DragonCon and Crafts

As I start my tiara craft I say to myself, why doesn’t Dragoncon have a small craft like this people can take a part in? The only arts and crafts section when I was there was where you just listen to someone talk about how they make their crafts, but not actually get to do any. Same with the writing. There was no way of writing together and sharing your work, it was just sitting and listening to an author talk about their work. It is either that or a giant expensive project you pay $200 extra for like making a suit or joining in on a writing workshop when the trip is already costly.

I would have loved either a free or smaller price of possibly around $40 for the extra materials in a small crafting, art, or writing class. It would have better broken up the monotony of sitting and listening. One of the areas that helped with this was the music stage. In between all of the listening to classes I would go sit and enjoy a performance. The indie artists were unique in their sound.

That, or I would just walk around to enjoy looking at the costumes thay everyone had on. It was fun trying to guess if the person had either made it themselves or purchased what they were wearing. It was lovely being able to dress up all day and it be normal. When I wore my Harley Quinn Costume, my make up stated flaking off throughout the long day, but it did end up working for the sake of my character. The other two days I was Sleeping Beauty, where people constantly stepped on my skirt. Then I was Katniss. With this costume I was able to be in comfortable pants throughout the long day instead of hoisting around a skirt or flaking makeup off onto the floor. I already know many cosplayers only wore their big pieces for some of the day and ended up taking them off after a while.

There was also a shopping area where you could buy cool art. These tiara try ons were fun. I ended up buying an EDM shirt there. There were dances, although those were where you had to wait into the night to be able to start enjoying them. This makes it where you had to chose between early or late events or be drop down tired by the end of the day, which is not great because of how there was absolutely no where you were allowed to stay and sit during the event. The security would yell at you if you sat next to the wall, so you had to keep moving or else get in trouble. Inside the events and the food court were the only places to truly rest if you didn’t want to walk back to your hotel room.

There was then a section where you could talk to a celebrity. It was a lady who got to be in James Bond movies, but instead of talking about the movies and what it was like to be in James Bond, she mostly just talked about herself and it became uninteresting very quickly. I was disappointed that it was not centered around her role and what it was like acting with the James Bond actor at the time. I am not even sure what film she was in, I only know bits of her life story. One of the areas that was great fun though was the short film contest I got to see. The short films people made themselves were very creative, deep, and sometimes funny. Overall, it was an okay experience, but not something I see myself paying for again.