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Spend the weekend at a convention. CONvergence in Minneapolis to be specific. I had a great time. We all did.
CONvergence is a big con, but it has a great friendly feel to it and the best thing about it is that, despite it's size, it's a very family-friendly convention. I've found that fandom -- over the past several years and especially with the on-line fandom explosion -- has become a very unfriendly place towards those of us who are looking for a mature fan experience; Most art shows should be wrapped in plastic and bare an "Over-18" only sticker and the costume contest/masquerade looks like amateur-night at Hustler Magazine. CONvergence has managed to find a way to be adult without having to cater to the "Hello, I'm obviously repressed and insecure about who I am so I must be pornographic and crass because it's easier than actually figuring out a real personality" crowd. But that is another rant for another day.
CONvergence is sponsored by MISFITS, a Minneapolis SciFi group. If you've never been to a fan run Con, you are really missing out and this is the one to go to. This is as far from a signing convention as you can get. There are panels, a movie room, an anime room, art show, silent auction, masquerade, two con suites, a project room for kids, a dealers room, a party room sponsored by the con itself, and tons of room parties. If you're bored at this convention, it's because you're not trying.
First of all: panels. These aren't the sit in the audience and listen to the people talk, panels either. These are audience participation panels that should really be called round table discussions. Now, I generally don't go to a lot of panels at cons because I tend to be more of the go-where-the-spirit-moves-me type person than a plan-in-advance-and-schedule-my-weekend type person. I always highlight panels that I'd like to go to, but I only rarely make it them, but this weekend I made it to five. I went to the "Welcome Back Potter" panel, the "Lord of the Movies" panel, a copyright panel, a plotting panel, and the "98 Figures of Lead on the Wall" panel. I was happy that the HP and LOTR panels didn't turn out to be as massively fannish as I feared and people didn't get to crazy about their own interpretation of the characters. It was nice to talk about the whole series and not get bogged down in the "My interpretation is absolutely right and you are absolutely wrong" arguments. I was a little disappointed that the con had fewer writing panels than it usually did, but the plotting panel was good and had some good advice and pointers. I need to actually make contact with the published authors on the panels. The are very accessible and I think that a few contacts may come in handy. I always tend to hold off on that sort of thing though. I need to work on that. Networking is good and I need to remember that. Wil did managed to make some contacts. John Kovalic, creative genius behind Wildlife and Dork Tower was there and Wil got to spend some time talking to him.
CONvergence has the best Movie Room of any con I have ever been to. It's called CinemaRex; the movies are projected on a big screen, the room is mostly filled with old sofas and arm chairs, they provide popcorn, soda and candy and, most importantly, they show terrific movies. This year they had both The Two Towers and X2. The Two Towers was the version sent out to the Academy members and it had the words "For Your Consideration" imposed on it at intervals; not annoying enough to ruin the movie but it still popped up in scenes where I'd rather not have been distracted. I'm not sure where they got X2. It was advertised in the program as "Special Surprise Feature" that they couldn't advertise or pre-announce due to "Contractual Agreement". They showed both movies twice, with the only unfortunate thing being that they showed TTT at 2 am Saturday morning.
The other wonderful thing about CinemaRex is that they have a "Kurt Russell Movie and Pizza" special that they schedule opposite the opening ceremonies -- they show a Kurt Russell movie and serve free pizza. This year it was "Big Trouble in Little China"; a movie I just love. The pizza wasn't terrific, but it was free. *grin*
Myr had several dilemmas this year. CONvergence runs a "Project Room" which has all sorts of little crafting projects for kids to do and Myr just loves that. Her problem was that she wanted to do other things as well and she couldn't be in two places at once. Poor kid. Then she wanted to watch TTT and X2 with us but 2 am is not a good thing for a 10-year-old. Plus we were at a hotel and hotels have a pool and pools need to be swimmed in, right?
The dealer's room is a little small and very crowded. I've seen better but I've also seen worse. They have a nice selection of tables though so it's not all photos and collectibles. I didn't really buy anything this year but it was nice to look at the swords and jewelry.
The art show was full and very nice. Wil managed to sell two pieces much to his delight and I refrained from buying anything, much to my delight. Myr and I have come up with an idea to enter something in the art show next year, so maybe we will be able to sell something, too.
One of the unique things about CONvergence is that it encourages room parties. The hotel has two floors of rooms that open out/look over the pool area and these rooms are used for room parties. That's close to 40 rooms of parties that are open both nights, all night long. You have a show you like, a con you are running or just want to party -- this is the place for you. Drifting from party to party is great fun. I've always wanted to run a room party, but I don't want to do it alone and I've never quite decided on a theme that I like. Besides, I do like to sleep sometime, even at cons.
The only thing that could make the con better is if I could get some of my old con crowd to go to this one. It has the feel of the old MadMedia and Scorpio cons and reminds me of what WisCon was like before it became a "Con with an attitude".
Actually, I am just thrilled that it exists so that I can introduce Myr to how much fun cons can be.
