WonderCon 2016
If you follow us on Twitter or Instagram or listen to #Wizard Team, then it is no surprise that this past weekend I attended WonderCon 2016 in Los Angeles. Though I hadn’t intended on attending the convention and bought it somewhat impulsively after my second failed attempt to secure tickets to San Diego Comic-Con I am very glad that I attended as the convention was not only enjoyable, it allowed me to distract myself from Bayana’s move to Chicago, we are now officially separated. It was also an educational experience and allowed great opportunities for more exposure of the blog and myself.
For the past few months as I have been learning more about community management and marketing through my day job as well as consistently writing and creating through this blog I have been thinking about a way to bridge the gap between these two things. It’s no secret that Bayana and I would love for this to eventually become our full-time career and we have a lot of big plans in the works to make that become a reality. However, for now, it’s a dream and a goal, and this was the first time I attended a convention where I had thought out and articulated that goal to myself.
WonderCon has a reputation for being a convention for comic creators and focuses on comics, science fiction and the main attraction are the booths selling back issues of classic comic books and panels of creators. While I spent most of my time in the exhibit hall I had the most interesting time in the panels. On Friday, I attended panels featuring writers from Marvel and Image Comics before walking the floor of the exhibit hall. Saturday I went to a rather disappointing panel about the future of the Harry Potter fandom, Con-Man, and a panel conversation with novelist V.E. Schwab and Mark Oshiro. Finally, on Sunday, I attended a panel with the staff of the Nerdist and a panel of authors talking about how they write the personalities of their characters. All of these panels had moments of great insight, either positively with writing advice or negatively, showing me what an unsuccessful panel looks like.
I have attended a few conferences for my job and have had to summarize what I learned during the conference. I’m going to try to do that now with WonderCon.
Key Takeaways from WonderCon:
No matter what my intentions are I will always blow my budget. I tried to mitigate this by not bringing a large suitcase and all that got me was a new (very cute) carry on bag.
Writers all have different processes but it’s useful to hear how they work and then take what works for you and try to adapt it to your own process.
Artist Alley is where money and common sense go to be lost forever.
I want to work in media and fandom and experience conventions from the organizer/creator point of view. I want to do it soon.
