Dragon*Con - One Man's Primer On Planning
I had planned to have this up a little while ago, but the article has been stalled out on the editor's desk for a week, and that was after it was late in me writing it. Go fig. Since I think it's relevant, and since while the Marriott is now booked solid, the Hyatt is an option, I figured I might as well get this out while I can. Hopefully, this will be up on i360.com soon, and edited by someone who actually knows how the hell to write an English essay. :P
Planning for D*C 2012.: A Primer For Planning For A Dragon*Con Trip
Dragon*Con. If you’re a nerd, a geek, a lover of things strange and fantastic, you want to be there, at least once.
It’s a nerd paradise, our Mardi Gras, only 400 miles east of New Orleans, and on the other side of the year. Fantastic for people watching for the crazy costumes. Fantastic for the fans of science fiction and fantasy TV shows and movies, of all sorts. Fantastic for people who like to drink and have fun.
If you’re not sure, watch Four Days at Dragon*Con, a documentary about the convention, showing its delights.
So how do you prepare to go and visit this gathering of wonders? Well, try reading this primer from the Dragon*Con Wiki first. But I'll try to summarize my experience.
The pre-con planning starts with the hotel. Normally, people planning for a con plan for this last. For Dragon*Con, this is planned first, because the best hotels for the next September go up for reservation the previous October, and they book solid the day they open. Planning for Dragon*Con does indeed take a whole year. There are 5 host hotels, with 3 (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton) connected by tunnels that don't require you to travel between the hotels in the squelching September Atlanta heat. Here's the hotel layout relative to the each other. Do yourself a favor and go for the Marriott Marquis Edit: Hyatt Regency Atlanta at this point now. You’ll thank yourself later.
Editor's Note: As of the time of this posting, hotel rooms at the Marriott Marquis were opened to reservation at 8AM Eastern October 3rd... and were gone by 8:15AM. Seriously, that's how fast these things move. You might luck out if people release rooms later, like close to July 5th or so, but for now, either find a friend who has a room (or a spare room) there and negotiate your way in, or plan without that hotel option in mind. With that out as an option, of the host hotels left on the hotels page, the Hyatt block (next best choice) will open approximately in 2 weeks apparently, and the Hilton might have rooms at 12PM Eastern/9AM Pacific today, but apparently you need to call, otherwise they are already mostly out. Those are the best options. The Sheraton & Westin are the other two hosts, and would be next best before overflow hotels.
The flight comes next. You’ll be flying into the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson. That means plenty of flights, though you’ll likely be flying Delta or AirTran. From LA, expect flights to be a bit more than $300 round-trip. You might luck out and catch a cheaper flight, but $330 is what I saw for most of the months leading up to Dragon*Con. If you live elsewhere, your price will obviously vary.
The Kayak link for a search for this trip for an LAX departing person is here. Notably, as of the writing of this article, the prices are way out of line with what's expected. Clearly, the best time to buy a flight ticket is not 11 months out. I'd peek at dates starting in around April/May or so, but honestly don't expect the price to reach where it should until around June/July. And in general, expect that flights will increase in price starting in August.
Last in the planning is the badge. The badge cost isn’t cheap, but A: you’ll need one to traverse the hotels at night after the new rules implemented this year, and B: you’ll want one to see the massive piles of panels and guests. At least it’s not Comic-Con priced; you’ll pay $120 if you wait until the door, but can get a badge as cheap as $70 if you buy now before Nov 15th. And you can transfer the badge (though not get a refund) by July 31st (or so) for $20.
So now you’ve got the key things done. Then comes the ACTUAL key things you want to work on: your costumes if you have them. If you must know, you can get away with anime costumes at Dragon*Con just fine. But half the fun of going to Dragon*Con is to NOT wear the ordinary, or things you can wear at any anime convention and be appreciated. This is a con where you can walk around looking like Chucky, or Dirty Harry, or dressed like Godzilla, being stabbed by Dirk the Daring 1, or all sorts of randomness 2 and be well appreciated. Leave your Naruto headbands at home, and dig into that deep dark realm in your mind of things that might make people say, ”Wow, I remember that!”
Just remember, most likely you’re flying there, so have enough extra money to make sure you can get your costume there.
If you’re the kind of person interesting in seeing the guests, you’ll want to watch the guest announcements and the program track schedules as they come out. Be prepared. There’s a lot of guests, and a lot of panels. Just know you can’t see them all.
Once you get to the con, be ready for a crowd. The con isn’t quite as large as the crowd at Comic-Con, but it’s sizable and dense. For the popular panels, you probably will have to wait in a line. For the parade, you'll probably need to get up early on Saturday, but it's worth seeing at least once, to see the costumed insanity march through Atlanta. It's a spectacle that drags out a good sized chunk of the city.
But there’s plenty of people to talk to at the con during that time. There are plenty of friendy people to talk to, who very well could have an interest similar to yours. Or could have a completely different interest that might be strange and weird to you at first, but you might find interesting. Dragon*Con is a bazaar of many strange ideas.
Just a few last things: Peachtree Center has all the food, and Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sunday, as well as the liquor stores. Just remember this. You’ll know the importance of this when you get there.
Hope to see you there!
