Dragoncon 2016 Mistakes and Lessons Learned
So Dragoncon is over [cue crowd “aww…”], but I am not super sad like last year. So far, no con crud [con crud- after going to a con some people may get sick due to being surrounded by strange people, lack of sleep and proper nutrition, and lack of proper hygiene on your or fellow con goers parts], the apartment is not as covered in Dragoncon cosplay remnants as compared to last year, and now I have time to do something else other than cosplays, like work on my wedding.
So throughout the con I took mental notes of major mistakes and success I had during our experience and the lessons I have learned through those mistakes and successes.
It is important to remember that Dragoncon is a completely different experience depending on what you purchased your Dragoncon tickets for. My major reason for coming to Dragoncon is for cosplay and to go to panels to see stars from my favorite shows and movies. Other people may come for the partying that happens at night, to learn from the different workshops, or to network with other nerds. So my mistakes list is based on my reasons for going to Dragoncon as a cosplayer and a super fan. So with that being written, let’s start with the list of my mistakes…
My Top 5 Mistakes of Dragoncon 2016
1. Procrastinating
Year after year this issues seems to plague me, but I just cannot help myself. Procrastination caused two issues this year; first, I did not have time to try out my outfits and second, I had to use shortcuts to make things that inevitably failed.
Test Driving Your Cosplay
Because of procrastination, I did not have time to test drive my outfits and therefore did not discover easily resolvable issues beforehand that ended up causing major problems later. For example, if I had finished my Revan breastplate early I could have tried it on for longer than 10 minutes and discovered that the sticky back Velcro that I was using to close my armor needed to be hot glued. Because of this failure I spent the rest of the day duct taping the armor closed repeatedly and eventually giving up on it at about 1pm.
Test driving your cosplays also gives you the opportunity to figure out what will become uncomfortable after a few hours, for example my Poison Ivy shin guard that was cutting into the top of my foot. If I tested my cosplay prior to the morning of Dragoncon, I would have figured that out and could have changed my design so that this was more comfortable.
The lovebug suggested that next year we go grocery shopping in our cosplays. That way we will have to sit down in them and move around in ways that would be expected of us at Dragoncon. I'm not too sure how they will feel about me walking in with no pants however, but I will cross that metaphorical bridge when I get to it (or literal bridge, I literally have to cross a bridge in order to get to the grocery store).
2. Packing too much food
Last year we did much better with this, we packed a few snacks to share and that was it. This year we planned on bringing our own lunches, which worked well, but then in addition to that we brought 4 times as many snacks as we would normally eat in a day. It was as if we were preparing for the apocalypse and could not guarantee the next time we would have access to food (even though there was a food court and we were in the middle of Atlanta and could easily buy something to eat at one of many restaurants within walking distance of Dragoncon). On the average day in addition to our lunch we packed the following:
2 large apples
2 servings of pretzels
2 packs of fruit snacks
2 juice boxes
4 chewy granola bars
2 packs of peanut butter crackers
I never even touched my apple during all 4 days of Dragoncon. All the extra food it added weight to the book bag, which under normal circumstances would be fine, but when you are wearing it for over 12 hours, 4 days in a row, it can cause some problems (fatigue, unusual soreness, irritability, becoming the hunchback of Notre Dame).
Next time we will 1, get a rolling book bag that can also be worn on your back and 2, not pack enough food to feed ourselves and everyone else sitting in line with us. A lunch and a few snacks are fine.
3. Planning too thoroughly
So last year I did not know anything about Dragoncon going into it, so I planned nothing and every morning I had to figure out what panels we would go to and ended up missing good panels because we were wasting time in panels that we were not interested in.
This year I was already aware of the Dragoncon app and planned our panels for every hour that we would be there
…and I planned on 3 backup panels in case the first choice ended up being a bust
...and then printed out a schedule that had a list of everywhere we were supposed to be before, during and after Dragoncon (see picture below)
... and printed out a map of the Dragoncon host hotels (see picture to the right).
Then I walked around with this packet of informative papers and my phone and our backpack filled with enough food to feed an army and a random banana, all of which I had to put down every time someone wanted to take my picture, in addition to taking off my glasses and then pick up all of that junk so that we could continue to be so overwhelmed with information that we had no idea what to do.
