Convention Ideas: Roundup

This is a compilation of all the posts done on this blog about adding “fan-to-pro” elements to conventions.  I will be updating this over time.

If you wonder why conventions are a big idea, I did an entire book career events at cons – and the reasons why I did it explain it better than anything!

GENERAL:

SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS:

Convention Types:

  • Comic Cons – Comic cons have a unique foundation – but also are evolving n ways that career-minded fans can take advantage of.

Guests:

Events:

Organization:

Miscellaneous

CONVENTION SPOTLIGHT:

  • Ani-Magic, the Autumn Dream – Making a convention an entire professional-skill-building experience.
  • Anime Saint George – Finding good trades for guests, diversifying professional guests, and keeping people informed on how to break into industries.
  • Anime USA – Leveraging geographic advantages, specific deep focuses, and having a staff with professional ambitions and experiences.
  • Daishocon – Getting speakers that wrote “how to” guides and paying special attention to teaching people how to break into careers.
  • Erie-Anime-Experience – Tying history, guests, and ideas together.
  • Hal-Con – Cultivating diversity on all panels, and working with guests and attendees for unique topics.
  • Iowa Icon – Leverages classic ideas, an intimate setting, and specific focus.
  • Mobicon – Leverage your guests and keep your staff primed to develop good profan events.
  • Odyssey Con – Covers areas of professional writing not everyone thinks of, and “subcontracts” events from other conventions.
  • Queen City Kamikaze – Calling on local talent, local education, and making career-specific events.
  • Templecon – Trying a few things no one else tries – including some contrarian elements!
  • Tigercon – Making guest-sharing deals and adding academic elements.
  • WindyCon – Following in the steps of WorldCon and doing manuscript review for writers.

– Steven Savage

About Fan To Pro

Fan To Pro is a blog about how people can apply their fannish and geeky interests to their jobs and careers. Our goal is to help people find out how to do what they love not just on the side, but every day of their lives!

To that end this blog focuses on:

  • Reporting, commenting on, and analyzing on the geeky and fannish career news you need to stay aware of.
  • Providing help to geek career seekers with advice, exercises, and techniques.
  • Reviewing books, websites, and other useful resources that you need.
  • Keeping you up to date on career trends, pitfalls.
  • Finding resources that you need in your career.
  • The occasional heartfelt, therapeutic rants we all need to hear.

The Site Contributors

Convention Spotlight: Tigercon!

Looking for other ways to add professional and career elements to your convention?  I've been contacting a few conventions to find out just what they're doing in that regard.

Tigercon, an event in Towson, Maryland (north of Baltimore), is a friendly university convention that had two neat additions you may want to use for your own convention:

First, if you want some pro guests, see about getting patronage from a larger convention to help set you up.  You may easily make some contacts or get some new ideas – and even find if you have some local or other guests that may be interested in helping out.

Secondly, keep cultural education in mind especially if you're, say, an anime convention.  People have interests in learning about other cultures, it helps add to the overall feel if you want to add more educational tracks, and you can often get help from local establishments, universities, and cultural centers.

Thanks to the folks at Tigercon – and if you're in the area, check it out!

-Steven Savage