The event had some great things it could have built on: wonderful guests, some interesting panels, etc. The lack of organization led to a lot of issues. We didn't even have programs until half-way through day 2. There was no map, no explanation of what the panels were about, and no staff we asked knew anything. All of this information should have been posted to the website weeks before the event. Even the EmCee of the event had no idea what was going on. I know people had some serious issues with the price being jacked up over triple the cost of last year, and compared to last year this declined in value significantly.
I entered the costume contest and it was so poorly planned that noone even knew the prizes, if there were any, and the way to win wasn't even really figured out until half-way through. Sign-up was pointless, because people who hadn't signed up just went up anyway. You need to break it down from 80 people to having different categories: an overall (of course); when people sign up on Saturday have a picture posted on Facebook and have a winner from there; have marvel and DC category; have movie, TV shows, and comics category; have a "true to the original" category for people who made their costumes from scratch and got an almost perfect match; etc. Have all of this figured out and posted to your website 2 weeks before and when people sign up have them choose a max of 2 or 3 categories to enter. BAM. At least one hour of organized, awesome entertainment on your center stage. It doesn't take much to make the simple things really stand out, even if the rest of the event is falling apart.