Convention Spotlight: Daishocon

Part of our continuing series on helping conventions add more professional and career events!  The roundup is here.

Daishocon is an anime and gaming convention in Wisconsin.  As you can guess from this being in Fan To Pro, Daishocon's head of programming has plans to make sure the convention caters to the fan-to-pro crowd along with the usual offerings!

The major innovation at Daishocon is to look at bringing in panelists who have written how-to guides – as opposed to people just speaking on careers, they're looking to bring in one or more speakers who have actually written books to help people in their careers – and who work in geeky areas like manga.

This is an innovation I strongly approve of – because there's many people who write on careers, art, anime, video games, and more.  Speaking on a career is one thing, but getting people who can write on it and communicate it is quite another.  This is an idea i'd like to see other conventions pursue.

Daishocon is also looking to host panels for "breaking in" to industries are properly represented as well – to make sure people get a good launch pad for their careers.

In central Wisconsin?  Give them a check.  I especially hope more "how to" writers get more attention in the con scene.  I am of course biased – but I admit it!

– Steven Savage