Looked that way to me so I moved it here to the podcast thread where BOOBS movie quotes was discussed. 
On the far less popular then BOOBs topic of cons,
My first con was Megacon in Orlando Florida in 2009, and Iāve been back every year since, but I found it a very mixed experience. I donāt have a social group that does sci-fi/fantasy/anime things, so Iām totally missing out on the social aspects of the whole event. Growing up and for the previous years there was nothing like a con anywhere around me and I never would have gotten the courage up to go anyway.
Content wise itās great, mostly an anime event but plenty of other things. Usually the anime importers/distributors do big promotional things, and there are show/movie panels. They use maybe 1/8 of the Orange County Conventions Center, which is still an insanely large volume to my thinking, Iāve heard 40k as attendance. The location does make it amusing though, you get a lot of cosplay wandering past educator conferences and building expoās and cheerleading competitions.
I found the demographics to skew kind of young for what I expected. Iād put the median age at early 20ās, lots of high school and college age folks, dropping off quickly. One really interesting thing they did last year was speed dating, which I tried, and it was amusing, but awkward because everyone was way younger (18-23) compared to my 31 year oldness. As a mostly Anime event I think that might drive age down compared to some of the more balance events.
Iām curiuose to see what other peoples thoughts are on cons theyāve attended.
I think my first con experience is kind of connected to Seanās, in a really roundabout way. When I was in college, I joined a campus sci-fi club (the way I described them earlier this week is āGWC meets Animal Houseā; we even lost our funding for political reasons at the end of my freshman year) who, among other things, put on a convention every year. I ended up working Aggiecon 34 and wandered the con in my spare time, and it was awesome. I ended up a con officer for the next three years, and have been going back as a regular congoer ever since.
The connection comes because this club has been around and putting on conventions since the sixties, and A-kon was started when former members went on to start their own thing in the DFW area. Theyāre fantastic peopleāMeri Davis has been running Aggieconās hospitality suite for so long that sheās been made an honorary Cepheid. Iāve never had a chance to attend, but I can unreservedly say that if anime and cosplay are your thing, you are in good hands with the A-kon staff.
Also Aggiecon aināt half bad for a student-run con, either! It was awesome to be able to hang out with one of my favorite authors for like an hour my first year. And getting to see authors and artists so often that theyāre like, āOh hey, itās you!ā Small cons are awesome.
My first con was Vul-Con in New Orleans, LA sometime in the mid-70ās with my dad. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. It was a local annual con and was a great time. I remember loving the dealer room where you could get those impossible to find items. There was also a art room, costume ball, and usually 2 or 3 movie rooms. Now remember this was the mid 70ās so it was a real movie room with a couple of huge projectors, no videotapes. They had panels, but I was to young to be interested in those. Dad and I went every year until the early 80ās when I hit high school. I canāt remember when the cons stopped. One of the things I remember was standing in line to get Grace Lee Whitneyās autograph (which I still have after all of these years). Another year they had huge Enterprise model which my dad said was used in the filming of the TV show.
The last con I went to was in the late 90ās, it was one of the Star Trek Creation Conventions. It was all in one room, with vendors and chairs set up in the middle to watch the people that were there to talk. It was a huge disappointment compared to what I remembered from my childhood and I havenāt been back.
I started going to cons in the mid 70ās when I was a teenager, I would go with my High School friends from the Science Fiction Club. The one I went to repeatedly was the CasualCon in LA, it was a very friendly small convention. You got to know most of the regulars, and because it was smaller you never had a problem getting into a panel or meeting a celebrity. I got a number of autographs, my most prized was when I got to meet Ray Harryhausen and he signed a photo I had purchased of the dragon from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. And they always had a film room which showed honest to God actual 35mm films, I still remember how our jaws dropped when we got to watch vintage Max Fleischer Superman cartoons, we were in frakking heaven. They also showed a number of classic serials from the 30ās too, Captain Marvel, Rocketman and the like cool stuff.
