Atlanta Scifi Expo, anyone going?

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DKop
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Anime Fan Since: 1998
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Re: Atlanta Scifi Expo, anyone going?

Post by DKop »

Yea thanks for coming out Drew, and doing that dank Pizza place near the mall in Decatur.

Based on first impressions for this being this first years con, not impressive at all. I don't believe its the worst con i've been to over the years, but it ranks pretty low. My biggest problem is TOO MUCH OPEN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! I think using the Ross for half of the con content would have worked instead of the gaming area being on the opposite end of the mall from where the venders were located, and not enough big flashy signs to guide people where to go. There was a map, but way too confusing to follow if you don't know that area (like I did, I had to follow the voice of the Maid Cafe harpies on stage to figure out the gaming area where the Gundam group was located.) It's so odd to have girls in maid outfits in the middle of your damn mall playing anime music, it's truly a spectacle to behold in person.

That panel area was what I set up in 5 minutes, and it worked with our area for people to find where our stuff was being done, which out of all the scheduled panels the group was doing, I was the ONLY ONE that got to do a panel since the tech equipment went to the hands of these VR guys most of Saturday and part of Sunday when they bitched about not getting their equipment where they wanted, and only to have the PC crash on them leaving us to use the projector in time for my panel (karma is a mothaeffer ain't it 8-) ).

I think there was about 10 people in that panel, which based on the con size, I was pretty impressed I got that much. More people stopped by to hear what I had to say when I got started, so my gift of pubic speaking came through. The fact that people stayed around to talk about anime/gundam after the panel ended is a good sign that I made it pretty interesting. I love doing panels to ramble about what I wanna talk about, and having those visual aid's is a plus always. We were originally set up in the loading bay of Ross, which would have worked if the rest of Ross was totally filled up for people to want to come into the loading bay to see Gundam kits. We eventually moved out to be more seen, and good thing we did because we wouldn't have gotten the attention we did if we stayed where we were at.

I'd say the con has a lot of issues it needs to fix, primarily way too much open space across more open space to get to something that may or may not be there. If things don't change this is just a waste of time for the attendees, the staff and the mall to have. I had fun meeting with the Gundam group out of Atlanta since I was the only representative from my Greenville area to come, so that fellowship and community was well worth it. I got photos and a video of the Ross down below that I posted on social media, so it gives an idea of what it looked like.

https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/9 ... 4860194816
https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/9 ... 6024139776
https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/9 ... 2945657856
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