growyourwings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
growyourwings) wrote2013-09-02 12:05 pm
growyourwings) wrote2013-09-02 12:05 pm
Entry tags:
Vancon 2013 :: More random thoughts...
I've been going to SPN cons now since 2008. I'm on or about my tenth one (I've stopped counting). Some random observations about how they have changed over the years...
:: More guys show up every year. Used to be that there would be literally 1 or 2 guys total in attendance. The last few years more and more have been coming. More husbands have been coming with their wives. And more guys in general have been coming. It's cool. Very great. My daughter has now been to two SPN cons with me and my husband Bob will be sitting next to me during most of the Vegas con next year. (I say most of, because I fully expect the lure of VEGAS will draw him away at times. lol.)
:: More cosplay. I remember the first few years how awkward the costume contest seemed. The first LA con I think like 5 people total showed up on stage. It felt very forced and awkward. Now not only are more people dressing up during the overall con, the costume contest has become a big thing. I had stopped attending the costume contest after the first one I attended in 2008, as I always either had photo ops or just took a break. This time I happened to return to the main hall while the contest was still in process and I was amazed at the number of participants and some of the awesome costumes. (While I already shared some photos of this, I have a lot more photos of this to share later.) I think I will no longer be skipping this event. I had some weird mixed feelings though. The sheer DIFFERENCE between now and the first few cons for this event was enough to trigger a bit of nostalgia for me. Which I'll go into more next...
:: More and more new faces. And less familiar faces. This is both a good and a sad thing. It's great of course because more people equals longer timeframe when we will have cons and/or show. But more people also changes the experience. I found myself missing the more intimate feeling experiences of yore. Back then I thought LA and Vancon were "big", but nothing like they are now. I used to see mostly familiar faces in the Gold section. We all knew each other. We would spontaneously gather for meals and have 15-20 people easy present during the meals/drinks with people coming and going constantly. Now we have 6-8 present with not a lot of coming and going. And the influx of additional people has also morphed the experience into what I imagine is becoming more and more like a typical scifi genre convention. There is a lot more energy and bit more manicness of feel to the overall convention. Like I said this is both a great thing, but also triggers some nostalgia in me. I'm grateful and excited to see SPN's popularity spread. I admit though that I also miss the "old days". lol.
:: Part of the nostalgia is triggered, I think, by a growing sense of "competition" that I feel at times during the conventions. Who can have the most encounters with one of the performers/BTS person(s). Who has the cutest story. The funniest story. I feel weird even saying this I guess. But it just has an increase manic feel to it at times. While, on the flip side, I actually love that there are so many young folks there who are having a great time. My daughter, who is 25, joined me this time. She came with me to Vancon last year and attended the J2 Panel and did some Jared and Jensen solo photo ops with me. But mostly she was there to enjoy and explore the city of Vancouver which she loves. This time, mostly due to Felicia being added, she attended Saturday and Sunday at the convention. She fell in love with Rob Benedict and Sebastian. She attended the Gold cocktail party instead of me. I got such joy when she came back to our room at the end of the cocktail party obviously having had a great time. She met an Aussie girl at the cocktail party and they were obviously getting on like a storm on fire. I hadn't attended the cocktail parties for YEARS as I found them tedious and overly controlled and staged. It made me incredible HAPPY to see Emily enjoying it so much.
:: Social media. In years past LJ has been my homebase for photo posting from cons. I was gradually also posting my con photos on Flickr. I had initially hesitated because my Flickr account was originally set up for my professional photography. But since I transitioned to a SmugMug and personal domain websites, I relaxed a bit about posting con photos on the Flickr site. Then when it became apparent that Flickr's quality was so much better than PB, I just went full hog. I had not been planning on NOT posting my photos mainly on LJ and then linking to them elsewhere. But Flickr had recently updated their UI and added some get cross posting functionality to various social media sites INCLUDING LJ. So it made it so easy during the con to upload and cross post and before I knew it I was no longer motivated to post all the photos on LJ. Rather Flickr became in a moment, the main location with cross posting to elsewhere. So while in the past my LJ hits would increase significantly during con weeks, for this Vancon, there was barely a flutter on LJ hits. While my Flickr account went wild (about 1.5 million photo views in the week since the convention.) While this is so much easier. It also makes me a bit sad. I did post convention photos on LJ, but since the hits were so low, what it tells me is that (as we kinda knew :( ), LJ is not really the home of fandom anymore. LJ traffic will spike if content is only available there. But if content is available elsewhere as well as LJ, elsewhere will likely get more traffic. :( Don't get me wrong, LJ will still be my happy place for fandom posting. But I'm now using Twitter just as much (although differently). :( Also my "random J" posting on LJ earlier today, generated more traffic to my LJ than any of my photo posts did. Due to a link on some FB community and the fact that content was not available anywhere else.
:: I'm sure part of this is also changes in me. I'm a lot more comfortable around Js. In the beginning I was so awe struck and nervous around the Js that was almost my entire focus. It's hard for me to remember now how totally awkward and nervous I felt back then. Now the Js, while still a highlight of cons for me, are not the only highlight. They have transitioned in my head from these super-human entities to just people who I have so much respect for. When I look forward to cons now it is about being with my friends, having a good time, and having free license to take as many photos as I am able.
:: I want to close saying that this particular Vancon was really special. I had some personal challenges going on at the time which limited my full participation. But despite that it was really wonderful. At each Vancon it seems like more and more BTS folks attend and get involved and interact. I really hope that trend continues. While I suspect that will also increase the overall "big genre con" feel of the event, other than nostalgia, that is not a bad thing. It is likely just that, that helped to make this con feel like a special event.
