Dragon Con: The birth and growing pangs of a nerd pilgrimage
By Ann Hoevel and Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
updated 4:08 PM EDT, Fri August 30, 2013
J. Alonzo Clark, left, and Trina Rice of Kansas City, Missouri, are in character as Cyborg and Savage Hawkgirl.
(CNN) -- It took John and Jean Mayes of Richmond, Virginia, less than two hours to realize that they were woefully unprepared for their first Dragon Con in 2006.
The first hint came as they unloaded their car in front of the downtown Atlanta Hyatt hotel for the South's biggest science fiction and fantasy convention. Guests unloaded box after box of costumes from their vehicles, "as if they were clown cars," John Mayes recalls. "They just kept coming."
Alas, the Mayeses brought only one costume each: his Sandtrooper outfit and her biker scout regalia.
Then, there were the sights and sounds inside the hotel. And the smells ... Thousands of excited sci-fi and fantasy fans, many in costume, crowding into elevators, bars, hotel rooms and lobbies, gleefully reuniting and posing for pictures, makes everything a little more odoriferous, he said.
The Mayeses are members of the 501st Legion, an international costuming group known for showing up at parades dressed as Star Wars characters, so they're used to big groups of stormtroopers and Darth Vaders.
But the scene at Dragon Con was a whole new universe.
"You walk into a hotel, you see a Klingon high-fiving Spider-Man and talking to Poison Ivy," said John Mayes, an alarm system programmer. "It's a great shock. It's something you won't see anywhere else in the world."
San Diego Comic-Con might draw more ticket-buyers, press and bigger Hollywood names, but Dragon Con appeals to a broader spectrum of subcultures from a more passionate fan base. For 25 years, the convention has built a reputation of acceptance and appreciation of all things nerdy, growing from a crowd of 1,400 in one hotel in its first year to an event spread out among six hotels in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Organizers say Dragon Con is expected to draw at least 55,000 people this year based on pre-ticket sales alone.
But, a convention created by nerds for nerds is bound to be complicated. As it enters its 26th year, longtime fans and attendees wonder whether Dragon Con's organizers and massive volunteer staff can keep up with swelling attendance and remain a family-friendly environment where decidedly adult parties take place after hours.
For a convention that happens in hotels instead of a city convention center, there's an atmosphere of freedom, fueled by world-class costuming, camaraderie and alcohol.
"It's not like Comic-Con, where it's 8 in the morning until 8 at night," Mayes said. "This is 24 hours a day for four days, where we take over Atlanta."
Behind the party, management squabbles and the demands of an ever-growing event strained organizers, who volunteered their time for years without drawing a paycheck. Adding to the stress and tainting public perception of the event were allegations of child molestation against a convention cofounder.
Initially, friends and allies of Ed Kramer's rallied in his defense, but support waned over the years as he filed grievances against his jailers and motions to postpone his trial. McNeill Stokes, a lawyer for Kramer, said his client wants to go to trial and maintains his innocence. On Monday, a December trial date was set, 13 years after Kramer's first arrest.
While some con-goers were rankled by the convention's previous association with a man accused of child molestation, others remained unaware of -- or unconcerned -- by the controversy. And as fans converge upon Atlanta again this weekend, the show, obviously, has gone on.
"(The fans) have all grown with the convention. We know what it's there for. We know what happened in the past. I don't think it's an issue anymore," Mayes said.
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The nerds strut their stuff
In 2002, amid steadily growing attendance, a new event sprang up on a sunny Saturday morning that was destined to become a mainstay of the convention and an Atlanta tradition: the Dragon Con parade.
Conceived by Henry and friend Rob Pauley, the parade was supposed to drive traffic to Dragon Con's vendor halls, which had just been moved to a new hotel. Already gaining traction as a costuming destination, Dragon Con put its best-dressed out in Centennial Olympic Park. Led by bagpipers, the parade ended in the Marriott Marquis, at the bottom of the escalators at entrance of the exhibit halls.
