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: 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.