I’ve been going to Dragon Con for 18 years.
My first one was in 1997, right after I graduated from high school. My dad gave me a choice in graduation gifts. The first option was we could go see U2 live in concert. I was a huge U2 fan and had been begging for years to see the group play live. I was stoked with option number one.
But then dad made things complicated when he dropped choice number two.
Instead of going to see U2, he said we could instead buy two four-day passes to Atlanta’s Dragon Con and get a room at The Hyatt downtown, one of the convention’s host hotels.
Actually, the choice wasn’t really all that complicated now that I think about it.
Save for a really small (and kind of terrible)
Star Trek convention held at the Macon Coliseum, I’d never been to a con before, and the idea of spending four days at one that prided itself on running around the clock held infinitely more appeal than a two hour U2 concert.
Dragon Con 2015 came to a close on Monday.
Tuesday morning, I got an email from the convention’s media relations team, proudly announcing that attendance for this year’s show managed to exceed 70,000. In 2014, the con saw roughly 65,000 attendees, a number that was up from 2013, which was up from 2012. When I first attended back in 1997, there were nowhere near 65,000 people.
To say that Dragon Con is a growing behemoth of a show is gross understatement.
But that’s by design. Dragon Con has never been about just one specific fandom.
It’s never been a comic book convention, or a
Star Trek convention. It’s never been a
Doctor Who convention or an anime convention.
Rather, it’s been all those things, and more. Video games, board games, space exploration,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer; if there’s a fandom for it there’s a home for it at Dragon Con.
While conventions like San Diego’s Comic-Con International have caught flak in recent years for not holding true to their founding focuses, Dragon Con has managed to mostly sidestep that same criticism as there’s never been one founding focus.
It’s the party that everyone’s invited to and the guest list for that party keeps getting longer and longer.
Read more »