The Last Cons: Farpoint and ScrumCon Photos

For Farpoint, a more traditional con, there is the dealer's area, in which dealers pile stuff on top of each other to show it off.

Because you never know when you might have to impress a wandering wizard with your wares.

Meanwhile at ScrumCon, things are about ready to get crazy with blaster fire

While my gang of trusty mutants in the foreground are about ready to risk the underground lair.

Meanwhile people ponder how to do mayhem in a more general sense in one of the gaming rooms of ScrumCon

Even as Fred Hicks, of Evil Hat Productions, ponders what he is going to inflict on his players.

All I can think of is so many people, so close to each other, without any masks. It is going to be a while until we can get back to that.

The Last Cons: ScrumCon

ScrumCon

Feb 29th

Silver Spring Civic Center

ScrumCon is a new one-day tabletop gaming convention with 2020 its second year.  Unlike a lot of other new tabletop game conventions, this one seemed to focus on role-playing and miniature games rather than boardgames.  WashingCon, other newish game convention in DC was described to me as boardgame focused while NOVAOpen is older and miniatures focused.  This year ScrumCon was at the Silver Spring Civic Center is just inside the Maryland side of the DC Beltway.  This is the first convention at that location I have attended though it only took up three or so rooms.  I managed to avoid the curse of DC parking since downtown Silver Spring has municipal garages that were free on weekends.  A writing group I attended a few years previously had been located nearby so I was familiar with the area and did not bumble around looking for it.  Unlike the previous conventions discussed I did not have a chance to volunteer for this one.  The convention didn’t have any panels or even a dealers room, just gaming tables and a swap table for people sell their old games.  I discovered this con by seeing a flyer posted at a shop only a few weeks before it happened which was too late to sign up for the headline games but still managed to find some good ones.  

There were two gaming session slots for the con and I found interesting games for both.  The first was a homebrew Buck Rogers style pulp warband miniatures game with old-fashioned flattened miniatures.  Everyone had a squad of miniatures, with some squads having named characters with special abilities and each player had their own objective.  Throw in a large and detailed playing area, a dirty dive of a space bar with way too many ray guns and mirrored surfaces for shots to bounce off so mayhem quickly ensued.  I played aliens whose objective was merely to leave with their loot and while my loot guy survived, he did not manage to exit the playing area before the game ended.  Still, I got to see someone shoot a ray gun, miss, bounce off a wall mirror and disintegrate someone just as they were about to escape.  The miniature was replaced with a melted 'dead' one, with smoke (colored cotton) coming out it that blocked one of the exits that everyone was rushing towards.

The other game that I played was a different warband miniature game called “This Is Not a Test” with survivors in a post-atomic apocalypse wandering the wastelands to get loot, experience and power ups.  Yes, yes, it is more complicated and nuanced than that, but that works for a brief description.  We played in an underground fallout shelter, again with each player with a different warband all trying to deactivate the MacGuffin and get the loot while avoiding the mutated monsters.  I had a bunch of mutants (but not monsters), and while I scored well, I did not pull a win.  Of course, I had never played the game before so that was not too surprising.  Still, it turns out that the gamesmaster was the creator of the game and it was pleasant to find out that he was local.

He was far from the only 'celebrity' gamemaster there, with Zeb Cook, Ed Stark and Bill Slaviscek all names that were once connected with tabletop gaming (mostly during the 2nd and 3rd edition of D&D eras and with West End Games) gamemastering there.  The downside of course those were the games that were sold out way before I was even aware of the con, but someone mentioned that they now worked locally so maybe next year!  I also spoke with Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions for a few minutes.  There were plans for people to meetup at a bar after the convention to hang out, but I did not feel like waiting for it.  My inability to hang out in bars is the single greatest liability of my writing and freelance career.  And that is only half a joke.  I must admit by this time I was also socially exhausted from the three weeks of cons, so it was easy to convince myself to skip it. 

