Guise Knights

Article by  Your ever-loving Site Admin: Lejon --- Read more from this author

I know what you’re thinking: Guise Knights didn’t actually have an official presence at WesterCon 62 (FiestaCon). Well, you’re correct in that. We didn’t contact the convention coordinators, we didn’t set up game tables, and except for your everlovin’ Admin Lejon, we didn’t even go to the convention. So, why should we reflect on it?

Excellent question.

First: it’s one of the only conventions that will be in the Valley of the Sun this year.

Second: While it wasn’t a “Gaming” convention, gaming did take place (although, for reasons that are unclear I did not attend any)

So, the total amount of panel-going and attending of Con stuff was very light. The wife and I mingled a little, sat in on some interesting if meandering panels, and we got schwag. This may sound a little lack-luster, and that brings me to my first point:

This con should have been busy and well attended, but was not. The attendance (which was being published by the convention staff daily) topped out at 650 warm bodies. WesterCon is a MAJOR regional convention. Attendance should have topped 1000 easily if not more. I only have assumptions on why there wasn’t more of a draw, and those assumptions point back to the convention coordinators.

Now, I’m not saying they did anything wrong. The location was lovely, the panels were reasonably entertaining, the demo’s (the Adult Bodypainting, for instance) were excellent to view… I’m just saying that there should have been more people. It seemed under-advertised.

Also notable were the gaming room representatives. This year, at RandomCon, The Laughing Moon Chronicles held a lot of interest. I believe that this is in no small part due to the lovely gaming women that played while scantilly clad. At this WesterCon, the Laughing Moon Chronicles made their second appearance at any con ever (found this out chatting with the author of the story), and once again brought with them their in-costume advertising babes (I must point out that I have no end of frustration with myself for not bringing a camera with me). The most impressive costume I saw involved a lot of iridescent violet paint which had been airbrushed onto the model (I guess she was a model, she might have just been into cosplay). Not an inch of visible flesh went unpainted, and there were many more inches visible than not.

The point is, The Laughing Moon Chronicles people represented. They did an awesome job of promoting their stuff, and they probably suffered because of the poor attendance.

So, what have I learned from this? I’m thinking that if I want a better convention in the future, I need to be more involved. ‘Nuff said. Participation is the key.

Keep that in mind, and let us know what you think. Comment here, or hit the forum. The forum is free!

Tags: FiestaCon, RandomCon, WesterCon 62

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 8:02 AM and is filed under Conventions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.