Dragon Con 2015 is now two weeks in the past and the immense amount of content I’ve wrote for it has now come to an end. It was an amazing experience and to put the last page to rest, I figure I’d do a debriefing of the experience, what I brought, what I experienced, and a timeline of how it went – along with some advice for those attending.

For those who think this is too long and didn't read, I can sum it up by saying it was a lot of very nice people, a lot of fun, and well worth being there, and I'm looking forward to next year, if the chance arrises for me to attend again (location, location, location).

Dragon Con Advice

Sadly, I’m not the one to even begin to give a speech or discussion about what to do at the convention. I’ve spoken with some who are naturally very, very experienced and they weren’t even prepared, and I’m talking about those who have attended since the ‘80s. I will say wear light clothing, bring as little as necessary, and prepare to suffer in the name of your fandom because the crowd is huge.

I found that, the biggest advice out there I think is to be content with missing something. I actually missed a lot, but, I think it’s even more important to just be alright with it. There is so much to see and so much to do, missing one thing just opens another outlet for discovering another.

I don’t think there is honestly a right way to be prepared. I came with literally everything I thought I needed, and needed more and less at the same time. Being my first time going, I was overwhelmed even with a legion of friends who described everything.

Food was another interesting thing I wasn’t prepared for. Prices were skyhigh, but realistically rather reasonable depending on the amount of time and effort you wanted to put into it. The mall was completely overran, but if you wanted to wait in the long lines or go to the less frequented shops, the chances of getting a decently priced meal were rather average. If you went to the drug store in the mall and just got some candy bars then you were pretty much going to be in and out. If you went to any anything within the convention’s jurisdiction (the hotels) then odds are you’re paying sporting arena prices, but then again the food is literally in front of you.

Taking public transit away from the Peachtree Center area is a common trick locals know of. For a rather inexpensive ($5 both ways) train ride, you can get to Midtown or a plethora of other locations with easy to reach food, along with taking the bus if you’re brave enough. I didn’t do this, because I’m perfectly okay with being hungry, and went home rather early each day anyway.

What I Brought

I actually didn’t bring a lot with me. I had my Timbuk 2 bag with me, which has literally survived everything in my life at this point and still looks brand new. I’m not paid to say that, it’s just a matter of truth. In it I had a WiFi Camera (controlled with my phone so I can do video interviews without having to a camera person), my phone, a notebook, some business cards, hand sanitizer, pens & pencils, my archaic voice recorder that doesn’t have USB support, and an eyeglass repair kit, along with a spare pair of eyeglasses and sunglasses, oh and a tripod.

Well, I found out I couldn’t use my tripod, so the second day I replace the tripod with

Luckily, none of my emergency supplies were used.

What I Did

So I live about a few minutes away from a train station, so I rode the train to the convention early Friday morning. I’ve been to Peachtree Center a lot actually, lots of events happen there, but every single time I get lost. So the first thing that happened – I got lost. I spent a good part of 30 minutes walking in every direction but the correct one to the Hyatt to get my badge. Finally, after walking the wrong direction a sufficient enough times, I landed directly at the Hyatt, got my badge, and then immediately got lost on my way to the Hilton to see an Hour with Lord British.

Finally arriving, just in time for the Camelot Unchained panel, I was lucky enough to find a seat, as it quickly became rather packed. My original plan was to move between the Camelot Unchained panel and the Blizzard panel, but I quickly learned – these panels are full. I’m very accustomed to panels that don’t fill up nearly as quickly or with such zeal, but these panels were full nearly instantly.

After the panel, I quickly learned what a line was. Going casually over to the BioWare Voice Actor panel, I was met with a little bit of something called a line. Taking the habitrail or skywalk or whatever you want to call it, I took a demon wing straight to the eye, losing the ability to see out of it for a while. The humorous part was that this is such an occurrence, in the BioWare panel, I quickly found out what “you might not make it inside meant” as I was probably 10 back from the panel’s cutoff.

After the panel, which was rather fun, I had half an hour to make it to the An Hour with Lord British Panel and the HiRez Panel. Sadly, the HiRez line was full, so I ended up having to attend the An Hour with Lord British fully. Moving between panels wasn’t possible anyway, they were full and giving up your seat meant you might not get it back.

After that, I was pretty much on my way home, striking out at a few other panels I attempted to go to and figured the time was better put resting for the next day.

On the second day, I got there early because of the parade. Now I was an expert at making it to panels, until the Storytelling in Video Games happened. Ended up having to wait outside for a very long period of time, thankfully I got there about 40 minutes early, which was enough time to get me around halfway in line.

The rest of the day had a repeat of the same actions, wrapping up with the Star Citizen Q&A panel.

Sunday and Monday were mostly wandering around and experiencing things that I couldn’t do the previous two days, since there wasn’t any pressing panels to be at, and I could take my leisure on moving around. Needless to say exhaustion had set in by this point and I had taken a few too many hits to the elbow for my own comfort from people attempting to run through a convention where everyone is already shoulder to shoulder.

Conclusion

I found the event to be rather fun and exciting. Some things I noted was the immense Star Wars presence. I mean, absolutely immense. From Mandalorians to Jedi and everything in between, there was every representation of Star Wars you could imagine. I’d dare say from my limited exposure, Star Wars was the definitely the biggest fandom this year.

For highlights, it was the Camelot Unchained panel when a mother got up to ask a question for her son, who was trying to be at another panel, receiving cheers and a round of applause. Everyone welcomed her, knowing her task was difficult, and I really appreciate everyone being nice.

Speaking of nice, for the most part everyone I met was very nice and conversational. I think there was only one rude person at the entire event, and it was a woman who really, really, really liked her spot in the line and was hyper aggressive about it, but I mean, one not-the-most-polite (I wouldn’t even dare say bad) person in a sea of over 65,000 people isn’t specifically bad odds.

I’m excited to go back again next year, hopefully. It was a great experience and the video game panels were rocking – seeing fans get up close and personal with the developers was super nice and it was an amazing experience that I could pelt you with probably another 1,250 words over but I’ll let you go.

From here it’s nothing but fall releases, so stay tuned.