:: More guys show up every year. Used to be that there would be literally 1 or 2 guys total in attendance. The last few years more and more have been coming. More husbands have been coming with their wives. And more guys in general have been coming. It's cool. Very great. My daughter has now been to two SPN cons with me and my husband Bob will be sitting next to me during most of the Vegas con next year. (I say most of, because I fully expect the lure of VEGAS will draw him away at times. lol.)
:: More cosplay. I remember the first few years how awkward the costume contest seemed. The first LA con I think like 5 people total showed up on stage. It felt very forced and awkward. Now not only are more people dressing up during the overall con, the costume contest has become a big thing. I had stopped attending the costume contest after the first one I attended in 2008, as I always either had photo ops or just took a break. This time I happened to return to the main hall while the contest was still in process and I was amazed at the number of participants and some of the awesome costumes. (While I already shared some photos of this, I have a lot more photos of this to share later.) I think I will no longer be skipping this event. I had some weird mixed feelings though. The sheer DIFFERENCE between now and the first few cons for this event was enough to trigger a bit of nostalgia for me. Which I'll go into more next...
:: More and more new faces. And less familiar faces. This is both a good and a sad thing. It's great of course because more people equals longer timeframe when we will have cons and/or show. But more people also changes the experience. I found myself missing the more intimate feeling experiences of yore. Back then I thought LA and Vancon were "big", but nothing like they are now. I used to see mostly familiar faces in the Gold section. We all knew each other. We would spontaneously gather for meals and have 15-20 people easy present during the meals/drinks with people coming and going constantly. Now we have 6-8 present with not a lot of coming and going. And the influx of additional people has also morphed the experience into what I imagine is becoming more and more like a typical scifi genre convention. There is a lot more energy and bit more manicness of feel to the overall convention. Like I said this is both a great thing, but also triggers some nostalgia in me. I'm grateful and excited to see SPN's popularity spread. I admit though that I also miss the "old days". lol.
:: Part of the nostalgia is triggered, I think, by a growing sense of "competition" that I feel at times during the conventions. Who can have the most encounters with one of the performers/BTS person(s). Who has the cutest story. The funniest story. I feel weird even saying this I guess. But it just has an increase manic feel to it at times. While, on the flip side, I actually love that there are so many young folks there who are having a great time. My daughter, who is 25, joined me this time. She came with me to Vancon last year and attended the J2 Panel and did some Jared and Jensen solo photo ops with me. But mostly she was there to enjoy and explore the city of Vancouver which she loves. This time, mostly due to Felicia being added, she attended Saturday and Sunday at the convention. She fell in love with Rob Benedict and Sebastian. She attended the Gold cocktail party instead of me. I got such joy when she came back to our room at the end of the cocktail party obviously having had a great time. She met an Aussie girl at the cocktail party and they were obviously getting on like a storm on fire. I hadn't attended the cocktail parties for YEARS as I found them tedious and overly controlled and staged. It made me incredible HAPPY to see Emily enjoying it so much.
:: Social media. In years past LJ has been my homebase for photo posting from cons. I was gradually also posting my con photos on Flickr. I had initially hesitated because my Flickr account was originally set up for my professional photography. But since I transitioned to a SmugMug and personal domain websites, I relaxed a bit about posting con photos on the Flickr site. Then when it became apparent that Flickr's quality was so much better than PB, I just went full hog. I had not been planning on NOT posting my photos mainly on LJ and then linking to them elsewhere. But Flickr had recently updated their UI and added some get cross posting functionality to various social media sites INCLUDING LJ. So it made it so easy during the con to upload and cross post and before I knew it I was no longer motivated to post all the photos on LJ. Rather Flickr became in a moment, the main location with cross posting to elsewhere. So while in the past my LJ hits would increase significantly during con weeks, for this Vancon, there was barely a flutter on LJ hits. While my Flickr account went wild (about 1.5 million photo views in the week since the convention.) While this is so much easier. It also makes me a bit sad. I did post convention photos on LJ, but since the hits were so low, what it tells me is that (as we kinda knew :( ), LJ is not really the home of fandom anymore. LJ traffic will spike if content is only available there. But if content is available elsewhere as well as LJ, elsewhere will likely get more traffic. :( Don't get me wrong, LJ will still be my happy place for fandom posting. But I'm now using Twitter just as much (although differently). :( Also my "random J" posting on LJ earlier today, generated more traffic to my LJ than any of my photo posts did. Due to a link on some FB community and the fact that content was not available anywhere else.
:: I'm sure part of this is also changes in me. I'm a lot more comfortable around Js. In the beginning I was so awe struck and nervous around the Js that was almost my entire focus. It's hard for me to remember now how totally awkward and nervous I felt back then. Now the Js, while still a highlight of cons for me, are not the only highlight. They have transitioned in my head from these super-human entities to just people who I have so much respect for. When I look forward to cons now it is about being with my friends, having a good time, and having free license to take as many photos as I am able.
:: I want to close saying that this particular Vancon was really special. I had some personal challenges going on at the time which limited my full participation. But despite that it was really wonderful. At each Vancon it seems like more and more BTS folks attend and get involved and interact. I really hope that trend continues. While I suspect that will also increase the overall "big genre con" feel of the event, other than nostalgia, that is not a bad thing. It is likely just that, that helped to make this con feel like a special event.
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