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What is Dragon Con?
Dragon Con is a huge convention in Atlanta that is mostly fan-run by volunteer staff. It covers five hotels and part of the AmericasMart building. This year, it brought over 80,000 people to Atlanta. They were all ages and sizes, from all over America and around the world. Some used wheelchairs, walkers, and scooters, and some pushed babies in strollers while others moved about freely.
As always, it was an explosion of sound and color. Brightly colored costumes were everywhere as people indulged in “cosplay,” which is much like Halloween for grown-ups, only with more elaborate costumes which cost much more money or creativity, or both. This year saw lots of clowns due to the movie It and lots of handmaids like the ones in A Handmaid’s Tale. Game of Thrones also made a good showing. Fairies and butterflies were abundant.
People stood more or less patiently in line for up to three hours to see their favorite celebrities, like Nathan Fillion, Matt Smith, Karen Gillian, Alex Kingston, John Barrowman, and Billie Piper. (It was a bumper year for Dr. Who fans, and that is the “fandom” this reporter was most focused on, with the exception of Fillion. We do not forget Firefly.) Handicapped people, such as myself, were able to sit and wait rather than stand and were allowed to go in first, but we still needed to get there an hour and a half early for any celebrity panel.
Even if you didn’t have a membership, you could enjoy Dragon Con 2017 on Saturday morning when there was a parade, which gave the public a chance to enjoy seeing costumed walkers, celebrities, floats, and everything a parade should have.
Dragon Con was a wonderland for fans. It was hard to leave, but it is time, after all, to plan costumes and book hotels for next year!