But the Convention memory I relish the most, and that gave me a real appreciation for what it takes to run a convention was the one we threw on our High School Campus. It was called MiniCon, our Science Fiction Club sponsor was an English Teacher and she had some real serious connections. She managed to get a number of authors and artists to attend, I videotaped all of the panels and used the data generator in the telecommunications room to have a ongoing scroll of the conventions schedule going on all of the monitors on the campus. We also helped guests find their way around the campus and so forth. A good learning experience, and I got to meet a number of artists and authors. She was a really cool teacher, I was so damned lucky! 
In Phoenix it was Coppercon and LepreCon in the 80ās. And then nothing until this years Phoenix ComiCon, all of my former geek friends have either moved away over the years or we have just lost touch as we grew older and our lives have changed (such is life). But now that I have met new geek friends thanks to this wonderful and welcoming community I have reason to start going again. Thank You all for rekindling my interests again and being so gracious and understanding.
God Bless.
Welcome aboard!
Iām surprised at your description. The Creation cons I went to were much bigger affairs. Maybe they had spread themselves too thin?
Thank, Iāve actually been lurking awhile and listening to the podcast for years.
As a con, the Creation con was good. Brent Spiner was the guest speaker and he was funny. But it just didnāt have the āfeelā of Vul-Con. Maybe it was because I realized that Creation was designed as a money maker, and Vul-Con was a labor of love. Vul-Con was larger in scope, with multiple movie rooms, a huge dealer room, a separate art room, and towards the last few years that I went gaming tables were everywhere. It seemed that the convention took over the whole hotel, not simply one room. Of course, my memories could be slightly tainted as it was something that dad and I did every year by ourselves. The closest con that I know of is MobiCon in Mobile, AL. I may have to go next year to check it out. I would love to go to San Diego, but the older I get the less I like dealing with crowds. Which sucks during Mardi Gras season.
My first Con was Dragon*Con a few weeks ago with fellow GWC peeps Julie, Jason, Raemani and DawnAZ. It was a great experience, and one that I highly recommend to any fellow geek.
Here are a few observations:
*Definitely go with a group of people you know. It is nice to split up and go to the panels you are really interested in, but being able to periodically text and meet up with friends to eat, hang out and attend events with is also fun.
If you go to DC, stay in the hotel on site. It is nice being able to go hide in your room if you need to decompress from the crowds! Saturday it was so crowded, and I was glad to have a quiet place to go and relax before heading to the GWC meet up.
*There were SO many panels I wanted to attend, but many were going on at the same time. It was hard to chose sometimes. But as Julie said on the podcast, plan your day out in advance. Be flexible, and have a back up panel if your first choice is full, or you get caught up somewhere else.
*Dress up! Everyone else does, and donāt worry that your costume is silly or not fancy enough. DawnAZ and I were twin Merlotteās waitresses one day, complete with vampire bite tattoos. Next time I will bring more than one costume. There was so many creative and fun costumes on display. My favorites were anything with Doctor Who + steam punk.
Just a quick note on my best remembered time at a con.
I was attending a Star Trek con in New Hampshire (I think it was in Nashua, but I canāt be sure itās been a while.). It was me, a friend, and another friendās son who went in her place because she got sick at the last minute. The big guest was James Doohan, and after his talk we all (at least it seemed like all of us) lined up for the autograph line. Because Rhoda couldnāt make it we had brought along a mini cassette recorder (which kind of dates us right there), and her son or one of us would talk about anything interesting that we saw or heard at the con. Anyway we got to the front of the autograph line and James sees the recorder and asks us about it. We tell him about our sick friend, and he starts asking Rhodaās son about his mom, what sheās sick with, what she likes, etc. then the kind of asks/demands the recorder, goes into āScotty Voiceā and records a 4 minute long personal message for her while weāre all waiting in the autograph line. That made our day better than any rare figure, or signed prop we could ever have found in the dealerās room.
Thanks for prompting me to remember that day.
Thanks for sharing that.
I met James under similar circumstances (at a Creation Con, IIRC.) I was too shy to do anything but shove a photo at him to sign, but he spent a few minutes trying to coax me into a conversation. He wasnāt too successful, but I always appreciated that he made the effort.
