Day 12, conventions
Aug. 12th, 2010 01:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrSo, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nurrynur wants me to write about conventions. She asked about more broad conceptual stuff, but this is going to be about half and half that alongside information about all of the specific conventions that I attend.
In January I start the year out with some long trips...
First I'm off to Columbus OH for OhayoCon, the sister convention for MTAC. Lots of anime and video games, and a whole lot of fun in the hot tub and indoor-outdoor pool at the Drury. Sometimes I work registration, sometimes I play video games, sometimes I just hang out. This is a pretty good anime convention, in a venue that gives them a hell of a lot of room to grow.
Next comes Arisia, in snowy Boston. The only time I'll visit a city while its rivers are frozen. I am mostly visitingkdsorceress, but this con isn't bad on its own. Gaming, sci-fi and fantasy literary panels, dances, and all sorts of carrying on. NASFIC/WorldCon bid parties, random room parties, and the occasional private shindig. Last year I ran some gaming here, this year I might volunteer or speak on a panel, but I'll probably do gaming again as well.
Closer to home is Chattacon, a small multifandom event in Chattanooga. Spread out over the acreage of the Choo Choo hotel, there's a lot of frosty walking, but it's worth it for the best con suite I've seen (free beer, multiple taps! hot food ~20 hours a day), a decent amount of gaming, and programming across the spectrum. And let's not forget a great party scene, including one of the best hotel layouts for parties I've seen. As many as a half dozen public and semi-public room parties in suites opening onto the same atrium, in a building free from noise complaints. I often teach Origami here, or just act as a random volunteer.
I slow down in February with just Connooga, the new-come challenger to Chattacon's domain. Same venue, a month later, with a very slightly more "adult" bent. They forgo the con suite in favor of a massive gaming area, which I can enjoy. The party scene is similar to Chattacon, in the same location, but some years better and some years worse. My regular class here is Shibari, and I hope to do it again this year.
March and early April are dead, time to rest and recuperate.
In late April or early May there are a couple of close or overlapping events...
MTAC is my home convention, where I transitioned from a LAN Partier to a Congoer many years ago. Held in Nashville on or around Easter every year, it has kept me going home these past few years. A few thousand anime fans and some gamers, a crowded event with a great programming schedule that covers a really diverse range of topics, including a nice martial arts track and a great costume contest. I've run parts of the tech dept here and rescued other depts that needed rescuing, and been a plain old volunteer. A great group of people, and a fun convention.
Frolicon is an adult fun convention, always held on Easter weekend in Atlanta. There are panels and events about sex, and kink, and kinky sex, alongside random other adult-friendly topics. The parties are insane, themed or unthemed, private or public, by far the highlight of the event. And don't forget the very well stocked play dungeon, with room for 100+ people at once, and every sort of furniture and contraption you can think of. Lately I've worked the information table, helping all the newcomers find their way, but I'm trying to get more into programming as I expand my repertoire of unusual toys and skill in their use.
Some time between May and July comes Play On Con, one of my favorite gaming events. 500 veteran congoers, with a heavy slant towards gamers, get together in Birmingham for a few days of gaming and partying and a little bit of random other programming. 24 hour pool parties, room parties and contests thereof, late night and early morning gaming... This is my favorite small convention. I've volunteered in the past, and ran on-site registration this year and might do that again.
In June I make the trip to Columbus OH for Origins, the biggest gaming convention in the country. A few tens of thousands of gamers doing their gamerly things. National finals and qualifiers foreverything from Monopoly to YuGiOh to Settlers of Catan. LARPs, RPGs, life-size games, scavenger hunts, and who knows what else to tickle your gaming fancies. Every year I work in the Board Game library or HQ, because this con is so awesome that they give volunteers (part of) a HOTEL ROOM!
July and August are quiet, the calm before the storm.
September begins a whirlwind, the heaviest convention season of the year for me...
Dragon*Con is the biggest convention that I attend, always held on Labor Day weekend (preceding the first Monday in September, so the last weekend in August or first weekend in September). It's also the craziest and most exciting. Somewhere north of 40000 geeks get together to celebrate and discuss just about everything that you can possibly be a geek about or a fan of. D*C is like taking a few dozen 1000-person conventions and cramming them all into the same place at the same time. You can spend the whole 5-day weekend doing nothing but gaming and have a hell of a time. Or nothing but Star Trek fandom stuff. Or nothing but British TV. Or learning Real Science from people with a whole lot of extra letters after their names. Or you can have a horizon-broadening experience by doing all of that, and 30 more things, all in a row. And while doing all of that, I also volunteer for the Tech Ops staff, doing stage sound and lighting sorts of things. D*C is big enough that there are officially sanctioned "parties" that are more like a gala or ball, with a thousand people in a ballroom with music and food and entertainment. There are public and semi-public and private hotel room parties of every sort all over five hotels (or more). If you live in the southeast USA, and only go to one convention, make it this one.
