DRAGONCON 2018
Sep. 7th, 2018 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaWife and I went! We enjoyed ourselves! We are both still kinda exhausted!
First thing: we have been to fan conventions before. Hell, Wife has been to ComicCon in San Diego! And still we did not expect the behemoth that is Dragon-Con. Five hotels plus two additional buildings. The Dealer's Room and Pop Artist's Alley takes up an entire building, y'all. (So I'm told. We did not get there, for wheelchair and exhaustion reasons.) We spent our first day getting lost between panels.
(On the dubiously bright side: wife was in her wheelchair for two out of three days (and using her cane for the third), so at least we got to wait in the disability line and not OUTSIDE IN THE HEAT for the really big panels. So, uh, yay?)
Second thing: the parade is even better in person than on TV (even the no-commercial-breaks version on DragonConTV). And there's an incredibly wide variety of cosplay - big fandoms, tiny fandoms, tiny outcroppings of big fandoms, and everything in between. Harry Potter! Discworld! The Adventure Zone! Yuri On Ice! And more that I'm not remembering off the top of my head, plus many more that I spotted in line for panels or the escalator or just while on the way to somewhere else, and couldn't go chasing for photos.
Third and final thing: DragonCon is utmost proof that you make your own fan experience. Want to go watch Laurell K Hamilton make a little bit of an idiot of herself on a NYT Bestsellers panel? We did! (It's super-noticable when everyone else is offering advice like 'write every day' and 'study your craft' and she's all 'DON'T LISTEN TO THE HATERS.') Want to go ask questions of (and get shots of alcohol from) the cast of LOST GIRL? You could! (True story - apparently one of the cast members had brought a flask, and was trying to get all his fellow cast members at the panel, and selected members of the audience, to do shots with him. In a non-harassing way, to be fair.) Want Peter Capaldi to cuss you out and tell you to shut up? Maybe try outright asking him instead of attempting to bore him into it, but once the fan in question figured that out, he got what he wanted. And I got to surprise Hal Lublin, voice of Steve Carlsberg, with the Night Vale Tarot card of his character. ("Where did you get this? ...the official store? Really? I haven't been keeping track, dang!")
EDIT: Wife has told me I forgot the best part! Down in Walk of Fame (the autograph room), checking to see when we could get an autograph from John Barrowman, and as we walked in that direction, Yet Another Person turned away from asking the same question. Except it wasn't just another fan, it was John Noble, of FRINGE and SLEEPY HOLLOW. We didn't pester him! But we may perhaps have had a moment of OMG HE'S RIGHT THERE, and also OMG JOHN NOBLE IS A FANBOY TOO.
First thing: we have been to fan conventions before. Hell, Wife has been to ComicCon in San Diego! And still we did not expect the behemoth that is Dragon-Con. Five hotels plus two additional buildings. The Dealer's Room and Pop Artist's Alley takes up an entire building, y'all. (So I'm told. We did not get there, for wheelchair and exhaustion reasons.) We spent our first day getting lost between panels.
(On the dubiously bright side: wife was in her wheelchair for two out of three days (and using her cane for the third), so at least we got to wait in the disability line and not OUTSIDE IN THE HEAT for the really big panels. So, uh, yay?)
Second thing: the parade is even better in person than on TV (even the no-commercial-breaks version on DragonConTV). And there's an incredibly wide variety of cosplay - big fandoms, tiny fandoms, tiny outcroppings of big fandoms, and everything in between. Harry Potter! Discworld! The Adventure Zone! Yuri On Ice! And more that I'm not remembering off the top of my head, plus many more that I spotted in line for panels or the escalator or just while on the way to somewhere else, and couldn't go chasing for photos.
Third and final thing: DragonCon is utmost proof that you make your own fan experience. Want to go watch Laurell K Hamilton make a little bit of an idiot of herself on a NYT Bestsellers panel? We did! (It's super-noticable when everyone else is offering advice like 'write every day' and 'study your craft' and she's all 'DON'T LISTEN TO THE HATERS.') Want to go ask questions of (and get shots of alcohol from) the cast of LOST GIRL? You could! (True story - apparently one of the cast members had brought a flask, and was trying to get all his fellow cast members at the panel, and selected members of the audience, to do shots with him. In a non-harassing way, to be fair.) Want Peter Capaldi to cuss you out and tell you to shut up? Maybe try outright asking him instead of attempting to bore him into it, but once the fan in question figured that out, he got what he wanted. And I got to surprise Hal Lublin, voice of Steve Carlsberg, with the Night Vale Tarot card of his character. ("Where did you get this? ...the official store? Really? I haven't been keeping track, dang!")
EDIT: Wife has told me I forgot the best part! Down in Walk of Fame (the autograph room), checking to see when we could get an autograph from John Barrowman, and as we walked in that direction, Yet Another Person turned away from asking the same question. Except it wasn't just another fan, it was John Noble, of FRINGE and SLEEPY HOLLOW. We didn't pester him! But we may perhaps have had a moment of OMG HE'S RIGHT THERE, and also OMG JOHN NOBLE IS A FANBOY TOO.