Awesome Con (May 29-31) in Washington, DC! We've heard so much positivity about this show and have gotten some very professional-looking flyers for it since it's inception a few years ago. With my best friend and frequent partner-in-crime Fenny of Little Asian Sweatshop living right outside of DC, we figured we'd give AC a shot and see if it's something we'd like to add to our regular convention schedule. This was the first show of 2015 with our regular dream team of pinup goddesses: Fenny of Little Asian Sweatshop, Maria Danalakis and of course, myself.
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Once upon a time 3 little girls went to Starfleet Academy...
Overall I liked Awesome Con. It wasn't perfect, but the stuff that it got right- especially for a show only a few years old- was stuff that will make it into a great con once it's been around a few years. They really had their shit together. Lots of staff, all very friendly and willing to help. Unlike my last show. Lots of room behind the tables as well. Enough room to put on SKITS, because me and my friends are ridiculous. And the three of us donned some classic Star Trek uniforms, of course. I mean both William Shatner AND George Takei were guests there. We HAD to.
A video posted by Paige Pumphrey (@paigey_pumphrey) on
Haha, yes we are ridiculous.
I got my bangs specially cut to be a Vulcan that weekend.
There were a few things I wasn't super crazy about.
A big one was realizing I'm not that crazy about DC in general. When I lived in Maryland I used to avoid it like the plague- the traffic is crazy, it's easy to get lost in and it being an older city who's general infrastructure doesn't handle the influx of people coming in and going out. Also after living in NYC for 8 years (woo!) their Metro system compared to the subway is a confusing, high-stakes nightmare. That closes around midnight. Ugh. Now I remember why I never went to the city without an 'adult' to guide me.
After setup on Friday.
Also it being such a young show, from what I've heard in years previous they have expanded the floor to accommodate bigger crowds every year since the show has been opened. The problem with this however is when you keep expanding the floor, everything gets placed further and further apart. Including attendees. Much like the last Heroes Con I attended in '13, the expansion causes even record crowds to appear smaller which leads to less hype, less excitement and less sales on the convention floor. I'd actually rather have a smaller floorplan with more crowding of attendees in the aisles than large swaths of empty floor shining back up at me. But then that's easy for me to say as a mere vendor. So... ::womp womp::. Also? I think the show could stand to be a 2-day versus a 3-day.
We also had Artist Alley neighbors who were a male artist and his wife who insisted on keeping their small 2-3 year old son strapped in a stroller behind the table with headphones and an iPad for almost the entire duration of the show, and when he wasn't watching the ipad he was sleeping in the stroller. Oh and they fed the kid candy. ALLLLL DAY. Which is a total buzzkill, because now we need to watch our volume, watch our language and listen to the kid freak out and cry when the ipad runs out of juice. Fortunately the mom had the sense to stroll the kid away when he started to melt down, but still... ugh. Originally in our layout of our tables we had Fenny next to the family, which if you've ever met Fenny you'd know in a convention setting she is very loud, very boisterous and very potty-mouthed. Having already witnessed some epic snippiness last year at Baltimore Comic Con over Fenny's volume levels, I had the forethought to switch with her to the furthest table space to avoid further possible conflict. Ever the little adjudicator I am.
We found an awesome Uhura and had to get pics with her. <3 comment-3--="">
Also SAD, my trusty vertical Paigey banner died at this show. I opened it up for the first time after coming back from Dallas and when I pulled it out of the bag about 3-4 little nuts and bolts fell out too that controlled the spring mechanism that brings the vinyl banner back into the base and holds up the support pole. It had a good 4 years and I wanted to get a new one anyways, so now that def has to happen.
We were also near the ever-awesome Jennifer Rose and Ruby Rinesko as Batman and Batgirl!!!
Overall I really liked Awesome Con, but I'll probably give it a couple years to come into it's own before I return. My earnings weren't quite enough to validate the trip down, plus a lot of the folks I saw were my regular customers at Baltimore Comic Con, which is a lot easier for me to get to.
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