Atlanta Game Fest usually has one of their 2-3-times-per-year events in September as well. A hundred or so board gaming geeks, mostly modern euro-games, sharing a cheap hotel somewhere in town. It's like a local gaming meetup, only bigger, and usually with a small flea market component.
Anime Weekend Atlanta comes mid-September. 10000(?) or so anime fans come together for a lot of anime and video game sorts of stuff. The party scene is pretty weak, usually one VIP party and a couple of private parties and not much else. The average age of attendees hovers dangerously far south of 21, and some decisions with regard to programming and organization have slowly driven most of my friends away. This is a Saturday-evening-only convention for me these days, just for some photos and networking.
JapanFest sometimes overlaps AWA, sometimes it's a week earlier or later. A few years ago they moved from Stone Mountain (a beautiful outdoor venue) to the Gwinnett convention center (a very nice indoor venue), which somewhat changed the sort of crowd. This event is not really fandom, it's more of a cultural event, hosted by one of the Japanese-govt-sanctioned organizations here in town. Most people come for one day, a few hours, as opposed to the whole weekend. There is no hotel. The dealer room is wide and varied, everything from candy to origami to clothing to tractors. I'm usually working an MTAC or GMX booth here, or helping various of our mutual guests handle their things.
SIEGE is a game (mostly of the video sort) development convention held here in Atlanta and run by my friendhdiandrew. I've volunteered in the past, and will again in the future, when it doesn't conflict with other events. A lot of local video game industry professionals (and there are more than you might think, with Unity and CCP and god knows who else located here) get together to talk about the industry and learn how to design and test and such. Great people having a great time.
October continues the fall convention crunch...
Alchemy isn't really a convention, but it fits the same niche on my schedule. If you've heard of Burning Man, take that idea and scale it down by a factor of 50, throw in some trees and rain, and move it to about 80 miles outside of Atlanta. A thousand or so neo-hippies getting together in the woods to camp and drum and party and play and share art and passion and... Anyway, I helped build their effigy (a large ceremonial pyre) last year, and am attending this year. I'll help with sundry tasks on site, but not in any official capacity.
GMX brings me back to Nashville, a spinoff from MTAC that is a lot more in-line with my hobbies and interests. It's basically everything except anime, at a ~1000 person event. It has some of the startup con feel, but with the polish of a mature event since all of the staff have many years experience from MTAC. I'll be volunteering in some capacity and running as many Shibari panels as they will let me, plus as many private lessons as I can cram in. This is my most fun trip back to Nashville each year, and my first recommendation for any local geeks to follow me out of town for.
Rounding out the year, in November and December I take a break. Work might force some holidays on me, but they will be spent on parties around Atlanta.
That's my regular year. On top of that there are all sorts of things that I don't know enough about to describe or recommend, and I'm not sure I'm attending this upcoming year, but probably will, such as Faerie Escape, ShibariCon, FetishCon, AnachroCon, Atlanta Comic Con, OutlantaCon, DuckStock, and probably a half dozen more that I can't think of at 2AM.
If you're interested in knowing more about any of these events, or traveling with me to any of them, please let me know. The more the merrier, especially when it makes gas and hotels cheaper :)
nurrynur wants me to write about conventions. She asked about more broad conceptual stuff, but this is going to be about half and half that alongside information about all of the specific conventions that I attend.In January I start the year out with some long trips...
First I'm off to Columbus OH for OhayoCon, the sister convention for MTAC. Lots of anime and video games, and a whole lot of fun in the hot tub and indoor-outdoor pool at the Drury. Sometimes I work registration, sometimes I play video games, sometimes I just hang out. This is a pretty good anime convention, in a venue that gives them a hell of a lot of room to grow.
Next comes Arisia, in snowy Boston. The only time I'll visit a city while its rivers are frozen. I am mostly visiting
kdsorceress, but this con isn't bad on its own. Gaming, sci-fi and fantasy literary panels, dances, and all sorts of carrying on. NASFIC/WorldCon bid parties, random room parties, and the occasional private shindig. Last year I ran some gaming here, this year I might volunteer or speak on a panel, but I'll probably do gaming again as well.Closer to home is Chattacon, a small multifandom event in Chattanooga. Spread out over the acreage of the Choo Choo hotel, there's a lot of frosty walking, but it's worth it for the best con suite I've seen (free beer, multiple taps! hot food ~20 hours a day), a decent amount of gaming, and programming across the spectrum. And let's not forget a great party scene, including one of the best hotel layouts for parties I've seen. As many as a half dozen public and semi-public room parties in suites opening onto the same atrium, in a building free from noise complaints. I often teach Origami here, or just act as a random volunteer.
