DragonCon 2014
posted August 10, 2014 12:15 AM   RSS | iCal | +googleCal

Thu August 28 at 10:00 AM, Sheraton Atlanta Hotel
165 Courtland Street Northeast, Atlanta, GA, USA (Map & Directions)
Several years previously, I've tried to hold meetups at DragonCon, and I practically never find anyone. There is really no reason to believe it'll be any different this time, but I'm posting this anyway, as a place for everyone to say if they're going and make plans, whether they will be thwarted or not. At the very least there is the awesome BOARD GAMING ROOM, a huge packed room containing a table heaped with hundreds of board games to check out, sufficient reason to attend the convention all by itself. Note, the time and place given is the registration line, this isn't a "normal" meetup.
Each time, at most, I met one other member, and usually I see none. This is probably due to a combination of factors: conventions are hectic, schedules are tricky, panels beckon, parties are there to attend, I'm not really good at organizing meetups, and recognizing other MeFi members in such a place is hard.

I still don't know of a good way of recognizing MeFites you've never met before that simultaneously won't conflict with people's costumes. If you're dressed up as something distinctive, you could describe it here for us to recognize you. (Me, unfortunately, I don't dress up for DragonCon, the convention gives me enough other things to worry about doing.)
posted by JHarris to Etc (15 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

To be clear --

This is not a specific meetup, but a place where multiple Metafilter members will almost certainly end up being anyway, and thus an opportunity for them to get together. Being a different scene than the usual MeFi meetup circuit, it can be a chance to see people who don't ordinarily make it to meetups (like myself).
posted by JHarris at 12:31 AM on August 10, 2014


It seems like such an obvious thing.......we should be hosting the meetup of all meetups!! It's Dragon Con! But I'm not a Dragon con participant. I would be down for meeting some folks however.... Especially my MeFi peeps.... let's see what people say.....I do have children to wrangle that weekend but can arrange if given enough time. What do Y'ALL think? :-)
posted by pearlybob at 9:06 AM on August 10, 2014


If you see a Guy Fierri Thursday or Friday, or on Saturday/Sunday a guy with a green mowhawk, cyberpunkish outfit, a backlit 103-key keyboard on a shoulder strap and a Power Glove tricked out in EL Wire, that's me (or an incredible coincidence).
posted by radwolf76 at 12:58 AM on August 11, 2014


I'll be around. :) Staying in the Marriott this year.
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:20 AM on August 11, 2014


Sadly I will be out of town, missing DragonCon, Decatur Book Festival, Black Gay Pride, and the UGA game at the dome. We Atlanta MeFites should schedule our own meetup some time soon.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:16 AM on August 11, 2014


I'm planning on being there either Saturday or Sunday or both!
posted by polywomp at 7:39 AM on August 11, 2014


Well anyway, I'm not sure what to do with this post now. It's not going to be any easier herding cats MeFites into one place during a huge sci-fi convention this year than it was before, so I'm anxious about marking it confirmed. And I don't have a definite place at DragonCon lined up or even in mind. But it'd get it more visibility. Hmm.
posted by JHarris at 6:40 AM on August 16, 2014


How about this. We could use this thread to keep up with each other throughout DragonCon. Find momentary schedule holes, invite to parties, arrange for games, whatever, real-time during the convention? MeMail could be used to arrange in detail for non-everyone meetings and the like. Does that sound useful to people?
posted by JHarris at 6:15 PM on August 17, 2014


Further note to everyone:

The 2014 version of the DragonCon App is available for download on both iOS and Android. It supports connections using that system that even Nintendo abandoned: friend codes. And each code is only good for one friend! If you want to connect to more, you have to generate more codes! Still though, could be a good way for MeFites to connect.
posted by JHarris at 8:00 PM on August 17, 2014


I'll be at the Sheraton again this year, flying in Thursday morning, leaving Tuesday afternoon. I don't expect we'll manage to schedule an actual mefi meetup this year either, but I like having the annual 'Dragoncon Mefi Missed Connections' thread in IRL, it's traditional.

I don't have any real costumes planned, though I've got my purple & red cloaks. If I could find a picnic basket this weekend, I may be able to pull off a Red Riding Hood outfit one day at least. (For anyone who does want to trade friend codes on the app, last year I would take a selfie each day so that my profile pic showed what I was wearing.) I hope to get to as many Arrow, Warehouse 13, and Once Upon a Time panels as I can. And my best friend who lives in California is coming this year for her first Dragoncon, so I will be keeping her company all con, as well as meeting up with my usual buddies.

JHarris - why not use the Sheraton registration line opening hours as the time/place to move this from proposed to confirmed? You can always edit it later if a meetup actually materializes, but that would get it on the Metatalk sidebar.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:12 AM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think I'll do that, good idea.
posted by JHarris at 1:42 PM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thursday went by in a blur - arrival, check-in, and badge pickup went without a hitch. Went to the Gladys Knight waffle house for lunch, went to the High art museum and saw the dream car exhibit (absolutely gorgeous, and I'm not much of a car person), then dinner at Ray's Seafood by the Weston, and a quick walkthrough of the Hyatt/Marriott/Hilton sky bridges before crashing for the night. Saw the 10am Arrow panel, and hope to get into the 1pm Karl Urban panel next.
posted by oh yeah! at 8:46 AM on August 29, 2014


I went to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode viewing, where they showed The Magic Sword and (ugh) Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell, aka "guess what I've been doiiing!" I answered a trivia question in which I named Deathstalker villain Troxartus before the episode played and won a hideous thing: a Blu-Ray "collectors edition" of (Mexican) Santa Claus. The cover art up-plays the amazing creepiness of the movie with the subtitle SANTA SEES YOU WITH HIS MAGIC EYE!
posted by JHarris at 6:40 PM on August 30, 2014


I completely forgot about updating my profile pic in the app each day. I'm not used to having someone with me at panels, past years I've generally been on my own between breakfast and dinner, but this year I've got my friend with me, and we've been sticking together all day. I'm getting to fewer panels than I would normally manage on my own, but it's more fun having a con-buddy.
posted by oh yeah! at 11:20 AM on August 31, 2014


It is, unfortunately I usually don't have one.

Anyway, the convention is over now. I played several board games, taught a few more [Power Grid, Twilight Struggle, Dominion a couple of times], watched two MST3K episodes with a (steadily diminishing, due to the hour) crowd, won a DVD, saw Joel's one man show in which he talks about growing up and the foundations of his creative sense and Mystery Science, got to see Bob Burden and Don Rosa in the artist room again (who this time I made sure to tell him he's awesome -- does anyone else here know that the successor to the great Carl Barks is regularly at DragonCon every year??), and so on. And I got in excess of 550 pictures. I went camera mad. I'm kind of wondering what I should do with them all.

There were plenty of disappointments this year too, but there always are. I never get to see all the panels I want, I nearly always am in a secondary hotel and thus have to do a ton of extra walking, lines are sometimes extremely long, crowds were intense enough at times that I think I'm beginning to gain a touch of claustrophobia, the Dealer's Room's new venue doesn't agree with me well with large crowds and lines and me getting lost enough that I'm sure I didn't see the whole thing, I had no money to get a new board game, and, of course, I didn't get to hang out with any friends there and my shunning of social situations did me no favors in terms of meeting many people. (Though I did meet a couple of board gaming folk, who are among the coolest and nicest at Dragon -- Emerson and Eric, particularly, were great. I taught Emerson how to play Twilight Struggle and he went on and beat me in the learning game!)
posted by JHarris at 11:35 PM on September 1, 2014



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