I-Con is more problematic of an endeavor this year. As opposed to previous years when it was held entirely at Stony Brook campus, this year I-Con is at three different locations spread out around Suffolk County. All of my panels are at the Marriott Islandia tomorrow.
PAD
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What happened with Stony Brook? Did they want too much money or something?
I really need you to come to Argentina again, Peter. It’s been 10 years now since you last set foot on my land and I didn’t even know you back then (I was like… 12 or something) 🙁
Argentina was a great convention. I had a lot of fun there with Peter. The fans were very friendly and the city was beautiful. They were working on the facade of the Casa Rosada so we took a picture of the life size picture they had in front of it.
Agreed with Matt. Why the sudden change from Stony Brook. It was so convenient having all the panels located within walking distance of another in one campus. Plus transportation was a cinch as it was right off the LIRR. No one living in the city owns a car to drive to Suffolk with. Plus I miss the chance to have an excuse to visit my old Alma Mater.
If I heard correctly, the Javitz building was (is?) being renovated; and that is the reason for the change this year.
The sports complex looks fine (I was there for a craft show just last week).
Hopefully, this is just a temporary change.
Don’t get your hopes up. Some of the dealers I spoke to as they were packing up on Sunday said they heard it might be back at SCCC yet AGAIN next year, and they’re uncertain if it’ll be back at Stony Brook in the forseeable future. There’s also been growing rumblings as to the running of the con, as the membership prices Vs. offered guests is overshadowed by other area cons. Big example was Chiller theatre conventions (www.chillertheatre.com) who offer a slew of guests both high and low profile for a flat $25 per day at the door.
The increased costs Vs. lowered expectations every year has been a little disheartening for me especially, since I remember fantastic I-Cons with guests like Jason Carter, Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik all on one stage, and this year there was pretty much only ONE high-profile media guest. (Not knocking a cool guy like Gary Graham who was a recent addition, or our host who always keeps panels lively) I-Con has always had its “Off” years, but the last few have been more “Off” than “on”.
And come to think of it, it’s also not the same without Harlan yelling down at fanboys in the dealer’s room from the upper track…
Agreed. This was actually the first year since 1988 that I haven’t attended. Despite the withdrawal symptoms, I just couldn’t see paying the admission when there were only two main people I wanted to see.
How was the bouncing between locations?
The location bouncing perhaps wouldn’t have been so bad if the hotels were closer together. One of the main I-Con draws for me was also the Summer movie previews, but with the choices of taking a shuttle bus or driving to the other location and hoping you could get a parking spot when you came back to the convention hall… It took away a considerable amount of my enthusiasm. I was determined to do as much as I could to get my money’s worth, but like many others after a while I lost the energy and the desire to keep moving around and mainly stuck to ne building. At least with Stony Brook the longest haul was the walk from the sports complext to the Javitz and even that wasn’t a problem on nice days. Hëll, it was more of an incentive to interact with fellow migrating fans, and if you were lucky you could even accost PAD or other guests on the trek. (Said in the most non-creepy-stalkerish way possible)
I was at I-CON the whole weekend, and while I wasn’t thrilled with the geography (even with a rented car), I had a lot of fun. For the review (and some pics), go to the Armchair Critic http://thearmchaircritic.blogspot.com/
Sadly, I didn’t get to see any of PAD’s panels. I also saw that two of them were cancelled. Several stalwart attendees weren’t there, including the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Jon from GOATS. I did love the NY Jedi demo!
Hey! I was there for your “70 years of Marvel” panel, which was fun and had a lot more to do with Batman than I’d anticipated. Hope you had a great con – I had a ball. Yes, the geography was incredibly stupid and there was much chaos, but the people running the thing and the people attending the thing were awesome.
-=ShoEboX=-