I slow down in February with just Connooga, the new-come challenger to Chattacon's domain. Same venue, a month later, with a very slightly more "adult" bent. They forgo the con suite in favor of a massive gaming area, which I can enjoy. The party scene is similar to Chattacon, in the same location, but some years better and some years worse. My regular class here is Shibari, and I hope to do it again this year.
March and early April are dead, time to rest and recuperate.
In late April or early May there are a couple of close or overlapping events...
MTAC is my home convention, where I transitioned from a LAN Partier to a Congoer many years ago. Held in Nashville on or around Easter every year, it has kept me going home these past few years. A few thousand anime fans and some gamers, a crowded event with a great programming schedule that covers a really diverse range of topics, including a nice martial arts track and a great costume contest. I've run parts of the tech dept here and rescued other depts that needed rescuing, and been a plain old volunteer. A great group of people, and a fun convention.
Frolicon is an adult fun convention, always held on Easter weekend in Atlanta. There are panels and events about sex, and kink, and kinky sex, alongside random other adult-friendly topics. The parties are insane, themed or unthemed, private or public, by far the highlight of the event. And don't forget the very well stocked play dungeon, with room for 100+ people at once, and every sort of furniture and contraption you can think of. Lately I've worked the information table, helping all the newcomers find their way, but I'm trying to get more into programming as I expand my repertoire of unusual toys and skill in their use.
Some time between May and July comes Play On Con, one of my favorite gaming events. 500 veteran congoers, with a heavy slant towards gamers, get together in Birmingham for a few days of gaming and partying and a little bit of random other programming. 24 hour pool parties, room parties and contests thereof, late night and early morning gaming... This is my favorite small convention. I've volunteered in the past, and ran on-site registration this year and might do that again.
In June I make the trip to Columbus OH for Origins, the biggest gaming convention in the country. A few tens of thousands of gamers doing their gamerly things. National finals and qualifiers foreverything from Monopoly to YuGiOh to Settlers of Catan. LARPs, RPGs, life-size games, scavenger hunts, and who knows what else to tickle your gaming fancies. Every year I work in the Board Game library or HQ, because this con is so awesome that they give volunteers (part of) a HOTEL ROOM!
July and August are quiet, the calm before the storm.
September begins a whirlwind, the heaviest convention season of the year for me...
Dragon*Con is the biggest convention that I attend, always held on Labor Day weekend (preceding the first Monday in September, so the last weekend in August or first weekend in September). It's also the craziest and most exciting. Somewhere north of 40000 geeks get together to celebrate and discuss just about everything that you can possibly be a geek about or a fan of. D*C is like taking a few dozen 1000-person conventions and cramming them all into the same place at the same time. You can spend the whole 5-day weekend doing nothing but gaming and have a hell of a time. Or nothing but Star Trek fandom stuff. Or nothing but British TV. Or learning Real Science from people with a whole lot of extra letters after their names. Or you can have a horizon-broadening experience by doing all of that, and 30 more things, all in a row. And while doing all of that, I also volunteer for the Tech Ops staff, doing stage sound and lighting sorts of things. D*C is big enough that there are officially sanctioned "parties" that are more like a gala or ball, with a thousand people in a ballroom with music and food and entertainment. There are public and semi-public and private hotel room parties of every sort all over five hotels (or more). If you live in the southeast USA, and only go to one convention, make it this one.
Atlanta Game Fest usually has one of their 2-3-times-per-year events in September as well. A hundred or so board gaming geeks, mostly modern euro-games, sharing a cheap hotel somewhere in town. It's like a local gaming meetup, only bigger, and usually with a small flea market component.
Anime Weekend Atlanta comes mid-September. 10000(?) or so anime fans come together for a lot of anime and video game sorts of stuff. The party scene is pretty weak, usually one VIP party and a couple of private parties and not much else. The average age of attendees hovers dangerously far south of 21, and some decisions with regard to programming and organization have slowly driven most of my friends away. This is a Saturday-evening-only convention for me these days, just for some photos and networking.
JapanFest sometimes overlaps AWA, sometimes it's a week earlier or later. A few years ago they moved from Stone Mountain (a beautiful outdoor venue) to the Gwinnett convention center (a very nice indoor venue), which somewhat changed the sort of crowd. This event is not really fandom, it's more of a cultural event, hosted by one of the Japanese-govt-sanctioned organizations here in town. Most people come for one day, a few hours, as opposed to the whole weekend. There is no hotel. The dealer room is wide and varied, everything from candy to origami to clothing to tractors. I'm usually working an MTAC or GMX booth here, or helping various of our mutual guests handle their things.
