Dragoncon Postscript

I spent a day at DragonCon in the early 90s, but nothing prepared me for my experience Saturday morning.


It was absolute geek heaven-- every pop culture icon under the sun was manifested in costume-- often multiple times!

In the parade every science fiction and fantasy television show or author imaginable was represented by an organized group-- sometimes consisting of several hundred people.

And of course the parade is but one part of this four-day event. There were hundreds of celebrity guests, authors and television and movie stars, mostly, more than 20 fan tracks with presentations and workshops on specific subjects like anime, robots, future history, and steampunk, a competition for real robots, autograph sessions, a banquet and several breakfasts, filk music on at least three stages (it's called filk music because of a long-ago typo at an early science fiction convention), a comic book conference-within-the-conference, costume competitions, suites for socializing by attendees, a burlesque, side trips to the Georgia Aquarium and a Braves game, wrestling, a puppet slam, authors' readings, the apocalypto disco, gaming competitions, film screenings, closed-caption broadcasting of conference events, and innumerable late-night room parties.

I was completely unprepared for what DragonCon has become since my visit twenty years ago-- and completely unprepared for the registration line. Next year I'll have my act together and attend all four days! And I'll definitely be in front of the Westin with a chair by 6 am on the day of the parade so my camera will be unencumbered by people in front of me. All those arms, torsos, and heads played hell with the autofocus!

All four days of the conference cost only $120, and much less expensive day rates were available.

The website is, of course, www.dragoncon.com.

If you happen to read this on September 2 or 3, check out Four Days of DragonCon on antenna or cable at PBA channel 30-- or watch it on your computer now by clicking here.

And of course you can watch all sorts of YouTube videos. I've embedded one below.