Dragon-con is a convention that takes place every year in
Atlanta, GA, and claims to be the “The world's largest fantasy/Sci-fi
convention”. The convention certainly seemed huge, but that was due largely to
the fact that it takes place across six hotels instead of one large convention
center like most other cons. This leads to a lot of walking, both indoors and
outdoors, and very congested hallways, since people have to do a great deal
more walking than they would if this were held in a convention center. I
managed to completely wear out my shoes over the course of the weekend, but it
was well worth it.
This convention is run by fans, for fans, which of course
has both positive and negative elements. On the positive side it doesn’t
feature any of the strict regulations that sometimes plague larger cons.
The autograph area is simply a room, where you can walk around, see
people, and line up for whoever you want to meet. The celebrities get to make
their own schedules for when they want to be there, and you don’t have to line
up hours in advance or get lucky in a ticket drawing in order to meet them.
Security was also a lot more lax then at other big conventions, with several
vendors selling live steel weaponry on site and several outfits that would be
impossible at other conventions for one reason or another. Also there were
bars, lots of bars. Literally at least two or three per hotel, and open all day
and night, so the entire convention was one big drunken four day party.
The flip side of this of course was the lack of organization.
It’s very apparent that Dragon Con doesn’t have any sort of singular event
coordinator to make sure everything is running smoothly. Each event or panel
basically has to govern itself when it comes to tech support and organization.
This results in several events clearly being run by people who are not prepared
to do so, and the show suffers as a result. The lack of organization also makes
navigating a colossal pain. Because the convention takes place across multiple
hotels, there are more than fifty different event rooms, floor names, and
venues to navigate, and each hotel has their own method of naming and
organizing them. Instead of a single unified map and room layout, patrons have
to navigate from building to building using sky-bridges, which leads to clogged
hallways and lost con-goers. It doesn’t help either that the hotel staff will know
the names and locations of areas in their hotel only, so getting help is a
pain. It took us two days to finally figure out the most efficient way to
navigate the area.
If you like massive parties and exceptional costumes, Dragon
Con is the con for you. The events run all night every night, so there no
shortage of things to do. If you don’t like large crowds, complex navigation,
or lots of walking however, this one may not be worth it. Even if you don’t
attend the event proper, Dragon Con takes over several square blocks of
downtown Atlanta, and even has a parade that’s open to the public, so if you’re
in the area you can still come by and experience the festivities.
I’m back everybody. Next week my post will be about my new
place and all the fun things it contains. After that I can go back to posting
about how Microsoft has their collective heads so far up their collective asses
they look like that inside out pig monster from Galaxy Quest
I forgot Alan Rickman was in this movie...
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