After about an hour I realized that the map was useless because I could not figure out the street names, I had difficulty getting oriented correctly, and ended up having to ask people what street I was on to which they would reply by asking me where I was trying to get to and just telling me how to get there. Hour two was when I realized that the printed schedule was useless as well because I had all the information on the Dragoncon app. Hour five was when I realized that I did not actually want to go to all of those panels and backup panels.
That evening on MARTA (Atlanta’s public transportation system), I went through the app and figured out which panels were “must sees” and took away all the others from my schedule making the following day much more enjoyable.
Tip: Find out if your con has an app or website and select 2 to 5 "must see" events each day and plan your schedule around those events.
4. Staying too late
This was a problem last year, it was an even bigger issue this year. In my planning this year, I discovered that if we left before 1:30am we could still get home using MARTA (Atlanta's public transportation system). This was a bad move [Optimus Prime voice (SMALL SPOILER:in Transformers 1, Optimus Prime says, “you made a bad move taking the kids” to the government people who took the Sam and whoever Megan Fox’s character was)]. Nothing good happens at Dragoncon after midnight [Lethal Weapon’sRoger Murtaugh, “I’m getting too old for this poop”].
After 7pm is when Dragoncon starts getting inappropriate for children to be there. Excited cosplayers begin leaving their hotel rooms in pretty revealing costumes. People start drinking and doing other recreational stuff. It's just not a good place for children to be after 7pm, unless you, as a parent, roll like that, in which case, do what brings you peace and roll on.
After midnight is when it starts getting bananas and girls with pasties for costumes start roaming, people drunkenly spill what you hope is their drink on you and your carefully crafted cosplay, and you are in a constant state of being worried that at any moment some guy is going to randomly vomit on you or grab one of your body parts. And then after that ordeal, you have to ride MARTA in full costume when there is no one but you and the sketchiest of sketchies on the train. And then drive home exhausted and wake up early the next morning after about 2 and a half hours of sleep to make it to the William Shatner panel first thing in the morning. Again I say, nothing good happens after midnight.
This is just my opinion and is based on my reason for coming to Dragoncon. If partying is your thing, go ahead, have fun, just try not to vomit on your neighbor. My fiance happens to disagree with me on this one (and on mistake #2). However for me, I didn’t buy my Dragoncon tickets to party until the wee hours of the morning. I like to be up at the wee hours of the morning to get into costume and then stand in line for an hour and a half to see the DC Legends panel. I have far too many un-diagnosed anxieties to handle being at Dragoncon after midnight.
I suppose the real lesson I learned (hopefully) is to know thyself and don't try to hang with the crowd that isn't there for the same reason as you. Just let them know beforehand, "Hey guys, I really want to see Brett Dalton in the morning, so I can't hang out past midnight tonight." and if they are cool friends (which I'm sure they are because about 90% of the people at Dragoncon are cool) they will be down with that. And if not, you can come hang out with me and I will join you as we leave at what my mother would refer to as a reasonable hour.
5. Making un-functional costumes
Lastly, the final mistake of Dragoncon was making beautifully un-functional costumes. Let’s revisit the Poison Ivy armor.
The armor was quite pretty, especially for my first attempt at armor making. I am very happy with how it looked; however there were some major functionality issues that made it impossible for me to exist. I could not walk long distances (and it was parade day, I missed the parade). I could not walk up the stairs in it. I had to remove half of it to go to the restroom or to sit down. If my sole reason for coming to Dragoncon was to be one of those fantastic people who stand in cosplay and let people come and take pictures of them, my immobility would have been fine. However I wanted to walk around and go to panels all day, and my costume was not designed for that.
This kind of goes back to my first point about procrastination and trying out your costumes. Unfortunately, I knew that my costume would be difficult to live in, and I did nothing to change it. I mostly did not know how to change the costume so that it was more functional. Additionally, I did not plan my costume to be functional. My costume design was established because I was constantly trying to fix problems that arose in the original design (for example, running out of leaves, so I needed to create something to cover up the torso). I’m not sure how to resolve this issue. Perhaps with more experience and by watching more YouTube videos, I will be able to have a repertoire of solutions for the problems that arose in the design. Idk/Je ne sais pas.
So there you have it. My top five mistakes and the lessons I learned from them. I’m curious about what mistakes you have made in your cosplay experience and lessons that you have learned. If you have any questions about anything, please leave a question in the comments section below.