Months later as I write this those were still the last in person games I've played in addition to being the last time I was at a full table for any reason.  My big plans to attend many cons last year has suffered and the next con that is still happening is Cold Wars in April 2021.  Whether or not these were the Last Cons, they will be last for a while.

The Last Cons: Farpoint

Farpoint

February 21-23rd

Hunt Valley Inn

Farpoint is a general/Star Trek sci-fi convention that has been held in the Baltimore area since the 90s.  Considering I have been in the area for most of that time, it is a surprise that this was the first time I attended.  Mostly it was a combination of distance (about an hour) and that the convention in general is not a good match for me.  I tend to attend conventions for panels and workshops, for discovering new and interesting shows and to pick up and play new games.  Farpoint is named after a Star Trek: Next Generation episode and when I had looked at it previously the focus seemed to be sci-fi media guests.  Which is fine but not what draws me to a convention.

That meant I had more time to hang out with people and learn the ways of this con.  Like at KatsuCon I went up a day early in order to volunteer for setup.  Most of the time that strategy is so your volunteer hours are outside of the actual con hours to have free time during the con itself.  But I figured I would spend most of the time at the con volunteering for there were only a handful of panels that looked interesting and I would need the time to introduce myself to the staff and figure out how things were arranged.  I was familiar with the venue because while Hunt Valley Inn has had several different owners and names over the years, I first attended BaltiCon there and it has been the home of several other cons.  It has free parking (you will be amazed just how much parking can add up) and cheap restaurants nearby so which is better than being trapped with convention center food (shudder) or overpriced restaurants outside the convention center (I'm looking at you Baltimore Inner Harbor.)

I ended up working with the tech crew even though I do not have a lot of experience, so I was mostly an extra body to move stuff.  They were generous enough to let me crash in their hotel room rather than let me drive back home after we were finished setting up around midnight the first night.  That meant I had time in the morning to be lazy at a coffee shop before heading back to work.  I helped where I could, with my free time filled by watching anime that was run by the DC Anime Club.  I helped set up the panel rooms along with sitting in (watching, not paneling) on a writing panel.  The day ended with opening ceremonies and a charity auction.  I usually do not bother attending con ceremonies because I have little interaction with the staff so when they talk about who put together the convention it means little to me.  Farpoint is a smaller convention most of whom when I asked had been attending for years. For them, the attendees had known the staff for years, so the status updates and other news at opening ceremonies was meaningful to them.

After that, I drove home since there was no need to work late as it had been for setup, but I worried about the early morning return.  The ten am start time for most convention events was enough time for me to wake up at a reasonable hour and return with time to spare.

Saturday was more of the same, checking out the panel rooms that were using their projectors, making sure they had all the tech equipment they needed while the various media guests had talks on the main stage where the tech folks were headquartered.  The headline media guests this year were all associated with Star Trek and since attendees received two free autographs with their convention membership, I decided to use them.  I found it amusing that since the Farpoint handbook did not have an autograph page and I still had my KatsuCon one in my car which did, I ended getting my free autographs on that instead.  One of the media guests, Penny Johnson Jerald (who was on Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Orville) turned out to have grown up in the Baltimore area and had her family surprise her at the con.  I always wonder about that, how the family of actors perceive how actors are treated as media guests at cons as they knew said guests before they even started acting.  I ended up not getting an autograph from her simply because I had seen at KatsuCon that Station Unity, a new local con late in the summer had her as a guest.  I figured that if I wanted one, I could get it there.  Of course, Station Unity ended up being cancelled for the year though it is supposed to still happen in 2021 with the same guests.

On Saturday night I assisted the performers during the Masquerade which despite being fan-oriented I do not usually attend because the performances can be so hit and miss.  I would think practicing your skit/performance would be given before going in front of that many people!  I do remember a fantastic muppet style skit that was done at the Baltimore Convention Center (I want to say at a Otakon but I can't be sure) but most of the time they don't make much of an impression.  I was glad to help and was impressed by two skit/performances, one with a bunch of dancing blankets with the punchline of 'happiness is a warm blanket' while the other was Muppet style creature costume that reminded me of Dark Crystal characters.  It needed some more detail work but still was evocative of the style.

