Even though I gave you guys some small highlights the last few days I wanted to give you all a more in-depth report on how Dragon Con went.
Being back at Dragon Con was a surreal experience after being away for two years. Also, the capacity was at 50% in comparison to other years which also made for a different experience. Since Jason and I have been attending the attendance has always been at around 80,000 even though there have been times where it felt like more.
The sky bridges between the main 3 host hotels were always packed with people from Friday to Sunday and it was always worse on Saturdays. Getting from one hotel to the other could take an hour or more.
But at 50% capacity and them not offering day passes for Saturday meant the crowds were pretty manageable and the sky bridges were never gridlocked the entire weekend. For years we talked about what the convention would be like if it wasn’t as crowded and this year we got to experience that and I won’t lie, once the Con is at full capacity I will miss the lighter crowds.
Even with the lighter crowds, there was still a ton of amazing cosplayers out showing their creations, we spent most of our time doing one of our favorite things, people watching. The best place to see cosplays is the atrium level of the Marriott, if you want your cosplay to be seen that is where you go. Saturday nights the Atrium is so packed it’s usually difficult to move around, but this year it was better.
This year we decided on a lazy con, meaning that aside from the panels we were scheduled to be on we didn’t really attend any panels or really schedule anything except maybe being at the dealer room when it opened on Friday. I kind of preferred this strategy, it made for a much more relaxed convention. We also cosplayed when we wanted and for as long as we wanted. The only cosplay I had scheduled was Lady Galadriel because of the planned Photoshoot.
Saturday was also special because it was Jason’s birthday, we celebrated by just enjoying the convention and we finished by having dinner at one of the restaurants we’ve always wanted to try, Trader Vic’s. The place is pricey but the drinks and food are amazing. One of the restaurants was even serving a special dragon Con cake that we got for his birthday.
Here are some of my favorite highlights of Dragon Con.
Seeing all my con friends that I haven’t seen in two years was probably top of the list. So many of these friends I only ever see at conventions. It was great running into everyone, some was a brief greeting while some I was able to have a bit of a longer conversation while others we got to hang with for a little while. It was great seeing my Con family.
Next was my favorite thing to do at Con, visiting the dealer room. The dealer room runs from Friday through Monday and opens daily at 10 am. We were in line waiting on Friday before 10 am as we always enjoy being one of the first people in the dealer rooms (Mostly to hit the Chessex booth). So many of the dealers are the same every year but there are so many new vendors each year and I always love to see what new merch there is available. The first few years we went to Dragon Con we tended to splurge a lot in the dealer room, it was hard to control ourselves. Now we tend to be a lot more selective when shopping.
As for my treasure finds in the dealer room this year I found some new Click clacks, some tabletop gaming adventures, Art prints, latex elf ears for my Lady Galadriel costume, Hand made wood decor and even a tiny little bunny stuffy made of felt that was also hand made. The best part is we found an autograph picture of Jodi Whitaker to add to our Doctor Who autographs collection.
Doing our cosplays this year was fun but also frustrating, the ones with lots of layers got a little hot to be in. I will definitely need to make some adjusts to some of our current costumes before the next convention.
Sunday was interesting, we were tired because we were out super late the night before but we also got to get our picture taken with Chris Eccelston the 9th Doctor. We have officially now gotten pictures from all the current doctors with the exception of Jodi.
Later on, Sunday was another one of my favorite Con moments the Tolkien photoshoot. I had to put this together last minute as no one else had done it and thanks to a friend we even had a photographer available for the shoot. Seeing so many Tolkien cosplayers made my heart happy. I’m already planning for another Tolkien shoot for Dragon Con 2022.
Another tradition for us during Dragon Con is calling it early on Sunday, going back to our hotel room, and watching the costume masquerade live on Dragon Con TV while we start cleaning up and packing our things for our departure. Watching the masquerade has also been one of the highlights of every con.
We ended Dragon Con by taking one last visit to the dealer room before we headed back home.
All in all the best thing was just being back at Dragon Con, the atmosphere is something we really missed, we do end up being really exhausted by the end of it because not only are we out of our routine but we do a lot more walking then we typically do and we just tend to be a lot more active.