult to navigate.

Kid Con, one of the SLCC featured events, was nearly impossible to find — even to the point that I thought it had been cancelled, until Saturday morning when I accidentally stumbled across it while searching for the cosplay repair booth.

Speaking of which, the cosplay repair booth was actually one of SLCC’s redeeming qualities. My sword broke twice, and they were quick and eager to help me.

Other saving graces included a good celebrity lineup and short wait times to get in. Overall, my experiences on Thursday and Friday were pleasant, if not a bit underwhelming compared to last year.

Saturday is where things fell apart for me. I was registered for the cosplay contest, so I showed up at 10:00 a.m. for prejudging, which is basically an elimination round.

I waited roughly two hours for one minute of time with the judges, who told me they enjoyed my costume and let me know that the list of those who made it to the final judging would be posted at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon.

When the time rolled around there was no list to be found. In fact, the list wasn’t posted until 4:15 p.m.

I was elated to see, despite the wait, that I had qualified for the final round, so I showed up at the ballroom at 5:00 p.m. as instructed.

I then spent the last two hours of the con waiting, along with about 200 other cosplayers, to go on stage.

At 6:45 p.m., just 15 minutes before the con floor closed, we were informed that there had been a coding error, resulting in everyone who had auditioned being told they had moved on.

Over the next twenty minutes, more than three-fourths of the people who had waited in line and missed the last two hours of the convention were told they had not moved on to the stage portion of the competition without an apology. Those who did not move on, myself included, were devastated.

In addition to the cosplay fiasco, the Studio C panel was cancelled due to delays with Ian Somerhalder’s panel, which left even more fans upset.

Ultimately, I will be attending next year, but I was extremely disappointed in the convention this year.