I waited on this for a while because after a few days of recovering from Dragon*Con 2011 I had to sit back and think what in the world I had just attended. I have never been to a multi-day convention before, in fact I’ve only gone to local conventions like the Salt Lake Tattoo Convention and even then it was because I was getting tattooed.
Dragon*Con became a perfect storm for me and I couldn’t say no. I had a flight voucher, a hotel already set up and it was over a holiday weekend. Dragon*Con was basically telling me I was a bitch if I didn’t attend.
I got in about 11 P.M. on Thursday and within seconds of getting out of the cab I could already feel the nerd vibe. People were hanging out in front of the Hilton in costume and walking inside there was a full X-Men team sitting in the lobby. While I waited for Swank to come grab me and show me the room I started getting my camera gear out because I knew there would be tons of people in costume. After settling in and meeting Scarlett Robotica they took me to the bar, proof that Swank knew I would need booze to survive the weekend.
I was a bit surprised that night, the elevators weren’t packed, there weren’t all that many people around and even in costume the people weren’t really showing any skin, all those things would change by the next night. We found our way to the Marriott and up to the Pulse Bar where I discovered the people dispensing the booze were evil bastards charging $10 for a whiskey and coke. That is just wrong. Especially when Swank knocks your drink over as you’re taking pictures. Even with the outrageous drink prices I ended up hanging out in the loft bar there for a lot of the weekend, it was the perfect spot to watch the people go by. Any shot that seems angled from above in my flickr gallery from the weekend was taken from there. Another reason I hung out there so much is because it was a great place to get the hell away from all the people.
Friday morning I had to hunt down the Media Room to get my badge, my first elevator ride was smooth but I was warned by the other passenger, “The Elevator Game starts today, up to go down, good luck.” That became my mantra and helped me out a lot over the weekend. I made my way over Hyatt (across 2 hotels) without ever setting foot outside and started wandering around looking for the Media Room. After being pointed to the complete wrong hotel by the woman at the Information booth I got my pass and since I had absolutely no idea what to do I headed back to the loft to people watch and take pictures.
I downloaded the Dragon*Con app and perused all the tracks and panels and tried to plan my weekend. I found a problem really quickly, a guy like me is doomed to stand in line forever. The things that struck my interest were going to be the most popular. BSG, Doctor Who, any sort of contest. They would be lined up for hours, and I just wasn’t interested in that. The other problem is so many things I enjoyed were happening at the same time. I missed the Comic Book Babes contest by going to the Georgia Aquarium and ended up missing every other panel because I was just plain exhausted.
Friday we hit the liquor store to try and stop the hemorrhaging of our wallets at the many many hotel bars, and found that to be just as bad. When the price of booze is double that of the Utah state run stores with their 83% mark up, you are an evil greedy tyrant and you can fuck right off. This liquor store was robbed a few days before the con and with price gouging like that I feel no sympathy. However, Yuengling in hand I started hating people a lot less and having more fun, people were flowing into the hotels as the sun went down and there were just so many great costumes.
I really started to have fun Friday night, I had some booze in me (somehow never enough to get drunk) and every one was just so damn nice. Literally everyone was polite and always up to talk. I think the only guy who was ever much of a jerk was a photographer at the Marvel Meet Up. Everyone else was happy to pose and tell me about their costume and other things they cosplay as. I started feeling out of place in my street clothes.
With so many thousands of people in costumes it was strange to feel out of place but I was glad to be comfortable. The East Coast and I are not friends and I was sweltering the entire weekend. The only time it cooled down is when the rain came in on Sunday, and that signaled doom and late flights for a lot of people, for me it was heaven.
Everyone was off doing their own thing on Saturday and I once again found myself in the Marriott watching people go by and snapping pictures at anything interesting when I noticed a change. A lot of the people streaming by weren’t wearing badges and there was suddenly a shit ton of kids. All the walkways became impassable and just getting past the strollers was a task. There was also a lot of Georgia football fans in the bar. Basically everyone was streaming in to gawk and it ruined the vibe for me. I was exhausted and my hatred for oblivious people with strollers was becoming more than beer could handle so I went to the room to pass out for a while and edit pictures. I ended up passing out for hours and woke up in time to grab a shower and head to the aquarium.
Every year there is a Dragon*Con night at the Georgia Aquarium with discounted tickets and guests,music, special effects, and drinks. I got there a bit early grabbed some food, which sadly was just as shitty and overpriced as the shitty overpriced food at the Peach Tree Center food court next to the Hyatt. They had music playing, some metal and rock that I guess they figured catered to the Dragon*Con crowd and the lights were low and constantly changing color. It wasn’t crowded and that made me happy, it was nice to wander and get some good pictures and to see some people in costume in an interesting environment. They had some bars set up with Star Wars themed drinks that were actually reasonably priced and pretty tasty. I ordered a “Force” because the “Death Star” looked too thick and syrupy. I tried to hold out for the entertainment but by 830 I’d seen everything twice and the speaker were just barely welcoming people and I wanted to get back to the hotels.
Back at the hotels things were heating up, costumes were becoming smaller and I had stopped at a different not ridiculously over priced liquor store and nabbed some booze. I met up with the robots and waited for the “Last Party On Alderaan” which I thought would be a Star Wars themed party and something great from the long line it had drawn. Turned out it was just a dark room with thumping techno. We retreated out to the lobby and kept drinking and this is probably when I got the best pictures and had the most fun. People would just walk around and around the elevator core of the hotel and it was great. I sat back and snapped away.
Sunday was the Marvel Cosplay shoot as well as the Masquerade. I was a lazy ass all morning and edited the massive amount of pictures I had during the day. The rain started just in time for the Marvel shoot so while the clouds made for good lighting it also drained a lot of time. I was back in the room for just enough time to figure out how to get into the Masquerade and set up. Up in the press box I sat back and waited for the Masquerade to start with no idea that it was going to be so long, but it was nice to have a padded seat and a great view. The hosts were hilarious and Aaron Douglas dug himself a deep hole making a drinking game joke with a live audience.
That was my last night and even thinking back with a week behind me it’s still all a blur. I never actually made it to a panel. We tried to go to Liberals In Space and arrived about 3 minutes late. While standing outside trying to figure out what to do we heard yelling and apparently the panel had gotten into a fight and ended it within 5 minutes of it starting. After that we tried to go to a Trivia Contest but it was actually just a SteamPunk author trying to advertise her book. It went from a room completely full to almost empty in about 5 minutes. 
All in all I had a great time and can see why a lot of people love this con and prefer it to some other ones. From my perspective it seems like a con for geeks by geeks whereas San Diego seems to be more about pop culture and whatever movie/series is coming out soon. The fans seemed to be the focus here and even though I didn’t make a panel everyone else I was with did and they were dialed into their fandom. I can’t see any reason I would go back, I had a great time but I had the experience and now I want to move on and check out something different. Every time someone discovered that Dragon*Con was my first come they were a bit shocked and wished me good luck and maybe that is why it was a bit overwhelming for me. Or it could be just that I’m a grumpy bastard who couldn’t keep a solid buzz. Whatever.