Claire’s #IndyPopCon Overview: The good and the bad

It’s my birthday! And I cut my hand with a pairing knife trying to pit an avocado, so I’m typing this whole thing with one hand. I really know how to celebrate!

Anyway, as you all probably notice, Pure Geekery spent the weekend at the first #IndyPopCon. While smaller than what I expected, there were plenty of panels, vendors, and celebrity meet and greets and panels to keep even the most avid geek busy. From meeting some awesome fellow geeks to picking up great stuff from the vendors, it was definitely worth the weekend.

The Good

Legend of OZ: The Wicked West

The vendor hall is usually my favourite place to hang out and people watch during any convention. It’s the best place to pick up some cool stuff, make new friends and check out the cosplayers. There were some great costumes this year- go to my Twitter account for pictures of my favourites! We also met some fantastic new geek friends- make sure to check out fellow Ball State grads Billy and Brandon Watch Movies and Toronto-based D’n’DUI for lots of geeky goodness.

The Fiance and I picked up some amazing Arrow and Avengers art for our apartment by illustrator Tony Santiago and all four volumes of The Legend OZ: The Wicked West. (I’m excited to get back in to reading something not assigned to me again!) Joel Hodgson, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, riffed himself in an entertaining presentation about how he was inspired to create one of the top cult shows of all time. And in addition to catching sight of Sylvester McCoy, Ron Glass, and a 1960s Batmobile replica, I also (literally) came within inches of Kandyse McClure (Lt. Dualla- Battlestar Galactica) as she was

shopping the Half Price Books booth. And of course no Indy geek con experience would be complete without a trip to Scottys to see what the manager Dave has cooked up. A themed menu, geeky decor, and VIP events were on all weekend. Follow him on Twitter @indydavscottys to keep up on what will be going on for GenCon 2014!

Prints from illustrator Tony Santiago

The Bad

As expected, with any crop of awesome costumes comes a fair share of terrible ones. The undergarments of a costume are just as if not more important the costume itself. I’m looking at you, men in spandex. Also, the slutty cosplay thing apparently will never be played out. While I saw some pretty good female cosplayers, there were a few “professionals” without one classy costume in their weekend wardrobe. Like Miley’s overexposed antics, it’s getting old and uninteresting. For once I would like to see a crop of creative costumes with more that don’t require more fashion tape than actual material.

Beyond that, I personally only ran in to one major disappointment. The Fiance and I signed up to participate in the WhoNation experience put on by Who North America. Similar to True Dungeon, it was a live action roleplaying game intended to take you on an adventure through time and space. We were asked to choose an archetype, and given tokens symbolizing our abilities to use throughout our adventure. The goal was to solve puzzles or fight villains in order to make it through to the next room. However, they do not tell you until after you pay that if you die in one room, you do not get to continue. You may not view the other rooms or their puzzles and must be escorted directly to the “Land of the Dead” where you will wait for your group. Honestly, it felt like a rip off at $20 a piece. After passing the first room, we failed in the second when we couldn’t figure out the “answer” from a fuzzy projection of circular Galifreyan. Forget the fact that they decryption key was on plexiglass and in the dark room it was nearly impossible to see- we were doomed from the beginning as it’s impossible to decipher an answer when you aren’t given a question! Our group chose a random number from the list of answers once our time ran out, and were immediately escorted to the land of the dead, not allowed to finish the final room. When we let the staff know we were disappointed, we were told we could try agin. For another $20. Yeah right. And we weren’t the only ones to struggle- the majority of the participants seemed to fair just as poorly. And even those who succeeded said they did so more by chance.

Overall, the good considerably outweighed the bad. I would count this as a huge success for a first year event, and look forward to what will come for IndyPopCon 2015!