It was sort of like a live Anime convention, and people lined up and spent good money to meet their favorite artists, some of which they dressed as the characters they had created, to gather autographs, mingle, and so on.
I ran into a guy whose daughter seemed to have wanted us to talk, he was Air Force, and then she flirted with her dad a sec and walked away, saying ok Dad I am going to leave you here with her, and he drilled me somewhat on my flight training experience, we talked about SpaceX, the NASA Astronaut program, and Tesla, UTDallas, where I got the dipndots ice cream which have been my fave since I was a teenager.
All in all I think I spent about 2 days and 4-6 hours at the convention center, I signed up to do speed dating and ended up working so did not have a chance to meet anyone.
Squire Maguire had a fabulous time, and I met with some people from the Dallas Public Library and talked with them about reading "Contact" as in the movie, but "Contacto" which is the book previous to the movie being released and in Spanish.
There were some Hero Inner City Kids that did comics and bonding that I enjoyed meeting as well, a few who had professionally worked with the Art Institute of Dallas, that had done a few Disney films, and I mentioned that Congresswomen Eddie Bernice Johnson had a Women of the World for Peace forum where I got to meet Abigail Disney.
I would say the hardest thing about going as a member of the press in costume is having to do my own filming, video editing, and photography while holding an astronaut poodle.
I definitely need my own crew next time when I travel.