This was a GREAT convention. VERY intimate.
It was smaller than anything I've experienced in the past. I think there were at total of 1500 people in attendance. And that was up, because the organizers didn't realize that Jim had that much pull in the Wichita area.
Just to kind of set it up for you, there was one room for videos. It sat about 25 most of the time. During "Night Light's" Premier there were 40 folks in the room. There were EXACTLY 40 (including Jim) because that is all the Fire Marshall would allow in that room at maximum occupancy. This meant that there were 22 Con-attendees, 9 "Captain’s Club" (Premium Passes) attendees, 8 Cast and Crew members, and Jim.
About "Night Light" - When it's posted to YouTube, watch it. It's about an hour long and reflects the spirit of the Dresden Files. I truly was impressed with the story, filming, and special effects. And it was all done with ZERO budget. Truly a Fan Film.
There was one dealer's room and there were about 20-ish dealers and artists in there. The dealers' room alone was a lot of fun. T-shirts (I think Shecky enjoyed the one I posted to facebook), jewelry, toys, original works of art, Steampunk gear ... just all kinds of stuff.
This year, there was only one panel room. I attended three of the sessions. One was bout "Homestuck". One was about the differences between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, and how publishers are blurring the lines based on the sex of the author via the cover art, and the last one I attended was about how the film "Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" wasn't really as bad as we all think it was. And she was right!
They had a large area dedicated to tables for gamming. There was space available for miniatures, RPGs, or table top games. They even had a bit of a library you could check games out from to play, or try out.
There was cos-play galore. All KINDs of cos-playing going on.
Spoilered to save room.
Maeve
The Doctor and his TARDIS
This is actually the Actress who plays Murphy in the Fan Film “Night Light”
And this is my wife being taken over by Marvel. It was her birtday after all. These are Cos-Players and all part of the same family. War Machine has speakers and was blasting out appropriate music for Iron Man.
The main event room was where the main talks and Q&As occurred. There were TWO Q&As with Jim. As always he was great.
I asked him if we'd seen the "big bad" from the BAT yet, and his reply was basically "who says there's only one?" and "I'm not going to tell you, but there have been enough crumbs of clues that you should be able figure it out."
He DID use his Sing-songy, "I'm not gonna tell you," a couple of times, and his "read the next book," a few times too.
He really enjoyed the question about "are there any litter-mates of Mouses running around out there, evil?" By saying "Would
I do something like
THAT?"
He did mention that all the time he was at the con, that he wasn't at signings (2 of them), or Q&As, or meals, he was pretty much in his room working on Skin Game. So it's still a work in progress.
Thanks for reading my rantings.
