After years of aborted planning I finally made it to Dragon*Con this year in Atlanta. The Mad Angel of Periwinkle accompanied me on what was her first Con experience and we both had a blast. The Con was spread over 3 adjoining Hotels this year and attendance figures are being quoted to be in the 30,000 to 35,000 range. The crowds really stressed the system to its limits, the Hyatt was closed several times over the weekend by the Fire Marshall until the Hotel and Con security could clear out enough people to ensure safety in the event of an emergency. This was mainly because unfortunately the Marriot was in the middle of significant interior remodel work which meant lots of floor space and ballroom space unavailable this year. REALLY bad timing with a greater than anticipated turnout of attendees and a reported decrease in the number of volunteers this year. Additionally, for some reason, all of the high volume events seemed to all get scheduled in the Hyatt and frequently at about the same time in the evenings. *rolls eyes*
So first, to get the BAD out of the way:
The Mad Angel and I only really got inconvenienced once the whole time by a Hyatt shutdown. Lining up for the After Hours Costume Contest on Sunday night we had our line rerouted from sprawling across the conference lobby to go out the back entrance of the hotel and down the sidewalk. This in itself was only slightly annoying...then word came that someone had screwed up and lost track of our part of the line, another line of people had been forming and were let in and right then is when the Fire Marshall closed the Hotel to entry to anyone without a room key and ordered the hotel to empty out 2000 people immediately. I and another fellow went and had words with the Con security guy and the Hotel security guy to get the skinny on what was going on and express our...erm...displeasure with how we had been rooked and get the name or the person we needed to bitch at about the line screw-up. After a little discussion the guy confided that if he were us he'd go around to the front of the hotel and try to gain entry that way since everyone was being purged out of the door we were at and as soon as the crowd numbers came down THAT would be the easiest place to get into. We schlepped around the hotel, got stopped momentarily by front-door hotel staff but eventually made entry and made our way to the conference room where our event was being held only to be told by the guy at the door that "the event is already full." Fortunately for us the volunteer at the door was apologetic and sympathetic to our tale of how we got screwed the Con people that sent out line out side and forgot about us, then got caught in the shutdown, marched around the hotel, had to do battle with the front door hotel folks only to find ourselves screwed again. When it appeared nobody was paying attention he told us to just go on in and try to find a place to sit.
However now on the to good part. That bad experience was more than made up for by the rest of the con. And the nice thing was that even with the large quantities of alcohol that was obviously consumed at all the hotel bar gatherings, room parties, panel parties, etc we saw no incidents with "rowdies" at all...in fact I only indirectly heard of 1 incident that may or may not have happened. Which, all in all, I think is pretty darn good when you shove 35,000 people into 3 hotels over a four and a half day convention. We arrived Friday afternoon so we missed the Early Arrival events and parties on Thursday and the first half of Friday's Programmes (the official events start at 10am and run until at least 3am every day). The panels were interesting (unfortunately Harry Turtledove had to cancel and David Weber's event conflicted with other things we wanted to do this year, but Mad Angel got to meet and chat with one of her favorite authors - L.A. Banks), We managed to see all the celeb Q&A's that we really wanted to see (Farscape, Stargate, Babylon 5) and frequently funny as hell, the bands we saw play in the evenings were great (The Luchagores, Bella Morte & Cruxshadows), the art show room was nice and large and the dealers rooms were HUGE (essentially 1.5 floors of the Hilton). Of course the costuming by regular attendees was amazing and everywhere you looked. Everything including Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Gaming, Horror, Gothic, Victorian Steampunk and Fetishware.
For the curious I've included a link to the album of Con photos I've uploaded Flickr.
[Click HERE]
In addition to being a hell of a lot of fun, this year's Dragon*Con also bore witness to a great metaphysical wonder with a sighting of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Mad Angel was actually "touched by His noodly appendage" on an escalator in the Hyatt, I witnessed it myself.
And as one might expect, the Con floors were also a battleground in the eternal struggle of Pirates vs. Ninjas
And apparently even Pirates vs. Stormtroopers
And then there was this...
I wasn't at all sure how to react to this scene at first...but could only presume that the Crazy 88s are not actually Ninja's as one might be led to believe on first glance. FSM does move in mysterious and wriggly ways.
So to sum up, we had a blast. There wasn't even a moment’s doubt that we would be coming back next year. After a year or so of doing the serious work of Global Programme Management its good to get to throw off the seriousness of the day-to-day grind and responsibilities and just have fun, and get my Sci-Fi/Gamer Geek On.
We have decided that next year we need to plan to arrive on Thursday and leave on Tuesday so as not to miss out on as much as we did this time. We DEFINITELY decided we want to stay at the Marriot again. The Hyatt is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there through the Con. Next year we hope to have more time to attend some of the evening short film festival Track, there looked to be some really good entries this year. This year added the "Apocalypse Rising" Track of Programming dedicated Post Apocalypse themed stories, movies and TV programs. Based on reported success this year it is expected to be back next year and I certainly plan on trying to make at least a couple of panels or events. The gaming area was large in the Marriot and Hilton and the Mad Angel and I talked about dropping by next year to observe a bit.
But now...to rest up in our own bed from the long hours of conventioneering.
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