The Convention Guide, Part One – So You Wanna Go?

Trust me, the lines are eventually worth it.
via Glenn Batuyong

The sun is shining (or not, here in Seattle), the birds are singing and the weather is slowly growing warmer (or not, there on the East Coast). This means one big thing to nerds – convention season has begun! Kicked off locally by Emerald City Comic Con and all across the country by conventions like PAX East (Boston, March 22 – 24) or Megacon (Orlando, March 15 – 17), con-going season is an awesome time of year filled with cool events, nerd camaraderie, lack of sleep and sometimes a neglect of personal hygiene.

I’ve been going to conventions since the very tender age of 13 and have accrued some helpful tips for convention-going over my years of bad cosplay, weird late night parties and many, many hours of standing in lines. I’ll be sharing some of this experience in an on-going series of articles published intermittently during the 2013 convention season.

So to start out this Con-Going Guide, let’s talk about the first step of any convention…figuring out which con you want to attend.

There’s two majorly important factors at the start of any convention journey. The first is location.

I was so very 15 years old.

Most people, especially attending their very first convention, don’t want to break the bank and tackle something like PAX Australia when they live in Toad-Suck, Arkansas. With the prevalence of conventions these days (we’ve come a long way since a convention was either 50 fans in a community college’s event room or one of the 3 huge conventions spaced out across the states) it’s a lot easier to find something within, at worst, a few hours’ drive from your home.

Grabbing a hotel room with friends attending the con is a great part of the con-going experience and I really recommend it – with one simple but important caveat. Please make sure if you’re sharing a room that it’s with people you WANT to share a room with, people who share your ideas about cleanliness, scheduling and noise. If you want to attempt to get eight hours of sleep a night but your room-buddy wants to host an after-hours furry party starting at 2AM when the yaoi auction lets out…you may want to reevaluate your options.

The second super important factor to a convention is: what kind of convention is it?

Probably the most common type of convention is the anime convention. There’s also a good deal of generalized nerdy conventions or specialized cons focusing on things like fantasy, sci-fi, gaming, or a specific franchise. Picking which type you want to attend will make a world of difference to your con-going experience.

See, totally worth it.

Most cos will definitely have some topical overlap. PAX is primarily a video game convention but there’s a huge emphasis on tabletop or mini gaming; anime cons will have entire theaters devoted to live action Asian cinema. The best way to find out if a con is relevant to your interests is to check their scheduling lineup and the forums, which will be packed full of people who are regular attendees. From there you can see what’s popular, what’s new and what’s up your alley. Don’t skip a con because on the surface it doesn’t seem like your main nerd bag – see what the con offers beyond its name.

Finally, when looking at going to a con, especially a local con, try and think about how many days you want to attend. Most cons are three day events, though some very large cons will stretch to four days. Saturdays are usually the busiest day of a convention, with large events, major guest panels and lots of showings. Fridays are also pretty busy, though often a large chunk of the day can be taken up by getting through whatever type of admittance line the con has set up. Sundays can be a lot of fun but they’re usually more slow paced and a con will often wrap up early on a Sunday (Sunday is also a great day to hit the dealers’ room for great sales – vendors often want to pack up as little as possible and are more open to polite haggling). All three days have their pros and cons, so if you aren’t planning on attending the entire con, really consider scheduling and just how much you want to pack into a single day before you pick just when you’re going to show up.

Moving forward I’m going to talk about what to do at the con you’ve chosen (EVERYTHING), how to manage your time (or not) and smart con-going etiquette (how to not be THAT guy), among other facets of the convention experience. In the meanwhile, enjoy the start of the con season! Upcoming cons include: Norwescon (March 28-31; SeaTac, WA), Tekkoshocon X-2 (April 5-7; Pittsburgh, PA), ChimaeraCon (April 5-7; San Antonio, TX),  The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo (April 26-28; Calgary, AB, Canada), Balticon (May 24-27; Baltimore, MD).