Vote for your favorite GWC Podcast 288 quote(s). This poll will close on October 2nd, 2011 at 08:41 PM.
Funny story about the Nike Mag sneakersā¦
ā¦ my spouse is a closet geek - sure, I may be more openly geeky than he is, but heās pretty geeky too. Well, he saw the Michael J Fox promo for the MAG sneakers and was like, those are so cool! Iād love to have those to have on a shelf in my office! Iām thinking to myself, no way in hell we can afford thatā¦
ā¦ he goes to ebay and he is crestfallen! āThe cheapest bid is $3K!ā
He had no idea that they would go for so much. awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
and Audra: omg the skinny pants and the giant hightops! ridiculous! (my students here are quite a bit preppier, though. Very few hightops in my current neck of the woods.)
Hereās the Bumble Bee and the āPainted Ladyā that I think were mentioned in the podcast.
Yay for a fellow Dragon*Con attendee! Iāve been for the past three years and I love it. Youāre right. Going with friends and staying at one of the host hotels makes all the difference.
What an awesome story! Thanks for sharing
Wow. Did not see this one. That is something. Love the costumes at D*C!
I was going to call into the voice mail to share my first con story, but Iām not sure that there is going to be a cons/meetups podcast part II, so I thought Iād share my story on here.
I started watching BSG in 2008 and loved it. I found a great community of people online who were Kara/Lee shippers like me. I had never considered going to a con before, but in September of 2009, I went to Dragon*Con. My primary motivation was to meet all of the people Iād been hanging out with online for about a year at that point. Iām sure exactly what I expected, but it was amazing. It was also a bit like drinking out of a fire hose.
My first panel ever was Shatner Nimoy, who were hilarious, even though I have only watched the Original Series movies and am not a huge fan of Shatner. From there I went to panels on BSG, Dollhouse and all kinds of other Whedon goodness. Iād always thought that I didnāt like enough geek things to go to a con, but I was thrilled to find out that there was an entire track for Joss Whedon shows. I had a great time in the dealerās room and got my picture taken with a few BSG actors too (Aaron Douglas, Mary McDonald, Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon).
But by far the best part of the con was that it was a venue for me to meet up with my online friends and have that same connection in real life that we had over the internet.
I just went to my third DragonCon and had an awesome time yet again. I havenāt been to any of the smaller local cons since I donāt know anyone local to go with and my favorite thing about DC is the big panels and I know actors are few and far between at the smaller venues. But I am thinking about going to one this winter.
I think that anyone who is interested should go to Dragon*Con, as long as theyāre ok with big crowds. Getting a hotel room in one of the host hotels requires some planning and patience, but itās worth it.
And one final note about DragonConā¦one of the many things that they offer at DC is a podcasting track. I would love to see GWC there next year.
Quick question: Has anyone here been to Fanfest in Iceland for the EVE Online con?
JASO: Iād love to be a part of the podcast track, but I have no idea how to get involved. Iām planning to try and attend next year, so maybe if I start early I can figure it out.
From what I can tell it looks like a bunch of like-minded folks learning and enjoying podcasting together. Thatād be awesome. I feel kinda alone as a podcaster sometimes, present company excluded, of course.
Yay! I donāt know anyone here yet, but maybe by the time D*C rolls around that will have changed. And it would be awesome to hear a live podcast after listening to you guys on and off for three years.
I think that the smaller, non-guest tracks like the podcast one are more committees of people working to get interested people in. The Dragon*Con podcasting track website doesnāt have a ton of info, but they do have a contact page, so thatās probably the best place to start. Also, thereās no way youāre alone with the strength of the GWC community/hive mind behind you.
Honestly? Every creation con I ever went to was exactly like that. A giant dealerās room with a stage in the back. Way more focussed on the money than the con experience. They were my first conās & huge disappointments to me given the descriptions Iād heard about giant Star Trek conventions. I still had fun but very disappointing.
A friend started taking me to local fan run cons, much different experience. By far though, my favorite is Dragon-Con, I just wish I could get back to it.