DragonCon 2004

DragonCon 2004 Convention Diary

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Karen and I arrived on Thursday to the convention. Not much was happening con-wise yet, but it’s always fun to get there early. The con covers two hotels, the Hyatt and the Marriott – we stayed in the Marriott. The Hyatt has all the panels and presentations, and also the bar and the food court, but the Marriott has the two (HUGE) dealer rooms.

We got the room unpacked and set up, and went to get badges. Going down and walking around to get there we started seeing old friends – when you go to enough cons you start to know folks, and before you know it strolling around on the first day starts to feel like a family reunion.

So very little happened Thursday except for chatting up old friends. Some costumes got brought out – the 501^st Stormtrooper Legion was already armored up and present. Several celebrities were happily sighted and in general much merriment was had by all.

Adam dressed as "Buck" and went looking for fun...he saw Ray Parks (Darth Maul) and lifting his IBC Root Beer bottle bellowed in his best southern accent "Welcome to Georgia!"

Friday, September 03, 2004

We had a full room last night…two beds, tons of trunks, and a air mattress on the floor for our friend Rich. We got up early when another friend arrived, Kim, and went strolling around. We saw more friends, and talked to some folks at fan tables. There is a room filled with tables for fan clubs to recruit new members and get exposure. They are a good place to see who’s doing what. We met our friend Paula who introduced us to Star Wars authors Aaron Alston and Michael Stackpole, who both turned out to be very friendly guys.

We went back to the hotel room with some friends and woke up Rich and Adam who were still snoozing. Rich teased us unmercifully as Jewel Strait from Firefly had come to the lobby of the Hyatt and was hanging out and talking to people and we missed it.

Nothing really opened up until 1:00, so we hung out for a bit longer and then went to go see the dealers room.

We strolled around the dealers room for quite a while. There was a lot going on. We have some good friends at Abbyshot who were there with custom made coats, so we stopped to see them and ended up talking with some of the cast members of Tribes, who were quite pleasant. We also got autographs from three cast members of Firefly who were also just nice. Nathan Fillian (Captain Reynolds) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) were amazingly pleasant, actually. (Jewel Straite (Kaylee) was a bit distracted as someone else was talking to her, so we didn’t get to interact quite as much.)

Karen with some cast members of Tribes

After that we continued strolling and hanging out until a firefly panel happened at 7:00. That was in a rather large room and was filled to capacity. Firefly seemed to be the most popular thing at this convention, which pleased me a lot as I’m a huge Firefly fanatic. The three actors came on and went straight into a question and answer session. They had just completed filming the Firefly movie Serenity a week earlier and said it was to be released April 22^nd. The major impression I came away with is that Adam and Nathan are FUNNY. Nathan just took over and had the room laughing, and Adam was also really getting some funny responses in. For example, someone asked Jewel if she got to kiss the doctor in the movie. Adam covered the two mikes (I guess to make sure no secrets were let out!) and after a second Nathan took the mike and said “Who hasn’t?” Once we stopped laughing Adam replied in his best Jayne voice, “I’ll be in my bunk.”

They did tell us that there is a eight month time lapse between the last episode and the movie, and that several things have happened. Evidently the captain will be more withdrawn, partly as a result.

The firefly guests clowning around during their panel

Karen acting like the total fangirl she is as she gets the autographs of Adam Baldwin, Jewel Straite, and Nathan Fillian...look at that grin!

After that, I got into my Rocketeer costume and Adam got into his Ash costume and we went out. It was quite a bit of fun. Adam was hugely popular as Ash, and the Rocketeer costume was also very popular, much to my pleased surprise. Adam did get shaken down by the “man” though…he was taken to a side room while a few security guys checked out his shotgun and chainsaw. The shotgun was no problem (it was a replica and no possible threat) but they didn’t like the chain on the chainsaw and so they removed it. The chain was fixed in place and there was no motor in the chainsaw, but I think they were concerned that someone would rub against it and get cut. I tried to convince them to take Adam back out into the hallway and drag him back into the room so I could get a picture of them dragging him away, but to no avail. I do have to say I was very pleased at how nice the security guys were while they checked Adam out and removed the chain. It could have been a nasty experience but wasn’t due to the way they handled it and their attitudes.

Karen and I as the Rocketeer and Betty (the comic book version of his girlfriend)

I have to say that the Rocketeer is the most popular costume I've ever done by FAR. I came down in it Friday and Sunday and was just constantly photographed for hours. I spent a year working on that costume...so it was amazingly gratifying.

Some costumes around the hotel that evening

Saturday, September 04, 2004

The first part of the day was rather normal. We wandered about the dealers room. I bought a few imported Japanese movies…we looked at costumes…mostly just passing time until the evening, when all the really cool costumes come out.

Karen has a tattoo of Kiki from Sluggy Freelance on her back, and she got the strip’s writer, Pete, to sign it.

We also heard that Marc Singer might be in talks to do a new V series...

Once Saturday night rolled around, we started going around looking for costumes. It did seem like there were fewer costumes there this year than last year, so that was disappointing. There were lots of Kill Bill costumes (my friend Brandi had David Carradine comment on her Bride costume, so that made her happy) and LOTR costumes. Star Wars costumes were there in force as always. We had a really pleasant time, but I was really surprised at how few costumes there were.

I liked how GoGo in this Kill Bill pair had the spiked wood attached to her head...that was pretty clever.

I did stick my head in and checked out a band called Ghoultown…nice set and a good sound. Unfortunately we were told that this was their very last show before breaking up. Too bad…

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Sunday I was on a panel talking about the Star Wars novels for kids which went pretty well, and went to see Abbyshot present a panel on how to make coats, which seemed to have a lot of good information.

Karen at the local FanForce table

After that, we went to the Masquerade, Dragon Con’s costume contest. We got there early, and got decent seats. They were showing a video the tech team had put together of humorous shorts which was decent. Then they went to a reading of a story with several actors and writers. I remember David Carradine was reading, and so was Anne McCaffrey as well as others. I was a bit put off as they were reading a story by L. Ron Hubbard, who was the founder of the scientology cult and not someone I really care for. Technically it was well done, the readings were good and there were some nice sound effects, but it just didn’t work. I noticed that most of the audience were painfully bored. I saw a lot of people napping, playing games on their cell phones, or chatting…when it ended there seemed to be a lot of relieved applause. I was sitting with someone who was at ComicCon and he said they did something similar there and it worked quite well there.

The Masquerade contest started with a children’s competition which went well. Some of the kids were adorable. Notable were a blue monster, a very small child in a costume on a leash who kept straining against the leash, and a Ewok who was another very small child who chased a Stormtrooper around the stage.

The adult costume had some notable costumes as well, although there seemed to be fewer than in the past. I guess this just wasn’t a good year for costuming. I got a kick out of Rosie the Riveter. A Van Helsing group came out with Frankenstein and went into the “Putting on the Ritz” number from Young Frankenstein, which was very popular. A group of zombies and other monsters came out and did a very lively dance from Chicago, the Cell Block Tango. A group of Angels came out as well as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and did a great WWF Smackdown intro to Armageddon. The winners were a wonderful group from the Muppets, Dr. Teeth and Electronic Mayhem. They were amazing.

Afterwards we went back to the Hyatt lobby and watched costumes. I was back in the Rocketeer and hooked up with the Shadow, which made us very happy. Some of my other friends who are huge history buffs pulled out some WWI and WWII costumes - so the Rocketeer teamed up with an Army Air Corps serviceman and the Shadow to fight a Nazi.