015 - Major Life Change

[captain_slinky]

I'm not going to the Emerald City Comic Con this year.

This is *huge* for me. I've been to every ECCC since the very first one back in 2003, where we were the first people in line. For the first ten years, I was always within the first ten people through those doors.

This year, it just sounds like a huge pain. I blame the addition of aging heavy metal rocker Alice Cooper to the guest list. It just makes this convention feel like one of those desperate conventions they used to try and throw in Detroit back in the 90's, where they just tossed giant wads of B-string and C-String celebrity names at the flyer and hoped it would bring in massive crowds.

• "The guy that played Boomer on the 70's version of Battlestar Galactica!
• Professional Wrestler Michael "Virgil" Jones!
• Peter Criss of KISS!
• Three of the kids from Nightmare On Elmstreet 3: The Dream Warriors!
• The guy who played "Lobot" in Empire Strikes Back!
• Horror SPFX master Tom Savini!
• That lady who was on 3 episodes of Doctor Whpo back in the 1960's!
• The guy who played Eddie Haskel on Leave It To Beaver!
• Local Monster Movie host THE GROOVY GHOUL!
• ...AND MORE!!!

These types of conventions are a lot of fun when done in a Hotel somewhere for two days, tickets that cost $25 for the entire weekend and hotel rooms that are $30 a night at the most... but at a cost of $40 *per day*, with the closest hotels being a block away and starting at $150 a night with no parking (another $30 per day)?

I just can't do it any more :(

Luckily, we have quite a few smaller, awesomer conventions in our area that are more my speed. A nice trip down to Oregon for the Rose City Comiccon would be nice... a 40 minute drive to Tacoma for Jet City Comic Con, why not? And of course Seattle has GEEK GIRL CON, which i have been wanting to attend since the very beginning but ECCC has made it financially unviable...

And GAMING CONVENTIONS! Oh how I look forward to something like OraCon up in Everett, or NorWesCon, or Rustycon, or Foolscap, or... SO MANY CONVENTIONS!!!

Comments

[yshaloo]

I usually roll my eyes at our local comic con. They'll have a bunch of power rangers and a few wrestlers and maybe a few C list celebs. And most of the artists I've never heard of, no web comic peeps at all.

[aurora77]

NORWESCON!!!

Seriously, go to Norwescon. There's so much fun stuff to do and it's such a chill, welcoming con. Lots of gaming. So long as you don't hang out in the Party Wing or Maxi's Lounge or attend the nightly dances, you would pretty much avoid people drinking. There's crafting, gaming, costuming, science, writing, comics, and all sorts of things. There's open areas for board games and scheduled gaming. They have family programming, too. They really do welcome all ages.

I missed Orcacon this year because my big work project was scheduled for then. Small local gaming con. You might like it.

[aurora77]

I'm doing ECCC this year, btw. If there's anything you MUST HAVE from ECCC, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I got the full 4-day pass because it's cheaper than 3 days and offers more flexibility, but I don't want to spend the full four days there. When the schedule comes out, I'll go through and figure out what I want to see most. I'm not as excited about it this time as I have been in the past. They have some weird guests this year. I'll definitely be giving them feedback about it.

[captain_slinky]

Thank you! I wish I had the ability to do ECCC like you do - I view it entirely too much as an "All Or Nothing" situation :) as it stands, there's only one guest going that I wanted to see (Jose Luis Garcia Lopez), and that's not so much a "Get something" as it is a "I wanna shake his hand" type of thing. And when it came right down to it, I wasn't willing to spend a 3-day weekend and $500 to do that :/ Norwescon, though... now THAT sounds interesting! I'm investigating now :)

[aurora77]

Norwescon is our one yearly MUST DO show. It's in Seatac at the Doubletree hotel, so nothing fancy. Casual and geeky. I always meet the best people. Everybody geeks out about stuff. There's comics-related panels and they often have a few comics writers. G. Willow Wilson often shows up. She's wonderful. Jay Edidin is always on panels and is a delight to hear. It's less expensive than most cons.

Parking can be an issue. Make sure you look up where to park in the area around the hotel, because their lot ALWAYS fills up.