Afterwards I helped set up the room for the post Masquerade dance then ducked out for the night.  The next morning I was relieved that it would the last time I would commuting because it had lost its charm.  Sunday was more of the same, I had plenty of time to check out different departments at the con and talk to folks, and most panelists were glad to see someone check in regularly to make sure that things were going well but otherwise it was relatively straightforward.  After the con ended there were hours spent tearing down the tech equipment though by then I had gotten familiar with the equipment, so I like to think that I improved from when I had begun but suspect it was not as much as I hoped.  I could carry things without difficulty but there was a lot of it so I have to admit towards the end I was lagging but I hope I contributed.  Not carried my own weight, because trust me, if you could see me, you would know that would be difficult, but I compensated by sticking around to the end, being one of the last to leave, which was late.

The Last Cons: KatsuCon Photos

The famous KatsuCon (really Gaylord National Harbor) Gazebo. Long celebrated in song and story (and lots of pics and videos) this was probably the only time that I saw it not being used for a camera shot. This was 4am, people started lining up to use soon after.

This was the far more common way to see the Gazebo during the con.

These folks were nice enough to let me take a picture of them together, because KatsuCon is about the cosplay and the performance of it, so the camera people, that frame the shots and make them dynamic, are just as important as the cosplayers themselves. But since this outside...

...you really should see more of it. You can see I95 of the upper right, and all those groups are cosplayers and photographers arranging shots with that in the backdrop.

While they prepare in the hotel arboretum to brave the outside for their photoshoots. Yes, this was still inside.

This on the other hand, wasn't one of the more picturesque places to shoot, but that was the line of people to participate in the Marvel cosplayer mass shoot.

Look at all those partying people! Don't you just want to yell at them to wear a mask? Last time any of them got to boogie on down for a while.

The Last Cons: KatsuCon

KatsuCon

Feb 14-16

Gaylord National Harbor

I have been attending KatsuCon for twenty years, ever since they were in Crystal City in Alexandria.  The convention has sort of evolved to having more of a cosplay focus and filling the Gaylord National Harbor, one of the larger venues in the region with the convention attendance reported to be around 17000 this year.  KatsuCon is considered a major stop of the national cosplay convention circuit with major names in cosplay attending partly thanks to the great locations for photoshoots around the venue.  If you look online, you will find dozens of pages with pictures and videos of cosplayers at KatsuCon with many featuring its famous indoor gazebo.  At the time, since I planned to attend many conventions, I volunteered to make it more affordable.  Like most fan cons, KatsuCon runs Friday through Sunday but I visited on Thursday to try to get my volunteering time in early.  I spent the time helping with the artist alley setup and was offered crash space for the night, but I had not planned to stay so I headed home

I originally wrote and edited out a long section here about how parking at National Harbor is both expensive and annoying, including the rock climbing I had to do to reach my prepaid parking lot.  Let us just say parking at conventions is one of my bugaboos, and the Gaylord is one of those places that apparently enjoys making you suffer for it.

On the other hand, the Gaylord is one of the nicest convention venues I have ever had the pleasure of attending.  It is right on the Potomac by the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, where Interstate 95, the major north-south highway for the east coast crosses.  Getting there is easy from basically the entire east coast of the US.  Once you have survived the parking there is a picturesque area overlooking the Potomac with a landscaped approach from the water up to the hotel.  Inside there is a large, enclosed arboretum which has several little houses, paths and a water display.  Overlooking that is large balcony that has the famous gazebo.  If you have seen a 'best of' cosplay video made in the last decade that had shots of more than a single con, I can guarantee that you have seen parts of the Gaylord.  The actual halls, panel rooms and so on are not that impressive, but everything else is.

