Dan Farr

Dan Farr with Sir Patrick Stewart at Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience

Dan Farr (born February 15, 1967) is an entrepreneur, known for co-founding DAZ 3D,^[1] a 3D content and software company, and for co-founding the Salt Lake Comic Con.^[2]

Career

Dan Farr co-founded DAZ 3D Inc. in 2000.^[3] DAZ 3D is an industry leading company that develops and publishes 3D digital content and software for artists, designers, photographers, animators and other creative professionals and hobbyists.^[4] Two of the benchmark products Farr helped create while at DAZ were DAZ Studio and award winning Genesis Platform^[5] (3D Magazine's product of the year in 2011^[6]).

In 2005 Farr, along with his partners at DAZ 3D, created an illustrated Christmas book entitled “Mr. Finnegan’s Giving Chest” using DAZ 3D’s products.^[7] It was based on a story Farr had worked on for several years and featured actor Dick Van Dyke. The book sold nearly 100,000 copies and is currently in development for being turned into a movie.

Shortly after leaving DAZ 3D in the spring of 2012, Farr began planning the Salt Lake Comic Con.^[8] He partnered with Bryan Brandenburg, whom he had worked with at DAZ 3D, and with MediaOne of Utah, ABC4/CW TV of Utah, Cumulus Media to market the event. The first annual Salt Lake Comic Con took place on September 5–7, 2013 and had over 75,000 attendees. It was the largest first year Comic Con event in history in North America,^[9] double the numbers of New York Comic Con’s first year and was the largest convention ever to take place in the state of Utah.

Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience took place on April 17–19, 2014 and broke Salt Lake Comic Con 2013's own attendance records with over 100,000 attendees, making it the third largest comic con in North America, the largest comic con in the United States per capita, and the largest convention ever in the state of Utah.^[10] FanXperience played host to guests and celebrities like Sir Patrick Stewart, Nathan Fillion, William Shatner, Karl Urban, Karen Gillan, Billy Dee Williams and over 100 other guests.^[11]

Salt Lake Comic Con 2014, the second Salt Lake Comic Con event in 2014, took place on September 4–6, 2014.^[12] The event was sold out with over 120,000 attendees and was closed down on several occasions by the fire marshall for safety reasons.^[13][14] Salt Lake Comic Con broke its own record as the best-attended convention in Utah and the largest per-capita comic con in North America. Special guests included Stan Lee, Leonard Nimoy (via Skype), Stephen Amell, Manu Bennett, John Barrowman, Ron Perlman, Bruce Campbell, Alan Tudyk, Eliza Dushku, Simon Helberg, Lou Ferrigno, Barbara Eden, Danny Glover, Jon Heder and over 100 other guests.^[15] Stan Lee declared that Salt Lake Comic Con 2014 "the greatest comic con in the world"!^[16][17]

References