By now, I’m pretty sure I’ve written the same post a few times over, over the last few years, as another Dragon*Con is now in the rearview mirror, and I’m left pondering on whether or not I want to go the next year, if the con is still something for a person like me, and wondering just what the heck is different between myself from absolutely everyone else who also goes, but still thinks it’s the greatest event in the world.
This isn’t to say that I thought Dragon*Con 2018 was terrible or bad by any stretch of the imagination; quite the contrary, I did enjoy myself several times throughout the weekend, I treasure the time spent with the friends that I saw, have remorse for the idea of not seeing other friends swept away in different waves amongst the alleged 75,000-82,000 attendees throughout the weekend, and I took some pictures here and there.
As we know, Dragon*Con is by no means an economical event, and if the whole experience weren’t over $700 a year, it’s kind of a no-brainer that there’s still merit to going year-in, year-out. One of the things I often pondered if simply getting older and having life priorities shifting around has something to do with my perpetually declining enjoyment of the convention, but seeing as how there are plenty of people who are older than me, with children and/or much later stages in their lives who still think it’s the best event in the world, this is a theory that holds no weight and alternatively points at the notion that my brain the one with the hang-ups, not my age.
But as I stand now, a day removed from the convention, and having had some time to decompress and try and gather my thoughts, I’m once again left in the position on wondering if I want to bother going again next year, and teetering on that seesaw of leaning towards no. Granted, that’s pretty much been the case every year for the last like 2-3 Dragon*Cons I’d been to, including the one before the one I took off to go cruising in Europe alternatively, but the fact of the matter is that I keep having these thoughts, because I keep seeing this pattern of wanting to go to this event that costs a lot of money and I’m not having nearly as much enjoyment out of it as I hoped I would versus the fear of missing out and letting that be one of my primary impulses to going regardless.
I went into this year with as open of a mind as I could muster up, but frankly there should be something wrong with that in itself, that I need to mentally pump myself up for it, while there are thousands of people out in the world who would do anything to secure a host hotel room, get a five-day badge, and go to Dragon*Con, that don’t have the opportunities for whatever reason. I wanted to simply go to the convention, see some people, take some pictures, get a nice buzz a few times, eat at Willy’s a few more, and just go with the flow and hope to enjoy myself.
However, that kind of thinking and fly-by-night modus operandi is kind of one of the reasons why I feel that I’m incapable of gaining the same enjoyment as others do, because I’m coming to the conclusion that Dragon*Con simply isn’t the kind of convention to where winging it isn’t necessarily the best way to roll through the holiday weekend.
It also doesn’t help that I’m kind of a curmudgeon at times, and all it takes is one negative association to suddenly become exasperated with the things I’m seeing, the lines that don’t move, or the crowds of, everything, that make it frustratingly maddening trying to get from point A to point B sometimes, and then I feel the need to retreat to my room so that I can cool off and try and gather myself before trying to do it all over again.
Like, I know there are going to be crowds, I know it’s going to be crowded. I know all the little tricks and cut-throughs and alternate routes to take all around the premises to minimize just how many times I get caught being ridiculous queues of humanity, but occasionally the want to stay cool wins out, and that’s when I get blindsided by the completely slam-packed sky bridge between the Hilton to the Marriott or the Hyatt to the Marriott and then I think that this is hell on earth, and how frightening it is that if like a fire or a viral epidemic ever broke out then everyone present would be fucked.
Or the fact that the exhibitor’s hall in the America’s Mart buildings have ascended to the point where the demand to get in has reached Comic-Con levels of lines stretching and wrapping around the building itself, leading me to nope the fuck out and go find something else to do which usually was a whole lot else of nothing, perpetually reinforcing these negative feelings of not wanting to go through this again.
Costumes, and the want to take pictures of them, had long been a staple of what I always enjoyed about Dragon*Cons, but even those have become subject to my criticism in recent years, as I’ve felt that whether its declining creativity, overly sexy-fying designs, or mashing them up with other properties, the things I see just aren’t really doing it for me anymore, and I’m often left wondering why I’m bothering to bring my camera with my expensive lens(es) if I’m not seeing things I want to even photograph in the first place. And then the idea of casual hall costume picture taking seems a little silly in itself, and then the downward spiral continues.
Naturally, it’s the time in which I’m in a costume myself, and without my camera, is when I see the things that most capture my eye that I wish I could take pictures of, and by the time I get to a point where I have my camera again, they’re gone. Plus, I feel that there’s a cutoff time when casual costume taking seems less like a thing people do versus people being inconvenienced when they’re still in costume, but have begun drinking, and are insulated in their little groups and I don’t feel like asking someone for a picture, expecting the request to be exasperating and more of an inconvenience than anything else.
And then there’s the inflatable raptor suits. They were fun for like two seconds when they first came into existence, and there were like two funny videos of American Ninja Warriors trying to do courses in them. But now these things are like the herpes of Dragon*Con that have spread everywhere, and the assholes in them are drunk and unfunny and incapable of seeing where they are and take up more space than even the fattest of persons in a motorized wheelchair, and they are fucking all over the place. I already have great criticism for the women in the 5’ diameter Disney gowns, the same 20 people who remote control their R2D2s and Daleks all over the con and people who bust out the most space-consuming costumes or props for, consuming all of the limited space in the convention, but the inflatable raptor suits are like my new shithead #1s in my opinion that I hope is a trend that dies off really quickly.