That said, I am not a cosplayer so all I do is admire the costumes.  I am old enough to remember the days when fans passed around bootlegged videotapes taken off Japanese TV, never mind the era of torrented fansubs so I got into the habit and enjoy going to cons to discover and sample new shows while occasionally watching old favorites.  I also go to see what fans create and what has the community excited.  The dealers’ room does not attract as much attention from me as it once did, because all the once hard to find merchandise is now readily available online so instead, I focus on the artist alley with their unique creations and the various fan panels.  KatsuCon also has a track called Japanese Cultural Institute which has more traditional Japanese activities such Japanese martial arts, tea ceremonies and in previous years Shinto services. 

Even with all that I had promised volunteer time with my duty on opening day was artist alley's opening.  If any of you that attended remember a guy begging to not be run over when the doors opened, I apologize.  I had been giving safety spiels every ten minutes for two hours, watching people line up and eye the closed doors behind me and wondered if I would survive the stampede once they opened.  That was the major project that I did on Friday, while on Saturday I spent time at the coat check.  I checked out some new anime, including a ridiculous exercise/gym one and watched the Anime Music Video contests.  Some were good, some bad, nothing that stuck out me as others had in previous years. 

I have included some photos in the next post, with comments, but this was an average KatsuCon/anime con for me.  I discovered a few interesting shows that I later followed up on streaming sites, watched episodes of shows that I had not seen for a while and made interesting contacts by volunteering but otherwise had a relaxing time.  I was surprised to be pumped up to volunteer on Sunday to help break down the convention, but they were so organized they barely needed me, so I left right after closing ceremonies.  Yes, I am one of those folks that insist if I drop so much money on a convention, I will be there when it opens on the first day and only leave after it closes on the last day.  I would soon learn that not all conventions wrap up so fast.

The Last Cons (of 2020)

The Last Cons (of 2020)

When I first thought about writing of my con experiences in 2020, I thought the title would be 'March of the Cons'.  I had decided that in 2020 I would attend as many of the local DC/Baltimore conventions as I could.  I had started out with Super MagFest, a gaming (mostly video) and music convention in early January but in February there was three distinctive conventions one right after another.  KatsuCon, a large twenty thousand-ish anime con with a strong cosplay focus at the National Harbor just outside DC on the Potomac.  Next was Farpoint, a thousand attendee sci-fi/Star Trek convention that was just north of Baltimore at the Hunt Valley Inn, home of many local cons.  Lastly, ScrumCon a new tabletop gaming convention in Silver Spring just inside the DC Beltway with only a couple hundred (if that) attendees.  With these three different cons with contrasting focuses and sizes, I thought it would be a good comparison of local cons and be fun to write about them.  But after ScrumCon I was tired and put off writing about them figuring it could wait a week or so.

Two weeks later Maryland shut down and things have not been quite the same since.

Let us put aside all the bigger changes that have happened and focus on what we really care about here, the conventions.   On the fan level a lot of cons were and continue to be affected not only because their venues were closed but also because guests canceled due to health or travel concerns.  Some of the conventions have rescheduled (AwesomeCon first rescheduled for December then again to 2021), some chose to do virtual events (BaltiCon did so on their traditional Memorial Day weekend) and a few just wrote off the year and confirmed 2021's dates (BlerdCon).  Thankfully for the moment none of the local cons have been killed off.

There have been concerns on what are the short- and longer-term consequences for conventions, how they will be held going forward or even whether the current bunch of conventions and their organizations can survive.  I started writing about that but stopped when I realized after thousands of words, I had barely even touched on some of the problems.

All I can say for certain is that back in February I attended “The Last Cons” for a while so I will share my experience with you.

Since I am talking about three different conventions, and will have some photos to share, this article will be split over several blog posts, so as they go live just go to newer one or check the relevant tags and/or categories.