Easter Weekend Conventions
First of all, Happy Belated Easter. Whether you celebrate it or not, beware this Easter Bunny; he'll suck your soul if you look him in the eyes. There's more awkward family Easter photos here.
This weekend was convention weekend for myself and headlesspuppet, who’d never attended Norwescon nor Sakuracon. We decided to visit both. The former I’d only attended once before a couple of years back as a volunteer; the latter I’ve volunteered once and attended once (for one day).
The mood of each is different from cons like ECCC, PAX and SDCC, but I had a hard time accurately describing the feel of each gathering when asked. Sakuracon has a predominately younger crowd, and with it comes a lot of the attitude one would expect. Comic and game con attendees, from my experience, have a broader demographic. The indy and small press presence at anime cons always felt smaller to me, with fans of popular series like Sailor Moon, Bleach, Death Note and Street Fighter, being the most vocal and obvious. Less so are the Uzumaki (Junji Ito) and Blame (Tsutomu Nihei) fans. Norwescon, in contrast, has an older demographic. Maybe some of it has to do with the amount of time, money and space required to craft the kind of items I saw. Norwescon does costumes really well; there were some really gorgeous outfits. Both are pretty gregarious gatherings, with Sakuracon seeming the more so of the two, though they lacked the sort of spontaneous inclusion of strangers into groups I experienced at game and comic cons. That's not to say people at these two conventions were standoffish or snooty, but both as an attendee and volunteer I felt it easier to join in a conversation with complete strangers at PAX. Perhaps it’s because the nature of games is to engage in an activity with another person; you’re encouraged to join in.
I have a lot of thoughts, questions, and concerns about Norwescon, which we spent more time at. I have to mull over how much to say, though, and I've already talked about my experience volunteering at both Norwescon and Sakuracon in the past, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Pictures of this and last (CabinCon) weekend coming soon.
This weekend was convention weekend for myself and headlesspuppet, who’d never attended Norwescon nor Sakuracon. We decided to visit both. The former I’d only attended once before a couple of years back as a volunteer; the latter I’ve volunteered once and attended once (for one day).
The mood of each is different from cons like ECCC, PAX and SDCC, but I had a hard time accurately describing the feel of each gathering when asked. Sakuracon has a predominately younger crowd, and with it comes a lot of the attitude one would expect. Comic and game con attendees, from my experience, have a broader demographic. The indy and small press presence at anime cons always felt smaller to me, with fans of popular series like Sailor Moon, Bleach, Death Note and Street Fighter, being the most vocal and obvious. Less so are the Uzumaki (Junji Ito) and Blame (Tsutomu Nihei) fans. Norwescon, in contrast, has an older demographic. Maybe some of it has to do with the amount of time, money and space required to craft the kind of items I saw. Norwescon does costumes really well; there were some really gorgeous outfits. Both are pretty gregarious gatherings, with Sakuracon seeming the more so of the two, though they lacked the sort of spontaneous inclusion of strangers into groups I experienced at game and comic cons. That's not to say people at these two conventions were standoffish or snooty, but both as an attendee and volunteer I felt it easier to join in a conversation with complete strangers at PAX. Perhaps it’s because the nature of games is to engage in an activity with another person; you’re encouraged to join in.
I have a lot of thoughts, questions, and concerns about Norwescon, which we spent more time at. I have to mull over how much to say, though, and I've already talked about my experience volunteering at both Norwescon and Sakuracon in the past, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Pictures of this and last (CabinCon) weekend coming soon.