For whatever reason, this seemed to be the year where spontaneous circle events seemed to break out absolutely anywhere and everywhere. Often times, I’d be perched up on the fifth floor looking down at the rest of the Marriott, and on more than one occasion, I’d see dance circles of some guys actually busting out some pretty impressive breakdancing skills, that I could appreciate from afar, but I know would piss me off if I couldn’t get to where I was trying to go if I were trying to walk past. Other spontaneous events included people trying to play limbo in the loft, and late on Sunday night, an LED-laden stripper pole on a movable platform began wheeling around on the Marriott carpeted area, inviting all people to give a whirl – on a stripper pole.
Needless to say, curmudgeon me was not impressed with many of the tropes and things that could easily encapsulate Dragon*Con of 2018, but before I can further dig my own grave of pessimism any deeper, this isn’t at all to say that I hated everything about the weekend. As I said, I did have several things and times that I enjoyed about the weekend, but the question is they’re nearly enough to make me want to come back the following year?
I enjoyed the fact that Pokémon GO was in on the con itself, and throughout the weekend, there were Dragon*Con-themed events and some rarer Pokémon spawns around the area. Going into the convention I had 0 Unowns, and after I left the premises I had 56; all because they were supposedly set to spell out “DRAGONCON,” although they sure as shit don’t really look like they do. Regardless, with the gathering of 70-80k people, there were bound to be some Pikachu Game players amongst the crowds, and because there most certainly was, it was easy to actually play the game at its peak, like taking on gyms and raids, and going after legendary Pikachus here and there. It was very amusing to see an area fill up with people for no reason at all other than a legendary raid battle.
Something new to me I experienced this year, was actually playing some table top in the gaming area, late on Sunday night. And frankly, it was kind of refreshing being in a well-lit area with designated tables set for groups of people to play all sorts of table top games, and despite a little bit of fatigue, I actually had a great deal of enjoyment playing Mysterium with friends. And I think what I really appreciated was that it wasn’t just us, but all sorts of other groups in the area also playing a variety of games, with the occasional cheers and groans of people reacting to the happenings of their own games that was almost like being at a casino in a way. Clearly, not everyone has to go to Dragon*Con to get filthy-smashed and be drunk assholes in order to enjoy themselves.
Here’s the thing though: among the things I enjoyed about the convention were almost all entirely things that I could do absolutely anywhere outside of the confines of a convention setting. Playing Pokémon, tabletop games with friends, watching college football with my bros, eating at Willy’s; these are all things that don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive to Dragon*Con, which leads me to wonder why I should drop hundreds of dollars and endure slathering masses of humanity in order to do so? Would anyone join me if I broke from tradition and convention and wanted to enjoy these things, but in much more smaller numbers? I doubt it, but one could hope.
Eventually, I’ll go on social media and straight up ask people what they think is so great about Dragon*Con. I feel like I already know some of the answers that are going to come up, and how people manage to get to the levels of enjoyment they do, and how they’re probably all different than the go-with-the-flow mentality that I try to think is my optimal way to enjoy the con. Like, having plans and objectives throughout the weekend, whether they’re meetups, costume groups, or seeing a particular panel or meeting a particular guest. I feel like some of the more accomplished and gratifying feelings I had throughout the weekend were when I gave blood again this year, and when my bros and I did the Ric Flair photo session, to have a truly great keepsake from the convention.
Having some sort of semblance of plans gives people some purpose or objectives to strive to, and I think such is necessary when it’s alternatively so difficult to accomplish anything or find anyone throughout the ocean of humanity that’s ebbing and flowing throughout Downtown Atlanta.
I couldn’t even get fucking reliably buzzed throughout the weekend. I didn’t want to get trashed, so I stay away from hard shit, but I’ve discovered the sheer inconvenience of getting overly full on beer, and were getting to points where I simply didn’t want to drink any more liquid, because I felt like my gut was full of fluid, and I didn’t want to add more, even when my buzzes were gone. Perhaps I need to start looking towards some harder stuff in order to attain my buzz without having to down a gallon of liquid in the process.
Long story short, Dragon*Con was okay. It was fine. It had its good moments, but was once again far from the unforgettable weekend that makes me look back fondly and reminisce about the good times. The problems I have with my D*C experiences are entirely, solely on me, and I understand this.
It’s not you, Dragon*Con. It’s me. And not in that George Costanza disingenuous kind of way, but as a matter of fact. When thousands upon thousands of people are capable of enjoying you at levels that I’ve long forgotten how do so myself, that’s by no means your fault, but the fact that I’m clearly the one with issues and expectations that I’m unable or unwilling to budge on. I don’t know what this means for the future, but as of right now, there’s no guarantee that I’ll see you next year, but it’s like I say this every year, and then eventually get concerned I’ll miss out on good times when I start seeing others get excited about it, and want to give it another good ol’ college try.
So maybe see you next year? Maybe not?
