Business Post: Dragoncon 2024 Con Report

Alright, I'm writing this while exhausted on the Monday after Dragoncon is over. Don't expect this to be sensible, I'm just going to do a general discussion.

Let's see...

The Convention

For those who don't know, Dragoncon is 75k people turning up to downtown Atlanta to dress up and have fun with all things geeky. There are multiple tracks which cover everything from science fiction, urban fantasy, movies, the apocalypse (or post-apocalypse), writing, history, cosplay and more. It's literally a giant party with cosplay.

It's spread across 5 official hotels and the AmericasMart which has the vendor hall and gaming and just, yeah, a ton of other things going on at any one time. There's Filk and music and parties and it's a huge gathering spot for LitRPG authors and just writers in general. 

This year, Atlanta was warm. Like up in the 30C+ all day, everyday. Which means that everyone was inside (unless, you know, you grew up in Malaysia which meant that the heat was rather nice) and so the con itself felt more crowded than usual. That also did mean that I think the panels were more likely to fill.

The Schedule

I had 8 panels this year. I heard there was a soft cap of 10 events per person, and I think I breached that (technically) since I had 8 panels, 3 signings, the Fantasy Gather and the LitRPG Raid event (that'll get its own section). Of those, I had 4 panels on LitRPG. There were literally 9 panels, which was a huge increase from previous years where there were like 2-4. I think last year was 4. The post-apocalyptic panel has always been the nicest to us, I think having like 2 or 3 panels last year alone. They were one of the major hosts for us too (and Matt Dinniman!) which was amazing. 

Anyway, I was on 4 LitRPG panels which was way too much. I actually had declined one too, because it was too similar; but I think next year I'm going to pre-specify to give me 2 at most. There are more and more LitRPG authors actually getting pro badges, so they're not randomly including random people anymore, so they don't need me to fill the ranks. Nor do I desire to always be talking on the same topics. 

I ran around on so many tracks this year, it was rather funny. I rarely had a repeat on a track, going from Fantasy to High Fantasy to Sci-fi to Urban Fantasy to Post-Apocalyptic to Writing, etc. That meant a bit of running around too, and some packed days since all the events were from Friday to Sunday with only 1 signing on Monday.

Sunday was the worse, with my first panel starting at 2.30pm and me not getting anything more than 30 minute break till I hit 11pm when the LitRPG Raid party was over. A little bit much....

Funniest thing? This was NOT my busiest convention.

The Panels

Many of my panels were great. The moderators were smart, the questions interesting and not entirely basic (What is LitRPG?) and tackled different aspects of it. I'd love to see more complex or interesting questions, but we're getting better and better moderators so I can't explain. My two favorite panels this year were the "Why is LitRPG so popular" panel where we basically teased Dakota constantly about his spreadsheets and just had a good time and, well, the LitRPG writing one, where we got to talk about the difficulties of writing LitRPGs and the different ways we did it. Fascinating to see how different we all were in terms of writing styles.

Oooh, that reminds me that our first panel on the post-apocalyptic track had (literally) us seated in line from pure chaos (Matt Dinniman) to most structured (James Hunter). I was right next to Matt, which was quite appropriate with my pantsing style of writing (I have a beginning, I have an end. Everything else is fun).

The Signings

Right, I wanted to talk about the signings. I had 3 - one organised by the post-apocalyptic track that was a ton of fun and the first event, then two more at the Missing Volume in the vendor hall. The vendor hall signings reminded me SOOO much of working a booth, I basically turned on the sales persona. I had to work on reigning it back, because I was there to sign not huck my books at people.

And yeah, I had time between people coming up to get their books to sign to try to pitch my books at random passerbys. In fact, there were quite a few in the 2 hours (total) that I was there that I managed to sell on my books. We actually ran out of the Nameless Restaurant on the Saturday signing and sold off half of Chaotic Aperitifs and a bunch of the other books I brought including System Apocalypse works.

I had no A Thousand Li works to have them sell on consignment because we sold out of book 1's ENTIRELY at the Fantasy Gather. Like I had 0 copies left halfway through. Definitely, definitely, definitely underestimated demand there.

The LitRPG Raid Party

Oh boy, go say thank you to Geneva for organising this. It was insane. There were at least 400+ people who came through (they got 500 bags ready and I only saw a few left at the end and I know not everyone actually managed to complete their cards). It was a bit of a scavenger hunt bingo game, with fans coming up to us to tell us various things about themselves. Mine was mostly about how to survive an apocalypse, which was a ton of fun. Especially when i got to tease the kids.

It was such a busy event, it just kept going and going and going. Really. 3 hours in, the charity auction raised (by itself!) $9,000 dollars. Which shows how amazing the readers were (and the authors who contributed to the auction and/or bid on items).

Really, I have to say the event was fun, including having some fans come up to tell me how much they loved my work, a few telling me that I was their introduction to LitRPG and just, overall, a deep degree of kindness and happiness.

Damn well organised, lots of fun, but I think next time, we should have little floating Quest Markers that we have to wear (on a hat or wings or something) so people could find us faster.

The People

Alright, time to talk about people and the fans and writers. I think that was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the con and why i keep coming back. So many people came up to me during the signings, during the gather or the litrpg raid to tell me that they loved the books, how much they enjoyed them, etc. that it was so much fun. 

It was also fascinating hearing from people at the Gather or the signings where my books were available saying they remembered me from panels and wanting to pick up a book now. So doing all the panels seems to have generated some fans, though obviously, it'd be a lot of hard work to get a ton of readers. It's not a bad thing though, doing panels.  

It still feels weird, to have so many fans.

Not that it's ANYWHERE close to Matt Dinniman's or Dakota Krout or any of the real big dogs, but even having one is startling. To think that people want to read my silly little stories, it's... well, humbling.

Of course, I can't end the post talking about people to skip talking about the rest of the authors. Dragoncon is the LitRPG gathering place (Though there's a LitRPG con happening that might supplant and/or create a 2nd space) and there are so many authors who come by that it's staggering. I met a lot of old friends like Charles Dean or KT Hanna or Dakota Krout and a ton of new ones too. They're also, (hah!), getting younger. Quite literally in the case of the Aethon / Royal Road publishing crowd, with so many of them in the late teens to early twenties range.

Also, it's a great place to meet my non-litrpg author friends, though obviously, not the best. It's a fan convention, so I sneak in time to speak with friends in-between all my other panels and other events. 

Conclusion

Overall, loved Dragoncon. It continues to be one of my favorite conventions to do, and I'll probably try to continue to do it as long as possible. It's not guaranteed, of course, but I'll definitely try to be back next year. 

Maybe, next year, I'll even make it to more than 2 panels to listen. :P