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Map of various area cons compiled by the Baltinerd.
Photos by the Baltinerd.
Tom Stidman has racked up his fair share of frequent flyer miles. The 31-year-old customer service representative for Diamond Comics doesn’t travel for business. Rather, as his Facebook page puts it, “Fandom is my lifestyle.”
You’d need a third hand to count the conventions Stidman has been to. He has traveled up and down the East Coast, across the country and even to other countries to go to anime and science-fiction conventions, meeting new friends and chatting with his personal icons.
“My friends are in the fannish community,” he said in an e-mail. “I do so many because I enjoy it. It is my get away from the day job and from being a homebody (which I am most of the time). It is a chance to be with people who understand my tastes and be with people who can show me new things in the fandom.”
These conventions are more than gatherings of like-minded geeks. They can have panels, music, dealers, artists, autographs and games, offering an escape from the norm for many fans.
Photographing cosplayers is one of the great pastimes of Otakon
Many of them come in elaborate costumes, or cosplays. Some of them come just to admire them. Junior Maureen Hearn is one of them.
“The atmosphere is so different from anywhere else–everyone wants to be there, and is interested in some way in the same things you are, so there’s a connection you have with everyone else there. You can start a conversation with a stranger easily by asking what their favorite series is,” she said.
“And when people cosplay, it’s great to see just how much they love a particular series or character, because they wouldn’t put the effort in otherwise. It’s also pretty much the only place you can run up and hug a stranger without being thought of as a total creeper, which is nice.”
The Mid-Atlantic region is especially fertile for anime, science fiction and gaming conventions. The biggest is Otakon, the second-largest anime convention in the country. Otakon, which started out as a small gathering in State College, Pa., is now an annual behemoth at the Baltimore Convention Center, attracting more than 26,500 people last year. Even city officials take notice of Otakon’s impact on the local economy, which totaled $27.2 million in 2008, according to the Baltimore Business Journal.
Alyce Wilson, a spokeswoman for Otakorp, the Pennsylvania non-profit that organizes Otakon, said the neighbors are typically nice.
“Every year that I’ve attended Otakon, I’ve heard from hotel workers, restaurant owners, and citizens on the street, wanting to find out more about the colorful, creative costumes and the special events,” she said.
And while rumors often persist about Otakon moving to nearby Washington, D.C, those relationships and the city’s good location make such a move unlikely, according to Wilson.
Mike Dent, a Milwaukee-based writer and podcaster (of R5 Central fame), has attended Otakon twice. He said Otakon is a main event in the fandom “because everything is cranked up to 11.”
“Otakon is like the Yale or Harvard for conventions. There’s so much love put into it that everything’s top notch,” Dent said.
Unlike trade shows or other industry showcases, these events tend to be fan-run. Balticon, the area’s oldest science fiction convention, started with a group of fans that eventually became the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Katsucon spun off as an anime offshoot from Balticon and is the largest anime convention in the Washington area. Otakon also itself as being independent.
“As a volunteer organization that keeps its pulse on the anime industry and on trends in Japanese culture, we try to bring guests, concerts, vendors and showings that truly interest our members,” Wilson said.
In a sense, the convention feeds the fandom, which in turn feeds the convention. Dent sees conventions — in the early days, especially — as a kind of perpetual motion machine.
Otakon patrons tend to come out of the convention's dealers room at least a few hundred dollars poorer.
“In the beginning, I’d say it was very much the con helping the fandom,” Dent said. “At least in the anime spectrum, this isn’t totally the case anymore as the Internet’s made it easier to get the word out.”
That doesn’t stop the countless events each month (according to AnimeCons.com) from popping up nationwide, however. And it certainly doesn’t stop Hearn.
“Online you can make friends from Montana, Texas, California, Massachusetts, but at [conventions] you can make new friends from Baltimore, Towson, Glen Burnie–so you can hang out with them outside of the convention during the rest of the year.”
Check out the Baltinerd’s photos from Otakon 2009!
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