CONvergence is a big con, but it has a great friendly feel to it and the best thing about it is that, despite it's size, it's a very family-friendly convention. I've found that fandom -- over the past several years and especially with the on-line fandom explosion -- has become a very unfriendly place towards those of us who are looking for a mature fan experience; Most art shows should be wrapped in plastic and bare an "Over-18" only sticker and the costume contest/masquerade looks like amateur-night at Hustler Magazine. CONvergence has managed to find a way to be adult without having to cater to the "Hello, I'm obviously repressed and insecure about who I am so I must be pornographic and crass because it's easier than actually figuring out a real personality" crowd. But that is another rant for another day.
CONvergence is sponsored by MISFITS, a Minneapolis SciFi group. If you've never been to a fan run Con, you are really missing out and this is the one to go to. This is as far from a signing convention as you can get. There are panels, a movie room, an anime room, art show, silent auction, masquerade, two con suites, a project room for kids, a dealers room, a party room sponsored by the con itself, and tons of room parties. If you're bored at this convention, it's because you're not trying.
First of all: panels. These aren't the sit in the audience and listen to the people talk, panels either. These are audience participation panels that should really be called round table discussions. Now, I generally don't go to a lot of panels at cons because I tend to be more of the go-where-the-spirit-moves-me type person than a plan-in-advance-and-schedule-my-weekend type person. I always highlight panels that I'd like to go to, but I only rarely make it them, but this weekend I made it to five. I went to the "Welcome Back Potter" panel, the "Lord of the Movies" panel, a copyright panel, a plotting panel, and the "98 Figures of Lead on the Wall" panel. I was happy that the HP and LOTR panels didn't turn out to be as massively fannish as I feared and people didn't get to crazy about their own interpretation of the characters. It was nice to talk about the whole series and not get bogged down in the "My interpretation is absolutely right and you are absolutely wrong" arguments. I was a little disappointed that the con had fewer writing panels than it usually did, but the plotting panel was good and had some good advice and pointers. I need to actually make contact with the published authors on the panels. The are very accessible and I think that a few contacts may come in handy. I always tend to hold off on that sort of thing though. I need to work on that. Networking is good and I need to remember that. Wil did managed to make some contacts. John Kovalic, creative genius behind Wildlife and Dork Tower was there and Wil got to spend some time talking to him.
CONvergence has the best Movie Room of any con I have ever been to. It's called CinemaRex; the movies are projected on a big screen, the room is mostly filled with old sofas and arm chairs, they provide popcorn, soda and candy and, most importantly, they show terrific movies. This year they had both The Two Towers and X2. The Two Towers was the version sent out to the Academy members and it had the words "For Your Consideration" imposed on it at intervals; not annoying enough to ruin the movie but it still popped up in scenes where I'd rather not have been distracted. I'm not sure where they got X2. It was advertised in the program as "Special Surprise Feature" that they couldn't advertise or pre-announce due to "Contractual Agreement". They showed both movies twice, with the only unfortunate thing being that they showed TTT at 2 am Saturday morning.
The other wonderful thing about CinemaRex is that they have a "Kurt Russell Movie and Pizza" special that they schedule opposite the opening ceremonies -- they show a Kurt Russell movie and serve free pizza. This year it was "Big Trouble in Little China"; a movie I just love. The pizza wasn't terrific, but it was free. *grin*
Myr had several dilemmas this year. CONvergence runs a "Project Room" which has all sorts of little crafting projects for kids to do and Myr just loves that. Her problem was that she wanted to do other things as well and she couldn't be in two places at once. Poor kid. Then she wanted to watch TTT and X2 with us but 2 am is not a good thing for a 10-year-old. Plus we were at a hotel and hotels have a pool and pools need to be swimmed in, right?
The dealer's room is a little small and very crowded. I've seen better but I've also seen worse. They have a nice selection of tables though so it's not all photos and collectibles. I didn't really buy anything this year but it was nice to look at the swords and jewelry.
The art show was full and very nice. Wil managed to sell two pieces much to his delight and I refrained from buying anything, much to my delight. Myr and I have come up with an idea to enter something in the art show next year, so maybe we will be able to sell something, too.
One of the unique things about CONvergence is that it encourages room parties. The hotel has two floors of rooms that open out/look over the pool area and these rooms are used for room parties. That's close to 40 rooms of parties that are open both nights, all night long. You have a show you like, a con you are running or just want to party -- this is the place for you. Drifting from party to party is great fun. I've always wanted to run a room party, but I don't want to do it alone and I've never quite decided on a theme that I like. Besides, I do like to sleep sometime, even at cons.
The only thing that could make the con better is if I could get some of my old con crowd to go to this one. It has the feel of the old MadMedia and Scorpio cons and reminds me of what WisCon was like before it became a "Con with an attitude".
Actually, I am just thrilled that it exists so that I can introduce Myr to how much fun cons can be.
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Date: 2003-07-07 03:30 pm (UTC)From: