Keycon 26 - Review Part 2

Keycon 26 Review Continued

Hospitality AKA- the 15th Floor:
Right Photo - The Staggering Penguin as seen from the entrance
Left Photo - Carved sign at the entrance of the Sleeping Dragon

If I had to pick one place to be the heart of Keycon it would be the 15th floor and its assorted Hospitality rooms. This year offered up seven different suites each with a different theme. Most people end up finding one or two that they like early on and spend most of their evenings visiting with friends, drinking and just generally socializing. This year I found myself hanging out more and more in the Sleeping Dragon it is something of a 15th floor gaming area. There I could drink, play games, and socialize what more could you ask for. I also liked Dorm 1701 which held a graduation party Star Fleet Academy style as a room they stayed open the latest for the Sunday night Dead Dog Party. They created a really interesting look by covering the windows with printed out images on massive sheets of paper.

At opposite ends of the 15th floor we had two very different suites The Staggering Penguin Tavern and the Poisoned Apple. The Penguin was a dimly lit Tavern went heavily for the décor look covering both the walls and the ceiling. While at the opposite end was the Poisoned Apple which was a bright and cheer room, going more for the inviting welcoming look.

Videos & W.A.C.
Also on the 15th floor was the official Video Room showing a wide range of old favourites to movies that have only recently been released on video. It didn’t seem to be running the same all night scheduling that it has for the past few years. I’m not really sure what caused the change but was impressed by the videos they did show. Which included a vampire film entitled Let the Right One In which in the minds of many is the best vampire film of the past year. If you haven’t seen this you really should get out and find a copy. W.A.C. the Winnipeg Anime Club also had it’s room up and running although they were not up and running by 3 o’clock Friday like they have been in the past. I was surprised to not see the DDR out this year it has been a popular past time over the past few years in their room. They also had some of the more valuable prizes in their silent auction including a wide range of Anime and two of the new Nintendo DSi.

Programming:
I attended more in the way of programming items this year then I have traditionally. That has a lot to do with my blossoming interesting in writing and the work I am doing on Carpe Arcanum and other projects. Regardless of the reason I made it out to about 5 or 6 discussion / programming items. The variety of programming was pretty good and the panels I made it out to where very well attended for the most part. It seems more and more people at Keycon are interested in writing this time around as the convention offered up a number of writing focused panels and discussions.

Two observations about programming first the moderators need to moderate. If the discussion is about a certain topic and the author guest is there don’t let the crowd take over the discussion and turn it in to a Q&A session with the author on whatever topic they like. I saw this happen a couple of times at panels over the weekend and the moderator never stepped up to bring things back on track. Second is that there is a fair amount of over lap in panels so on more then one occasion I found myself wanting to be in two places at once.

I haven’t commented on the Read Off since I was involved in setting it up. I would be interested in any feed back on it. So let me know what you thought so we can make it better next year.

Dealers Room:
The Dealers room was moved up to a nice and brightly lit room right beside the restaurant and the cash machine. Hopefully this brought about some more foot traffic for the room. Sadly I found the room didn’t offer much that I hadn’t seen before. The majority of the things I picked up where books that I could have grabbed any day of the week. It would be nice to some new dealers to go along with the traditional ones.

Gaming:
Gaming was another part of the convention that found a new home this year in the large open area in the space beside registration. This was by far one of favourite changes at the convention. While I don’t like to spend a lot of time at cons gaming I do enjoy walking past and checking out the various games. This new space offered my plenty of opportunity to do just that. It also made gaming more apart of the convention and less a separate thing. I think that was a big part of the reason it was as busy as it was all weekend long.

General Impressions:
Over all I think the convention was really good, I had a great time. Events at the convention kept me busy all weekend long. The small problems I have mentioned during the review can be easily over looked and overshadowed by the success and good times. The department heads put on a good show, and the convention went really smoothly for guests and fans alike. One thing about the weekend that really stood out was the number of younger fans in attendance. This increase is something that is important to note for future conventions. It also offers a good sign for the long term success of Keycon as more and more younger fans start attending the convention.

Keycon 26 - Review Part 1

Keycon 26 Review

Well another year has come and gone, so it is with a little bit of sadness that I write this review because I know I won’t be at another one for about 360 days. Like I have done each other time I’ve written a review of Keycon I will run through each of the areas of the convention and touch a little on each of them. Afterwards I will end it with some over all opinions and thoughts about the convention as a whole. If you have a copy of the program book feel free to follow along.

Registration:
We checked in fairly early on Friday before any of the lines arrived so I personally had a pretty good experience when it came to checking in. Others were not so lucky 2 friends who I saw in the line as opening ceremonies began where still in the line as it ended. They had about a 45 minute wait to register and get their badges. I guess it pays to register early and whenever possible check in early as well.
They did do something that I think was a little different this year or at least I don’t recall it from past years. One side of the check in was for registration and the other side was where you could buy T-shirts and they offered a wide range of those. I don’t know how well this worked out since I didn’t buy any personally but anytime I walked past it didn’t have to much of a line up. However the pile of T-shirts did certainly shrink over the course of the convention and I did see a large number of people wearing them.

Guests:
Photo Left - Liana K posing for the figure draw jam, hosted by the artist guest John Kaufmann
Photo Bottom - Liana K Pin posing Tamile at the Pin-up panel

All of guests where very friendly and out going. You could often find most of them floating about on the 15th floor in the evenings with a drink in one and a good conversation around them. The best thing about all of the guests is how approachable each of them where. I spoke with each of them at various times during the con. I will touch on a couple of them one on one because I had more interaction with them, this isn’t to say the others where not as good I just didn’t see them as much.

I spoke with John Kaufmann http://jek2004.com a couple of times during the conventions and he was always pleasant and fun to talk with. In addition he also ran several different art focused panels. Which while I didn’t attend any of them because I have enough trouble drawing stick figures I did hear that they were very well attended.
Kelly Armstrong was one a number of writing panels that I attended and she offered up a number of interest insights. Sadly I didn’t see her at many of the other events or on the 15th floor. I would have enjoyed chatting with her. Of course it is very likely that she was on the 15th floor and I just didn’t see her among the crowds.

We were the liaison for two guests this year Liana K and Ed the Sock. Both are wonderful guests to work with. Liana ran a number of popular panels during the course of the convention including a how to Pose like a Pin up Model that had a packed room and a professional photographer on hand to take the pictures. She also hosted a number of woman empowering panels that were well received.

Children’s Programming:
For the first time ever we had a room dedicated to Children’s Programming. Parents were of course expected to be there with their little ones, so the room was not a daycare service. What it did was offer things that would be of interest to the kids. It was a good idea that certainly got some positive feedback in the post-con bitch session. Hopefully this bit of programming will continue in the up coming years, because there were a lot new born babies this year and there were also a few pregnant woman about the convention as well.

The Art Show & Auction:
The Art show was tucked away in a bit of an out of the way spot this year. But they certainly did have a decent selection of art available. One thing that struck me as I walked through the art was many of the pieces were smaller low priced items. It seemed like the artist knew their markets because the majority of the smaller pieces seemed to have been sold. The convention also introduced some new types of panels a wire rack design that I thought worked out pretty good. Only problem with them that I saw was that they have hanging space right to the ground so some pieces may end up being hard to see.

The auction seemed to go fairly smoothly despite a couple of problems. I did find it a little hard to tell what pieces were charity pieces and what was going to the artist. Also a number of the pieces were really small making it hard for the runners to show the piece to everyone. The runners also seemed to be very inexperienced and hard to be reminded from time to time that when the bidding gets down to two or three people just to show it to them and not try and show it to the whole room. My final comment with respect to the auction is that if you are a runner and you are planning to bid on a piece don’t run it as well. It really is just bad form. I wouldn’t put any of this on the Art show Director she had several experienced runners pull out at the last minute. In the end the art show was profitable for both the convention and for the artists and that is the important part.

Masquerade:
I’ve seen a few pictures of this post con and it looked like it was a fair small masquerade compared to recent years. Although I really couldn’t say to much about it because I didn’t get to see it. See the Programming Grid list the Children Masquerade as starting at 630 and the Regular Masquerade at 7:00. We didn’t have any interest in see the Children’s Masquerade so we showed up at just after 7 expecting to have just missed the intros and a bit of banter. To our surprise because of lack of entries in the Children’s Masquerade it was decided to start the masquerade at 630. So it was all over when we arrived. I’d love to hear some feed back from the people who took part.

We have arrived at Con - Con report 1

Alright so I've gotten to the hotel and unpacked. I've taken a bit of time and given the floors a walk about checking in on the various con-suites as they set up and even visited briefly in the video room. Like every year things are going so and people are getting ready for the convention and visiting with old friends, in some cases even trying to make some new ones. Case in point was the guy in the lobby (He had the look of an Anime fan) sitting with and trying to talk with a girl who looked like she was more of a goth chick. It seemed to go fine but my unspoken advise to him would have been to look for cat-girl instead he would have had better luck with it.

You might be wondering what the hell are I'm I talking about. Anime fan, cat girl, Con? well its all jargon in the lingo of fandom. Alright so the next question you must be asking is what is fandom. just click on the link and it will tell you all you need to know about the term. That brings us to the last thing you are likely trying to figure out and that is where I am. I'm at Keycon it is the local sci-fi and fantasy convention here in my town of Winnipeg.

This is the first of several con reports that I will be posting through out the weekend. I'll even be throwing up pictures as time allows and am able to take some. Hope you enjoy the posts and we will post more next time am by the laptop.

Oh for those of you who are long time readers and remember a Thursday Thirteen from ages ago that said I had a secret well. The secret was that I was coming to the convention.