Return from DragonCon

Welp, the mad angel and I made it back from DragonCon 2008. We had a blast, perhaps even better than last year. With the addition of the new hotel (the con now covers 4 hotels in downtown Atlanta) and the completion of the remodeling that had most of the Marriott close off last year the congestion was not nearly as bad as last year. Current unofficial rumor has the number of visitors at 40,000, slightly higher than last years official count.

Much fun was had. We attended a number of good panels (Galactica, Firefly, Farscape, Jerimiah, Kevin Sorbo, Yanci Butler), the mad angel got to meet a couple of her favorite authors (Laurel K Hamilton, Sherilyn Kennion) and get some books/graphic novels signed, saw some great bands (Abney Park, Ego Likeness, Voltaire), got dressed up and attended the Pirate Party and we surrendered a good amount of gold in the dealers rooms and art hall. Beyond that we were just able to get our geek on, hang out with other fans, and forget about work fro a while.

As I may have mentioned before, there are 50 unique tracks (subject areas) running simultaneously every day from 10 am until 2:30 am from Friday to Monday with events starting every hour and a half. With all of that going on, it is impossible for you to see everything you might want to see, so you just have to make a plan and try to see and do the things you want to most.

Sadly all the Steampunk related panels and such were victims of their own popularity and alot of people were not able to get into the rooms because they filled up so quickly. So hopefully next year the con organizers will move them into larger rooms.

Didn't get to see Cruxshadows perform this year, running on 4 hours sleep since 8 am we were just too worn our and tired to catch the 1:30am show...especially since we had to be up at 9 the next morning to catch the start of the next days events.

Didn't get to catch any of the Zombie / Apocalypse Fiction track this years due conflicts with other stuff we wanted to do & see. But it's a popular track so I'm sure we'll be able to catch some next year.

The actors & actresses from Galactica, Firefly and Farscape were funny as hell. This was apparently Edward James Olmos' first DragonCon and he was really enjoying himself.

All in all, a great way to spend the holiday weekend. Getting dinner was alot easier this year since a new steakhouse had opened in our hotel since last year which was really convenient. And we also discovered that the Atlanta Hard Rock Cafe and Fire of Brazil (kinda like our local Fogo de Chao) was only a block walk from the hotel. No more standing in long lines in the Peachtree Center foodcourt for Chic-fil-a and Mall Pizza!

For a look at some of our con photos, I've posted them at my Flickr page [Click Here]. 

I've also linked to the Program of Events. So if you're curious about what all was going on at DragonCon this year you can have a look [Click Here].