Dragon Con 2015 Recap - Celestial Objects

My friends and I spent Labor Day weekend at Dragon Con, the Southeast's largest multigenre fan convention. If you've never been, imagine 70,000 fantasy and sci-fi fans packed into about 7 square blocks of downtown Atlanta, many of them in costume, many of them sleep-deprived, all of them going from one place to another. Sound like fun? You bet it is!

This year, we opted to dress up as characters from the "Saint's Row" series of videogames. I commissioned a giant Professor Genki head, complete with a battery-powered ventilation system:



From left to right - Johnny Gat (Ziggyzeitgeist), Professor Genki (me), and Kinzie Kensington (Spookysquid):





Tessa was able to join in on the fun this year - hooray!



One of the highlights of the con was a two-hour live performance by the Georgia Philharmonic:

They recreated the famous Diva Dance scene from "The Fifth Element" (with soprano Julie Trammel cosplaying as Diva Plavalaguna):




Of course, music is all around the con. Geekapella was performing right outside the vendor hall:

Ziggyzeitgeist ran our annual 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons game. This year's tale centered on the last, lonely ride of the Agave Kid, and, as usual, it was the highlight of the con. We now have several regular friends who play with us every year, so I suppose it's not a "pick-up" game anymore, but whatever:

Lines, lines, lines - only at Dragon Con would a panel featuring the "Mass Effect" voice-actors attract this many fans:

People cosplay everywhere at the con, including the gaming room underneath the Hilton:

The Marriott Marquis hotel lobby becomes a writhing sea of foam-clad humanity at night:

The annual blood drive had cool Lugosi-as-Dracula-themed T-shirts this year, and it was as crowded as ever:

Officially, Dragon Con lasts four days, but there's not too much going on Thursday and Monday (Labor Day). It always seems to end too soon. Oh well - see you next year...