1 Okay, fine, so that might've been coincidental, but that doesn't make it less awesome, right?
2 The dudes from BeerFest. If you haven't watched the movie, it's pretty dumb college jock stuff. But that's the level of obscure you can get away with at Dragon*Con and yet it works just fine at the con. Seriously. DAS BOOT!!!
Planning for D*C 2012.: A Primer For Planning For A Dragon*Con Trip
Dragon*Con. If you’re a nerd, a geek, a lover of things strange and fantastic, you want to be there, at least once.
It’s a nerd paradise, our Mardi Gras, only 400 miles east of New Orleans, and on the other side of the year. Fantastic for people watching for the crazy costumes. Fantastic for the fans of science fiction and fantasy TV shows and movies, of all sorts. Fantastic for people who like to drink and have fun.
If you’re not sure, watch Four Days at Dragon*Con, a documentary about the convention, showing its delights.
So how do you prepare to go and visit this gathering of wonders? Well, try reading this primer from the Dragon*Con Wiki first. But I'll try to summarize my experience.
The pre-con planning starts with the hotel. Normally, people planning for a con plan for this last. For Dragon*Con, this is planned first, because the best hotels for the next September go up for reservation the previous October, and they book solid the day they open. Planning for Dragon*Con does indeed take a whole year. There are 5 host hotels, with 3 (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton) connected by tunnels that don't require you to travel between the hotels in the squelching September Atlanta heat. Here's the hotel layout relative to the each other. Do yourself a favor and go for the Marriott Marquis Edit: Hyatt Regency Atlanta at this point now. You’ll thank yourself later.
Editor's Note: As of the time of this posting, hotel rooms at the Marriott Marquis were opened to reservation at 8AM Eastern October 3rd... and were gone by 8:15AM. Seriously, that's how fast these things move. You might luck out if people release rooms later, like close to July 5th or so, but for now, either find a friend who has a room (or a spare room) there and negotiate your way in, or plan without that hotel option in mind. With that out as an option, of the host hotels left on the hotels page, the Hyatt block (next best choice) will open approximately in 2 weeks apparently, and the Hilton might have rooms at 12PM Eastern/9AM Pacific today, but apparently you need to call, otherwise they are already mostly out. Those are the best options. The Sheraton & Westin are the other two hosts, and would be next best before overflow hotels.
The flight comes next. You’ll be flying into the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson. That means plenty of flights, though you’ll likely be flying Delta or AirTran. From LA, expect flights to be a bit more than $300 round-trip. You might luck out and catch a cheaper flight, but $330 is what I saw for most of the months leading up to Dragon*Con. If you live elsewhere, your price will obviously vary.
The Kayak link for a search for this trip for an LAX departing person is here. Notably, as of the writing of this article, the prices are way out of line with what's expected. Clearly, the best time to buy a flight ticket is not 11 months out. I'd peek at dates starting in around April/May or so, but honestly don't expect the price to reach where it should until around June/July. And in general, expect that flights will increase in price starting in August.
Last in the planning is the badge. The badge cost isn’t cheap, but A: you’ll need one to traverse the hotels at night after the new rules implemented this year, and B: you’ll want one to see the massive piles of panels and guests. At least it’s not Comic-Con priced; you’ll pay $120 if you wait until the door, but can get a badge as cheap as $70 if you buy now before Nov 15th. And you can transfer the badge (though not get a refund) by July 31st (or so) for $20.
So now you’ve got the key things done. Then comes the ACTUAL key things you want to work on: your costumes if you have them. If you must know, you can get away with anime costumes at Dragon*Con just fine. But half the fun of going to Dragon*Con is to NOT wear the ordinary, or things you can wear at any anime convention and be appreciated. This is a con where you can walk around looking like Chucky, or Dirty Harry, or dressed like Godzilla, being stabbed by Dirk the Daring 1, or all sorts of randomness 2 and be well appreciated. Leave your Naruto headbands at home, and dig into that deep dark realm in your mind of things that might make people say, ”Wow, I remember that!”
Just remember, most likely you’re flying there, so have enough extra money to make sure you can get your costume there.
If you’re the kind of person interesting in seeing the guests, you’ll want to watch the guest announcements and the program track schedules as they come out. Be prepared. There’s a lot of guests, and a lot of panels. Just know you can’t see them all.
Once you get to the con, be ready for a crowd. The con isn’t quite as large as the crowd at Comic-Con, but it’s sizable and dense. For the popular panels, you probably will have to wait in a line. For the parade, you'll probably need to get up early on Saturday, but it's worth seeing at least once, to see the costumed insanity march through Atlanta. It's a spectacle that drags out a good sized chunk of the city.
But there’s plenty of people to talk to at the con during that time. There are plenty of friendy people to talk to, who very well could have an interest similar to yours. Or could have a completely different interest that might be strange and weird to you at first, but you might find interesting. Dragon*Con is a bazaar of many strange ideas.
Just a few last things: Peachtree Center has all the food, and Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sunday, as well as the liquor stores. Just remember this. You’ll know the importance of this when you get there.
Hope to see you there!
1 Okay, fine, so that might've been coincidental, but that doesn't make it less awesome, right?
2 The dudes from BeerFest. If you haven't watched the movie, it's pretty dumb college jock stuff. But that's the level of obscure you can get away with at Dragon*Con and yet it works just fine at the con. Seriously. DAS BOOT!!!