This year marked the inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con–a three-day event celebrating pop culture and technology, spearheaded by Steve Wozniak, key founder of Apple Computer.

Almost 60,000 guests crowded the San Jose Convention Center for what was the biggest comic con to take place in Northern California.

At the Opening Ceremonies, Wozniak related how technology has advanced to the point of giving people some of the super powers of communication and transportation that he dreamt of when he was little. Subsequently, Madame Tussauds San Francisco unveiled their latest wax figure.

On the schedule for the weekend were appearances by a number of celebrities from Disney-owned properties. Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, had a question and answer session on a wide range of topics.

Nathan Fillion, from ABC’s “Castle,” also had a Q&A where he related hilarious anecdotes both personal and professional.

While not strictly Disney related, the big event of the convention was a “Back to the Future” reunion of Michael J. Fox (Marty McFly), Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) and Lea Thompson (Lorraine Baines).

(This marked Michael J. Fox’s first appearance at a North American comic con, and the first time all three stars were available for group photo-ops.)

That evening was the Costume Contest, in which guests showed off an impressive array of cosplay.

The next day continued on with panels such as “The Heroine’s Journey,” in which author Valerie Estelle Frankel and film professor Patti McCarthy spoke on Joseph Campbell’s classic “hero’s journey” story structure, and how it contrasts with the traditional stories featuring women. Using examples from “Star Wars,” “Cinderella,” and “Frozen,” they contrasted various plot points such as the start of the tale where the hero discovers his unique destiny/power, and realizes that he is more special than he knew, whereas the heroine usually discovers that there is something terrible and malignant in her home life, and that her situation is worse than she suspected.

Celebrity Q&A also resumed with former president and chairman of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee.

Later, Nathan Fillion returned to the stage with Walt Disney Animation Studio’s current lucky charm Alan Tudyk, along with executive producer PJ Haarsma, and writer/artist Shannon Eric Dentonto, to talk about their crowd-funded internet series in the panel “Con Man: The Fan Revolt 14 Years in the Making.”

Finally, as all good things must end, Steve Wozniak and Stan Lee finished off the con with a closing address in which they thanked everyone for coming and expressed their hopes for making this an annual event.

In addition to the many panels and presentations that were scheduled for the weekend, SVCC had the requisite Exhibitor’s Floor, which also featured large displays from Rancho Obi-Wan (the world’s largest private Star Wars collection)…

…And the Stan Lee Museum, a variety of items from Stan Lee’s private collection.

For a first-time convention, SVCC was run reasonably well–while there were a number of times where it seemed as though all the volunteers were a little foggy on some of the procedural details, such as whether the rooms would be cleared after each panel (answer: Sometimes,) I actually found the staff to be more cordial than you find at the bigger, more stressful conventions. Besides the big “Back to the Future” reunion which was a separate-pay ticket, I heard few complaints about people being shut out of panels, which leads me to think that there was reasonably adequate seating for the demand.

In this era of multiple large conventions all competing for the attendance and dollars of genre fans, I think SVCC is smart to market itself as having more of an emphasis on technology as a differentiating niche. Part of that is no doubt due to Wozniak being so heavily involved with it, and his connections to the tech industries in the area. One of the big areas on the floor was a collection of VR demos that I never got through the 45-90 minute lines to experience, but which were highly touted as good examples of the new frontier of entertainment.

The guest list was impressive for a starting convention, despite some of them, like Carrie Fisher, having to cancel beforehand. If SVCC can keep up the momentum of good technology representation, celebrity guests, and the monopoly of being the only big comic con in Northern California, I see no reason why it shouldn’t become a regular staple in the annual comic con circuit.

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