Skip to main content

On Universal FanCon


Guys, I am really sad and mad right now about Universal FanCon. I hadn't heard of it before it was postposed/cancelled one week before it was to occur, but seeing tweets from so many people who were planning to go was heartbreaking. So many artists and vendors losing their first shot at sales/networking and cosplayers and other attendees who never felt accepted at other cons losing a safe space for geeking out. 

 I'm proud to be an exhibitor and co-creator of the Manga Reading Lounge at Anime Detour and my July staycation at Convergence is a highlight of my year. I can't imagine having an experience like that taken away so suddenly. 

 The other sad thing is, it might not have failed if the founders hadn't 1) tried to make their first con some huge, money-making endeavor when most cons barely break even, 2) failed to vet one co-founder who had been involved in failed cons before, and 3) they had asked for help from experienced con people. The Twitter conversation made it clear that there was a deep bench of experienced con administrators who would have been happy to help. I'm not one myself, but my limited experience creating a miniature library con tells me that it's a very complex endeavor with a lot of moving parts that requires constant back-and-forth communication, not just asking Starbucks to donate stuff at the last minute. 

WHAT WE CAN DO TO MAKE THINGS BETTER:
  • Support your local, volunteer-staffed con. Unless you are super into getting celebrities to sign stuff, skip those traveling things Alexandra Erin calls "autograph mills". Local cons are way more fun, you have more input in their content & policies, plus it gives volunteers/staff more experience to start more cons to fit your interests. 
  • If your local con sucks, start your own, but start small. Comic-Con wasn't built in one day. 
  • Make your con safe for diverse attendees. Ask them what policies would help them enjoy the con. Have diverse panels and panelists. Ban harassers. 
  • Attract and mentor diverse con volunteers and employees. Then, they can learn and start their own cons. Geek culture is big, we can have cons for everybody. 
  • Don't be a dick. Don't tell a marginalized person they "aren't allowed" to cosplay as someone.
  • Give these artists some money. They lost a major source of income, so support them if you can. 
  • Attend this pop-up convention. if you can afford it and are near Baltimore, attend this mini-convention for people who were coming to FanCon.
  • Make your Con transit-accessible. Not everyone can drive or has a car, and some people may fly or bus in. I'm looking at you, Con of the North!

Comments

JethSeux said…
You tell em Sweetie, why have a Con if people can't get there!!
4:31 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MY BUBBLE

This is real heavy metal, by the way . So, this guy whose name I swear I'd never heard but appeared to have gone to my high school tried to friend me on Facebook. His main interests were the band Stryper and Republicanism, so I didn't add him. I mean, really, Stryper ? I thought teens in the 80s only listened to them because they liked metal and their parents forbade any other band as a direct path to the worship of Satan. When you leave home, you throw away their records and listen to real metal. But then I read this article that said we are all getting trapped in a bubble of like-minded people who parrot our ideas back to us, due to social networks and rss feeds and apps only giving us the people/opinions/stories we want to hear. And I thought--maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'm OK, because I do have a lot of weird interests that make it pretty hard to find people who are on the same page with everything. I have social network connections with people around roleplaying game...
1 comment
Read more

TOP TEN LIPSYNCH FOR YOUR LIFE SONGS FOR A DRAG KING EQUIVALENT OF RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE

 The Advocate has suggested that the greatest (i.e. only good) reality show ever, Rupaul's Drag Race , have a drag king contestant.  That's fine, but it would be much more entertaining to have a whole drag king competition. One of the best parts of Drag Race is seeing all the different types of queens compete: beauty queens, funny queens, conceptual queens, androgynous queens, scary queens, singing and dancing queens.  I want to see punk kings, gangsta rap kings, cock-rocking metal kings, panty-dropping R & B kings, country kings, baggy-pants burlesque comic kings, and of course, Elvis. I picked out some songs that make me think of different aspects of masculinity:  swaggering men, heartbroken men, lustful men, romantic men, philosophical men, and suicidally depressed men (interesting fact: I can think of dozens of songs by men about suicide, but only one female one: "Gloomy Sunday". What's up with that?) "That's Life" - Frank Sinatra...
Post a Comment
Read more

TOP MUSIC GENRES FOR YOUR CYBERPUNK GAME

So I guess cyberpunk is hot again. I don't play those newfangled video games, but all this fanfare made me remember my old Cyberpunk 2020 days, when I was Jael Furoshiki, Japanese/Jewish survivor of of a destroyed South China Sea pirate pack trying to make a living in the Minneapolis Red Zone as a bodyguard/food delivery technician (yes, both a pirate and an ninja).  Later she got ported to Interface Zero , which got rid of some of the anachronisms and C2020's crazy-high fatality rate (there used to be a page dedicated to players' favorite deceased characters, sadly now lost to even the Wayback Machine). Anyway, one time I made up musical genres my character would listen to--can't find my old character sheets, but this gives you the idea... TOP MUSIC GENRES FOR YOUR CYBERPUNK GAME: Cambo-Punk Robo-Funk Post-post-post-post-post Punk Really New Wave Black Klezmetal Danish RaiZulu Techno-Jive Country & Western & Gabber Lo-NRG Goan Garage Garage...
Post a Comment
Read more