2010 Conventions

[fastbilly1]

Alrighty folks, 2010 is upon us and that means a whole new years worth of conventions. The year starts off right with MAGfest, which I know Majors will be attending (I cant this year due to a niece is supposed to be born on the day of), with many others to follow. I have two questions for yall (one that applies to all, one just to the convention-goers):
1. What conventions are you planning on attending?
2. What panels on gaming would you be interested in attending at said conventions?

Ill admit the second one is because I am drawing blanks about what to do at Momocon beyond my standard Retrogaming panel.

My convention list is looking like:
Momocon – Atlanta - March 20th-21st – http://www.momocon.com/
Nashicon – Columbus SC – April 10th - http://web.sa.sc.edu/clubnashi/nashicon2009.html
MTAC – Nashville TN – April 30th - http://www.mtac.net/
Animazement – Raleigh NC - May - http://www.animazement.org/
Seishun-Con - Atlanta - June - http://seishun-con.com/other.html
OMGcon – Paudcah KY – June - http://www.omgcon.com/index.html
Dragoncon – Atlanta - September - http://www.dragoncon.org/
Anime Weekend Atlanta – Atlanta - September – http://www.awa-con.com/
GMX – Nashville TN - Octoberish - http://www.whatisgmx.net/

And there are possibilities for others, but that is most of my schedule – not counting single day Atlanta ones like Atlanta Anime Day (which is just a dealers room) and the handful of one day comic shows. Hey atleast I am down from the 20 something from this year.

At Momo I typically give three panels, Nashicon last year I gave two, OMGcon I should be giving one, Dragoncon I give two, and GMX as many as they need. Typically they are all on retrogaming (except Dragoncon which are all on animation – we do a bangup European Animation panel). But I am curious to what people would like to see. I may do a panel at Momo on hidden gems – pretty much talking about all the articles we have already compiled over the years here on Racketboy, but I am cross (partially because I wary on attendance for it).

Also if any of the Atlanta/Southeast folks want to help out at Momo on a panel (any but Retrogaming proper) just drop me a line. Hell if I am running the panel at any of the cons and yall show up you can be on it aswell. And don’t let my poor writing style fool you, several of the forumgoers who have heard my panels know that I am much better at talking than I am at writing.

[pepharytheworm]

I would be interested in being on a panel for momocon, but what does that entail. I have never been to a convention, not counting for work which I am sure is totally different.

[MrPopo]

I'm only planning on going to PAX (Seattle, end of August/start of September) and possibly Sakura-con if there are people from here going and we wanted to get together. I've looked in to going to other cons that I'd have to fly to (such as PAX East to get a baseline) and I'm not willing to spend the money for the round trip flight plus hotel.

[JWatts]

wow, almost all of those are 2 hours away from me. Being in chattanooga is odd, nothing happens here but it's always within a 2 hour drive.

I'll be checking out your list, I never knew so many cons were around here, might stop by a few.

I normally go to AWA but did not get to go last year, who knows about this year!

[fastbilly1]

For my panels, it means you touchbase with me atleast a couple hours beforehand and come ready to talk. Typically I host them in a roundtable fashion so everyone who comes and wants to can voice their opinion or ask a question. However if the subject matter does not lend itself to that very well (je something more academic), well it is more of a straight lecture with pauses for questions.

I typically ask all of my fellow panelist two adhere to a few things:
- Keep console war talk low
- Keep an eye on the time
- Abide by the conventions rules - ie at most cons, depending on the time, cussing needs to be minimal
- Have fun
- And one of the most important, remember to laugh.

In my opinion the absolute worse thing that a panelist can do is toot their own horn throughout the panel.

[fastbilly1]

Jwatts you are in one of the bigger Con towns in the country. You just gotta know where to look. Off the top of my head you have Connooga, JAMPcon, and several one day analog gaming events namely the DiceHead Siege.

[pepharytheworm]

For my panels, it means you touchbase with me atleast a couple hours beforehand and come ready to talk. Typically I host them in a roundtable fashion so everyone who comes and wants to can voice their opinion or ask a question. However if the subject matter does not lend itself to that very well (je something more academic), well it is more of a straight lecture with pauses for questions.

I typically ask all of my fellow panelist two adhere to a few things:
- Keep console war talk low
- Keep an eye on the time
- Abide by the conventions rules - ie at most cons, depending on the time, cussing needs to be minimal
- Have fun
- And one of the most important, remember to laugh.

In my opinion the absolute worse thing that a panelist can do is toot their own horn throughout the panel.

Well sign me up. Depending how that goes I could join in on all the other cons since they aren't too far away.

[GamerMON]

I see most of these cons are in hotlanta. Any good ones in the midwest?

[fastbilly1]

The reason they are Atlanta centric is because I live in Atlanta and while I promote for my con there, we dont make enough money to cover travel to most anywhere (that and time off from work is scarce).

As for the Midwestish I know of:
Anime Central - Illinois
Ohayocon - Columbus, Ohio
Naka Con - Kansas City, Missouri

But I am sure there are more.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Still waiting for RacketCon