Dragoncon 2004
Sep. 7th, 2004 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_haloGot home from DragonCon last night. It was fun, but going to two cons in a row was exhausting. Not sure if I'll want to do that again.
The Firefly guests (Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, and Adam Baldwin) were the surprise hits of the con. Very popular, packed the Q&A and autograph rooms, and were very funny and entertaining.
I didn't do any of the Buffy stuff, as I wasn't interested. I wanted to do Harry Potter panels, but frustratingly, the few Harry Potter panels coincided with other stuff that I wanted to do more. So the only Harry Potter thing I saw was Harry Potter Jeopardy, for little kids. Well, all the HP programming was for little kids--it was the YA Track. They NEED a totally-Harry Potter track, with ADULT programming! All the HP stuff was packed, with lines, while the rest of the YA stuff was barely filled. I don't think I'll return next year if they don't have separate HP programming for grown-ups.
The best surprise for me was Rogue from the Cruxshadows. He was on two of the panels for the new Goth track and he was WONDERFUL. Brilliant and articulate and interesting and funny. One panel was specifically about the history of Goth music while the other was about the Goth subculture in general. Rogue discussed the ideology/mindstate of "Goth" going back to the Romans vs. "passionate, non-logical, individualistic" outsiders. He talked about Beethoven as the first Goth musician, Byron and Goth as "modern Romanticism," early horror films like Nosferatu, plus the development of New Wave from Punk and all the obvious stuff. He was just so interesting and thoughtful. All the discussions were really fair and open-minded--they were talking about the positives and negatives of stuff like Hot Topic and Marilyn Manson from a really balanced perspective. Lots of celebration of the diversity of the Goth movement. I wish someone had recorded those panels; they were wonderful.
The Cruxshadows themselves were awesome, of course. Unfortunately they didn't play until 2am, and we were let in at 10:30pm, plus had to wait in line to get in. Standing for four hours SUCKED. The opening band, Faith and the Muse, was terrible. Voltaire was good, but not worth standing for. My feet still hurt. But the Cruxshadows were worth it. And I got![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaydk to stand up front with me, and she loved the show (even though she's so not goth and she doesn't like live music). Rogue sang to her, and autographed a CD for her, and gave her a hug. :)
I saw a kid dressed as Remus Lupin (with the scars!), and shrieked, and took his photo. There were also a bunch of Harrys floating around, and a good amount of Snapes and Hagrids. Plenty of pirates, as well--several captain Jacks, at least one Captain Hook, and a bunch of generic pirates. They also did an interactive showing of PotC, but as it was at 10am, I didn't go.
It was fun to go to the con, and good to spend time withjaydk and elizard100 and rockgoddes, plus the various other people I ran into like elfgirl and dwivian, Froggy and Jamie, April B. and Donna, poshcat and fer1213, etc....
And now, I must work, and then sleep for a very long time.
The Firefly guests (Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, and Adam Baldwin) were the surprise hits of the con. Very popular, packed the Q&A and autograph rooms, and were very funny and entertaining.
I didn't do any of the Buffy stuff, as I wasn't interested. I wanted to do Harry Potter panels, but frustratingly, the few Harry Potter panels coincided with other stuff that I wanted to do more. So the only Harry Potter thing I saw was Harry Potter Jeopardy, for little kids. Well, all the HP programming was for little kids--it was the YA Track. They NEED a totally-Harry Potter track, with ADULT programming! All the HP stuff was packed, with lines, while the rest of the YA stuff was barely filled. I don't think I'll return next year if they don't have separate HP programming for grown-ups.
The best surprise for me was Rogue from the Cruxshadows. He was on two of the panels for the new Goth track and he was WONDERFUL. Brilliant and articulate and interesting and funny. One panel was specifically about the history of Goth music while the other was about the Goth subculture in general. Rogue discussed the ideology/mindstate of "Goth" going back to the Romans vs. "passionate, non-logical, individualistic" outsiders. He talked about Beethoven as the first Goth musician, Byron and Goth as "modern Romanticism," early horror films like Nosferatu, plus the development of New Wave from Punk and all the obvious stuff. He was just so interesting and thoughtful. All the discussions were really fair and open-minded--they were talking about the positives and negatives of stuff like Hot Topic and Marilyn Manson from a really balanced perspective. Lots of celebration of the diversity of the Goth movement. I wish someone had recorded those panels; they were wonderful.
The Cruxshadows themselves were awesome, of course. Unfortunately they didn't play until 2am, and we were let in at 10:30pm, plus had to wait in line to get in. Standing for four hours SUCKED. The opening band, Faith and the Muse, was terrible. Voltaire was good, but not worth standing for. My feet still hurt. But the Cruxshadows were worth it. And I got
jaydk to stand up front with me, and she loved the show (even though she's so not goth and she doesn't like live music). Rogue sang to her, and autographed a CD for her, and gave her a hug. :)I saw a kid dressed as Remus Lupin (with the scars!), and shrieked, and took his photo. There were also a bunch of Harrys floating around, and a good amount of Snapes and Hagrids. Plenty of pirates, as well--several captain Jacks, at least one Captain Hook, and a bunch of generic pirates. They also did an interactive showing of PotC, but as it was at 10am, I didn't go.
It was fun to go to the con, and good to spend time with
jaydk and elizard100 and rockgoddes, plus the various other people I ran into like elfgirl and dwivian, Froggy and Jamie, April B. and Donna, poshcat and fer1213, etc....And now, I must work, and then sleep for a very long time.
