A number of friends have been urging me to go to Dragon Con in Atlanta for many years, and I confess, I was biased against it. “That looks so BIG. I bet it’s soulless and commercial, like San Diego Comic Con. I’ll be lost in a sea of spectators and vendors trying to sell me stuff I can get online. What’s the point of that?”
Friends, it was not at all like Comic Con. It was, as my friend Lorenzo put it, “Nerdy-Gras.” All the elements of my favorite small fan-run conventions dialed up to eleventy, plus, you know, massive raves every night in Vegas-sized hotel lobbies. That… is not a small, fan-run convention thing, but clearly, it becomes one once a critical mass of drunken nerds is achieved.
I was on panels, and it was just like panels at other conventions. I visited the dealer’s room / exhibit hall – and it was like the dealer’s room at other conventions, albeit eight times as large with a half-hour wait to get in. (Worse than Blue Streak, not as bad as Top Thrill Dragster, but I was still a little dissapointed there wasn’t a roller coaster at the end of the line.)
I watched the parade, which was in the city streets instead of around hotel corridors, but was otherwise just every convention’s costume parade times twenty. (If at your local convention there’s a guy dressed as DeadPool in the parade, this one has a DeadPool Section with 20 DeadPools, GwenPool, DogPool, and TRexPool.)
I suspected, but did not find, a section of the dealer’s hall for smaller crafters like you would find at a small convention? I did see some intermixed with the Big Resellers of Chinese Made Costume Parts and Tee Turtle and all the rest, but what I really wanted was a place to buy handmade things from people who made them. At most cons, this is called Artists’ Alley. At this one, Artists’ Alley was the comic book creators’ floor of the dealer halls.
So many comic creators!
I hung out in lobbies and gave away swag and talked with strangers who became friends. There was just MORE of all of that, spilling out into the streets, into coffee shops and the MARTA train and even, at the end, the line at the airport for TSA. We just happened to be behind a group of people who went to one of my panels. “I really like your kitty cat print button-down.” “Oh, thanks. You look familiar…”
Actually, the only thing I missed from my usual convention-ing was, well, the parties. I love going to room parties, which are small and intimate and sometimes there’s a DJ and dancing and sometimes there’s conversation or karaoke. It seemed that in general, the parties are just BIG. (Or there are small room parties and you gotta get invited? I am betting on that.)
There is no Barfleet at Dragon Con! (Barfleet is a fan organization with a Star Trek flair that throws parties with free booze at conventions.) I was shocked. But of course, Barfleet would themselves be lost in a sea of alcohol. Why bring ice to the North Pole?
In conclusion, I had a real blast and am already pondering how to go back!