It worked like a charm, Henry said, and the parade route was lengthened the next year.
Parading costumers create quite a spectacle, and before long the number of onlookers crowded on Peachtree Street's sidewalks began to rival the convention's ticket sales. In 2012, the Atlanta Police Department estimated parade crowds at 80,000 people. Dragon Con registration counted 52,000 tickets sold that year.
The parade also contributed to Dragon Con's reputation as a premier venue for professional cosplayers, or master costume-makers who spend hundreds of hours employing skilled trades such as wig-sculpting, metallurgy and special-effects makeup techniques on their creations. Usually, they compete in contests worldwide or appear as paid models or entertainers, but at Dragon Con, they could show off their handiwork for sheer enjoyment.
"I feel a freedom at Dragon Con that I don't feel anywhere else," said professional cosplayer Yaya Han, whose passion is manga and anime. "I felt like I could dress up in any kind of costume that I wanted from any kind of genre."
The convention has a reputation for spectacles of all kinds, including the amorous sort. There are even speed dating events for singles who can tell the difference between a set of Spock ears and an elf costume.
"It's definitely an adult convention after 9 o'clock," said Mayes, the 501st member.
As chairman, Henry decided to take the programming in a family-friendly direction, both to meet the evolution of fandom and for fans who were growing up and having kids of their own. Buoyed by Harry Potter and "Twilight" fandom, programming for young adult literature and youth-oriented television became permanent hallmarks of the convention.
It's a formula that seems to work for attendees who don't want to leave the kids behind. What better way to inspire kids than to take them to hear a panel about "Twilight" and later, hear Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam talk about his films?
"Beyond nerd culture and passing it on one generation to the next, it's just an amazing opportunity to show a kid a choice of careers or hobbies," Taylor said.
But in the meantime, another Georgia teen had come forward with allegations that Kramer had touched him inappropriately. The incidents allegedly occurred between 1996 and 2000, leading to Kramer being re-indicted in 2003 on six counts of child molestation related to the three boys.
Kramer continued to profess his innocence; he also remained uninvolved in Dragon Con. Kramer's lawyer claims that Henry and the remaining shareholders started taking steps to oust him from Dragon Con's board by trying to buy him out. When Kramer refused, they simply stopped paying him royalties, Kramer's lawyer McNeill Stokes said.
"They tried to squeeze him out," Stokes said.
In 2009, Kramer filed the first of two lawsuits against Dragon Con, accusing Henry of misusing profits for personal gain and for failing to give him his fair share.
Henry acknowledges trying to buy Kramer out in order to disassociate the convention from the allegations. He also said Kramer turned him down three times.
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Response questions: Complete on a separate sheet of paper please.
- Summarize the main parts of the article in order.
- What types of communities are revealed through the article? List the community type and the line that shows it.
- What is the purpose of this article?
For example: is it promoting DragonCon or is its purpose something else? Use text evidence to support and explain your answer.
- Why would the author choose to begin the way she did? What affect does it have on the article?
- What is the tone in the following passage? Write the words that create that tone.
(CNN) -- It took John and Jean Mayes of Richmond, Virginia, less than two hours to realize that they were woefully unprepared for their first Dragon Con in 2006.
“The first hint came as they unloaded their car in front of the downtown Atlanta Hyatt hotel for the South's biggest science fiction and fantasy convention. Guests unloaded box after box of costumes from their vehicles, "as if they were clown cars," John Mayes recalls. "They just kept coming."
Alas, the Mayeses brought only one costume each: his Sandtrooper outfit and her biker scout regalia.
Then, there were the sights and sounds inside the hotel. And the smells ... Thousands of excited sci-fi and fantasy fans, many in costume, crowding into elevators, bars, hotel rooms and lobbies, gleefully reuniting and posing for pictures, makes everything a little more odoriferous, he said.”
- How did the Dragon Con founders build a community and then educate “outsiders” about their community? Give examples.
- Bonus question: Think about communities to which you belong. What are some ways that you could introduce “outsiders” to your community and educate them about your community?