For a great many years, I’ve dreamed of attending
DragonCon as I’ve heard nothing but great tales of joy and elation about of the
show. Fortuitous luck would shine down upon me to finally be able to attend the
show and strike it off my convention bucket list. Hailing from California and
traversing two time zones, this was a trek in a half, so I feel blessed to have
been able to make the journey to attend. Even more so, considering that the
Hotels sell out fairly quickly.
Funny story that I have to mention- My wife and I took a
red-eye flight from CA to GA, and decided to take SuperShuttle from the airport
to the Hotel. On the way to the Hotel, we were shooting the breeze with some
people that were also attending DragonCon, and they asked what I would be
cosplaying as, so I told them, “Indigo Tribe John Stewart, Future Static Shock”
and “Morpheus from the Matrix.” They all said, “Oh! We saw this kick-ass
Morpheus at StocktonCon last week! He was the best we’ve ever seen!” I said,
“Oh, that was me!” with a Cheshire cat grin on my grill. Small world!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that besides the crazy humidity, the city of Atlanta was an incredible host! Being a Black man, I was pleasantly surprised to see Blacks strongly represented and portrayed in a positive light. There were nearly all Black police officers, Black store owners, Black managers, Black executives in the CNN center, Blacks driving expensive cars… It was a virtual Blacktopia! Coming from the west coast, I’ve never seen anything like that; it felt invigorating and gave me a confident sense of pride… and everyone just seemed so cool and down-to-Earth, like in Hawaii.
We stayed at the Omni, and thanks to great customer service, we got a room with a spectacular view overlooking Centennial Park and their world-famous Ferris wheel.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that besides the crazy humidity, the city of Atlanta was an incredible host! Being a Black man, I was pleasantly surprised to see Blacks strongly represented and portrayed in a positive light. There were nearly all Black police officers, Black store owners, Black managers, Black executives in the CNN center, Blacks driving expensive cars… It was a virtual Blacktopia! Coming from the west coast, I’ve never seen anything like that; it felt invigorating and gave me a confident sense of pride… and everyone just seemed so cool and down-to-Earth, like in Hawaii.
We stayed at the Omni, and thanks to great customer service, we got a room with a spectacular view overlooking Centennial Park and their world-famous Ferris wheel.
...and inside the Omni is the world-famous CNN Center.
Across the street is the World of Coca-Cola and the Atlanta Aquarium, where a massive cosplay soiree was held.
The Aquarium masquerade party was amazing, and I was lucky to be able to attend considering it was sold out. I tried purchasing tickets online, but it was sold out, so I went to the Aquarium to check availability. The cashier said they were sold out too, so I said "thanks anyway" and left, but as I was leaving, the cashier chased me down and said the manager could work some magic and get me some tickets. Low and behold, she did! More great customer service!
Centennial Park was a nice place to visit and had great, breath-taking views, especially at night with the Olympic fountain. and Ferris wheel illuminated.
If you’ve never attended DragonCon, you will learn that everything is spread out downtown and the city of Atlanta becomes DragonCon.
Being at the convention for all four days, I still didn’t have a chance to see everything that the convention had to offer. The convention takes place in 5 different host hotels (Westin Peachtree, Hyatt Regency, Marriott Marquis, Sheraton Atlanta and Hilton Atlanta) and two separate convention centers, not to mention the parade on Saturday. I wish I had done some more recon, especially when it comes to the photo shoots. Sadly, I missed out on a few, the Matrix, in particular.
Getting our badges was a smooth and relatively speedy process. Bring your postcard and ID, get in and get out.
One thing I really like about DragonCon is that there are no lottery/ticket pulls for celebrity interactions. You pay before-hand at their table for autographs and selfies/photo-ops. The “Walk of Fame” room is a nice touch in that all of the available celebrities are in this one room for signings, so you didn’t have to traverse different hotels and conference rooms. Incidentally, this room was where the bulk of the air conditioning was routed. I suppose they have to keep the talent happy. When I was in costume, I took a breather in there just to keep from sweating… and in the ATL, you WILL ‘sweat’ like C&C Music Factory said.
The Art Gallery and Gaming center in one of the separate convention centers was kind of cool, but wasn’t my scene, so I didn’t spend too much time there. I did roam the Vendor’s Hall for a bit, which had three separate floors ranging from vendors to costume-makers to artists and comic creators. Yaya Han even had a booth where she was selling her merchandise and taking photos with fans.
The cosplay was top-notch and absolutely incredible! Jedi, Sith, Elves, Pokémon, Superheroes, Supervillains, caricatures and anything that you could possibly fathom congregated for the largest 4-day masquerade party on the planet! For the first time ever, I felt like my cosplay wasn’t up to par. Practically everyone had some kind of group, gimmick, bells and/or whistles to put their cosplay over the top. I even had another Morpheus give me cosplay advice! At one point, when I was inside the Marriott Marquis, the center of the DragonCon cosplay universe, it seemed that everyone had lights on their costumes… and I fit right in as my Future Static cosplay has lights galore, which made people “ooh and ah” when I lit 'em up. As Future Static, I felt like a Rockstar!
This image is a perfect illustration as you cannot be shown what DragonCon is. You have to experience it for yourself…
...and here’s a small taste.
There’s an abundance of eateries downtown, including a mall that had the most restaurants I’ve ever seen in one spot. My wife and I decided to eat at Bennihana’s on Saturday afternoon as we were tired of the typical ‘burgers and fries’ fast food establishments. When I walked into the restaurant as Morpheus, I literally froze the eatery. People stopped eating and stared at me, wondering if I was really “him.” One group called me over to confirm I wasn’t really him, chat it up with me and compliment on how much they liked my cosplay. Funny thing- they were transplants from the Bay Area and big San Francisco Giants fans. This interaction was a microcosm of the entire stay in the ATL; everyone was really friendly, engaging and laid back.
If you’re big into cosplay, I highly recommend checking out this show at least once in your lifetime. I promise that you won’t regret it. I do, however, recommend that if you attend, you do so with a group of friends, or at least like-minded folks that like and appreciate cosplay. Cosplaying by yourself is fine, but you NEED a friend or handler (or someone) to take photos. Plus, cosplaying is just so much more enjoyable with another cosplaying friend. I was in costume most of the time, so taking photos was a daunting task. As Future Static, it was virtually impossible because of my gloves, so I had to leave the convention on Saturday night and return as Morpheus just so I could have the hands to operate a camera. Sadly, I have very few photos of myself and have to resort to character Google-searches for images.
Here is my cosplay Facebook page, which contains over 200 cosplay images from DragonCon 2016: https://www.facebook.com/westcoastmorpheus/
While at the show, I kind of regret not catching a panel or two. Even though there are no high-value exclusives at this show, I’m perpetually paranoid that I’m missing out on something if I sit still for too long. Still, I had a blast, loved the convention, the city and its people and hope to make a return trip next year if all the planets and stars align… especially if lady finally luck runs out on me and I'm unable to attend SDCC.
Lastly, I leave you with this video that I compiled, which serves as a nutshell summarization of DragonCon. Deuces!