SIEGE is a game (mostly of the video sort) development convention held here in Atlanta and run by my friend
hdiandrew. I've volunteered in the past, and will again in the future, when it doesn't conflict with other events. A lot of local video game industry professionals (and there are more than you might think, with Unity and CCP and god knows who else located here) get together to talk about the industry and learn how to design and test and such. Great people having a great time.October continues the fall convention crunch...
Alchemy isn't really a convention, but it fits the same niche on my schedule. If you've heard of Burning Man, take that idea and scale it down by a factor of 50, throw in some trees and rain, and move it to about 80 miles outside of Atlanta. A thousand or so neo-hippies getting together in the woods to camp and drum and party and play and share art and passion and... Anyway, I helped build their effigy (a large ceremonial pyre) last year, and am attending this year. I'll help with sundry tasks on site, but not in any official capacity.
GMX brings me back to Nashville, a spinoff from MTAC that is a lot more in-line with my hobbies and interests. It's basically everything except anime, at a ~1000 person event. It has some of the startup con feel, but with the polish of a mature event since all of the staff have many years experience from MTAC. I'll be volunteering in some capacity and running as many Shibari panels as they will let me, plus as many private lessons as I can cram in. This is my most fun trip back to Nashville each year, and my first recommendation for any local geeks to follow me out of town for.
Rounding out the year, in November and December I take a break. Work might force some holidays on me, but they will be spent on parties around Atlanta.
That's my regular year. On top of that there are all sorts of things that I don't know enough about to describe or recommend, and I'm not sure I'm attending this upcoming year, but probably will, such as Faerie Escape, ShibariCon, FetishCon, AnachroCon, Atlanta Comic Con, OutlantaCon, DuckStock, and probably a half dozen more that I can't think of at 2AM.
If you're interested in knowing more about any of these events, or traveling with me to any of them, please let me know. The more the merrier, especially when it makes gas and hotels cheaper :)
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-12 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 01:19 am (UTC)I thought people like this were made up...
http://notalwaysright.com/kids-movies-cost-an-arm-and-a-leg/6535
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 08:30 pm (UTC)I realize there's been an aggressive campaign since the '90s to portray anime as a hip exciting cutting edge avant-garde artsy animation experience that's NOT FOR KIDS, but that's all marketing bullshit. Unless you actually believe that Sailor Moon and Dragonball is sophisticated adult entertainment. The kids buying Yu-Gi-Oh Happy Meals - and the corporations that sell these properties to children - know better.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 01:36 am (UTC)You do realize Princess Mononoke (the film referred to in your link) is a PG rated movie, right? Hardly adults-only fare. Films like "Legend Of The Overfiend" are the exception, not the rule. Even in Japan.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 01:50 am (UTC)How does "all-ages" equate to "aimed at teenagers and children"?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 02:09 am (UTC)But enough of this nitpicking. Enlighten me, if you will, in the mysterious ways that Japan's adults-only anime industry dwarfs its suitable-for-all-ages output, and how this should be reflected in the average age of Anime Weekend Atlanta's membership, which is getting dangerously young!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 02:22 am (UTC)I have no idea what any of this has to do with my original statement, you're the one who is going off on this wild tangent about age suitability of anime.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 04:35 pm (UTC)Throwing out terms like "romance genres" is meaningless. Care to name some titles of romance shows created for adults? Do you have any specific sitcom anime titles that were created for adults? Name three family drama anime shows that were created for adults. I'm not saying anime shows created for adults don't exist - Lupin III for one was always animed at an adult audience. But the adult-focused series are vastly outnumbered by fifty years of goofy children's comedy shows (Dokonjo), adaptations of classic children's literature (Heidi, Anne Of Green Gables, Little Women, Tom Sawyer, The Yearling, etc) insane super robot shows (Mazinger
Z and 100s of others), juvenile space opera (Space Battleship Yamato), girl's romance (Candy Candy), historical drama (Rose Of Versailles), high school sports drama (Aim For The Ace), and shows that defy categorization (Patalliro).
You may say that the description of "aimed at adults" encompasses most anime. You'd be wrong, though, by any yardstick you care to use.
It was always AWA's intent to create a show that people of all ages would be comfortable attending, that parents and children could enjoy. Fortunately, all we had to do was stay focused on Japanese animation. We have some adults-only material, but for the most part we've tried to keep things family friendly. I think our constantly-increasing attendance figures show this to be a successful policy. Certainly by aiming at a general audience we seem to be connecting in a way that the typical literary SF convention does not.
Sorry to hijack your LJ with my pedantry. Please, enjoy your non-AWA conventions.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 02:50 am (UTC)Also, you keep making false distinctions. I never said most anime was aimed at adults. Do you grasp that media can be produced without targeting a specific audience?