The first time I heard about Dragon Con was about a year ago. My friends, who have been going for the past 5 years, came back home and raved about how awesome their experience was, once again. So in 2018 it was definitely on top of my bucket list to attend. And not only was this my first time attending Dragon Con, but it was my first con ever.

Now if you are new to my blog you would see that a majority of the experiences I have attended were a bunch of fun. However I can definitely say no exaggeration whatsoever that Dragon Con was possibly the most fun experience I’ve had in 2018. Below I will highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly about my first time experience at Dragon Con.

WAIT but first – what is Dragon Con?

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Dragon Con is “Halloween on steroids”.

Based annually in Downtown Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, Dragon Con is one of the biggest conventions in America, attracting about 80K people each year. It falls under the comic-con category. However, Dragon Con is different from other bigger comic cons because instead of being held in one building, it is held in 5 different hotels + 2 buildings in the middle of downtown Atlanta. Also, while other conventions usually stop at 10pm, Dragon Con keeps on going for 24 hours (there are even events that start at midnight). And no, the con is not focused on Dragons – it includes events from multiple genres.

Celebrities such as Tara Strong, Luke Cage, Ric Flair and the cast of Lost Girls come out for the fun too and host panels. And if you’re lucky enough, you might run into a celebrity while walking around the hotels like Caleb from Stranger Things:

Meeting friends.❤️ #DragonCon #BeYourBiggestFan #EmbraceYourFace pic.twitter.com/cc9YWvmFOE

— Caleb McLaughlin (@calebmclaughlin) September 3, 2018

 

Okay, so now on to the part you came here for – the pros and cons of my experience at Dragoncon.

PROS

• The Creativity was EVERYWHERE.

This was possibly my favorite thing about the weekend. Pre-Dragon Con, the only costume-themed events I had attended were Halloween parties where you would see a million replicas of the same costume. However, at Dragon Con, not only were the costumes unique, but they all looked EXTREMELY good. And what made them even more amazing is that most of them were DIY/home-made and took months to create.

The following costume took 2 years to make. 2 years!

• There’s something for everybody.

As mentioned before, Dragon Con is a multi-genre convention, which means you would definitely find at least one panel or event that fits you (unless you just hate everything, which I doubt!). They have something called tracks which is a grouping of events that all relate to a certain theme. And this year, there were 36 tracks with different themes. Just to give you an idea of what kind of themes they had – there was a Diversity in Literature track; Music track; Alternate History track; Anime track; Filk Singing track; Paranormal track; Podcasting Track; Video Gaming track, etc. Oh and just so you know, you don’t have to stick to only one track – they exist just to group interests into one program.

Besides the tracks, there were even more special events you can attend. For instance, Dragon Con showed different movies throughout the day and around the clock – for free! They were showing movies such as every Avengers movie, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, etc.

There was also a gaming room where you can either play arcade games or console games for free. For those feeling a bit competitive, they also host different gaming tournaments where you can win a cash prize for $1,000.  While I did not participate in any gaming tournaments, I got the chance to play Super Smash bros with my friends.

And of course, there was the Americas Mart building filled with a BUNCH of vendors. 5 floors of them, matter of fact.

Also don’t forget you’re in Downtown Atlanta, where there’s a plethora of things to do outside the con.

I absolutely loved the flexibility and that I had options to choose from. As a result, I never was bored. Matter of fact, there were times where I wish I was 4 places at once.

• The atmosphere

The atmosphere was unbeatable and everyone was friendly and entertaining. You would think with a crowd of 80K+ people roaming around, it would be hard to bear. However, that was not the case at DragonCon.

To put you more in the spirit, there were many restaurants in the area that made their meals/drinks Dragon Con theme’d.

 

Dragon Con does have a party type of atmosphere. Every single night there were at least 2 parties held in the hotel’s halls. And also, if you couldn’t make it into a party, or if you can’t find a party you like, guaranteed there was someone walking/skating/hopping around with a jukebox who would bring the party to you:

• The hospitality

The people at Dragon Con were so so nice. You can already feel this vibe once you check out the  DragonCon facebook and Reddit pages before and after the event. I had actually joined the Dragon Con Newbies facebook pages way in advance, and the “veterans” there were willing to answer any questions.

There were many acts of kindness that I noticed during the weekend. For instance, we ran into someone who was cosplaying a “costume-repair” person, who would repair your costume on the spot for free. There were people who would come up to you and compliment your outfit, ask for a pic, and start a conversation with you. Then of course there were people who were walking around with “free hugs” signs. I honestly did not meet a negative soul at Dragon Con, which also made it a pleasant experience.

• Escape from “real life”

One of the biggest blessings about being at Dragon Con was the fact that I was able to tune out the “Real world” for a bit. I did not have to worry about anything work-related, about politics, anything. Psh, possibly my biggest issue the whole weekend was trying to repair my friend’s pants after it ripped the night before (as a person who’s used to sewing, it was not a big issue at all).

CONS

• The prices for everything $$$

Man, things here were pretty expensive. For instance, brunch in the morning was $25 per person. Shots were about $7 each. A bottled water (a Dasani) was $2.50, $3 if you bought it from the hotel’s bars. And food in the food court wasn’t any better – I paid $18 for a plate of food one day. Oh yea, hotel prices? Of course they hiked them up and the average cheapest cost for a room was $400 per night. Autograph from a celebrity? 60 bucks.

• Hotels are a bit hard to navigate

Enter the Westin from outside, go up the escalators, and suddenly you’re on floor 7???

Or, navigate up two escalators, and keep cirling the marriot to find the skybridge?

Yeah navigating the hotels are a bit tough, especially if you do not know the layout of the hotels well. I once even got lost trying to escape the food court. 

However, there are “newbie tours” that take place on Wednesday and Thursday that guide you around the hotels and show you where everything is. I didn’t get a chance to participate in them, so I don’t know how great they are.

• It’s pretty hard to find a place to stay after all of the host hotels are sold out.

Now this is not Dragon Con’s fault either, and will be more of a rant than anything. If you didn’t know, rooms in the host hotels for Dragon Con open up really early – pretty much in September/October of the previous year. I didn’t know this, however I was very veryyy lucky to find an Airbnb in May that was both in a convenient location and inexpensive ($90 per night). I’ve heard other horror stories from other con-goers who said their Airbnb was cancelled even a week before the convention. Thankfully, Airbnb has a new set of policies so that hosts who cancel last minute would face a few consequences. But this is still not fair.

There are also other hotels that are in the area, but you may end up in a bad area or have to rely on the Marta, Atlanta’s mode of transportation.

• The music at the parties were okay.

For the most part, the main parties were only playing pop music – both new and old school. Some were also playing EDM. Pulse was, for the most part, playing hip hop – but they mainly played early 2000s hits (Low by Flo Rida was a song on the playlist…..). And Pulse didn’t have a DJ so they played each song to the end.

So in summary, there wasn’t a single party my group and I 100% enjoyed.

 

And that’s it! If I can give a convention a rating, I would give it a 9/10. Did you attend Dragoncon this year? And what was your favorite/least favorite thing about it?