MegaCon 2010: Loading Please Wait - The UpStream

MegaCon 2010: Loading Please Wait

posted Sunday Mar 14, 2010 by Jon Wurm

MegaCon 2010: Loading Please Wait

Last year Scott and I wandered up to Orlando for a Saturday trip to MegaCon just to see what in the hell was going on there and we essentially did the same thing this year while our friend Cody tagged along. Immediately on arrival we noticed a key difference from the previous year (I'm not talking about Cosplayers seemingly wearing less and less each Con). The line to get in was longer than the time it takes to complete a Gran Turismo game and about as enjoyable as repeating endurance races. Finally, we found our way to a faster and shorter line outside that only took an hour of our day. Later on we found out that the lines were so long because there were 3 other conventions happening at the same time, one of which was a cheerleading convention that was epic because it's always fun to see normal people who don't know what the hell is going on and gage their reactions.

After all the unnecessary line hopping and time wasting we were finally able to go where we boldly went before the previous year. On average MegaCon draws about 30,000 people over it's 3 days of operation. This was evident by the amount of densely packed people and vendors on the floor. There seemed to be more this year than last year but one thing about MegaCon is they always seems to have several exceptional vendors that we end up talking, interviewing and/or befriending. One of which was a group of 10 or so Sci-Fi enthusiasts who have created a series called "Star Command" which consists of full episodes and shorts that puts a comedic and more realistic spin on deep space starship travel. The basic premise is that the USS Lee is falling apart and it's captain is a disgraced loser but they somehow are able to stumble their way into surviving in the end. You can check out their web series at the Star Command website and I suggest that you do. Anyone who appreciates Sci-Fi will appreciate this. At some other point in the day (it all blurs toghether) we also ran into a rather interesting tabletop RPG called Shroud of the Ancients. I say interesting because the game itself is very versatile from the shape of the dice to the rules of the game. For example, there are no classes, no levels and no limits (WOW players QQ) but the game is still D&D compatible as well. Shroud of the Ancients has been recognized at Dragon*Con and is close to debuting as a full versioned game sometime soon. For more on this go check out Shroud of the Ancients website.

There are still a few more vendors I want to mention but there's more on that later. The highlight of the Con for all of us was the panel with Nichelle Nichols who played Lt. Uhura on Star Trek (you may have heard of it). Besides being in the same room with her, which was amazing, she was hilarious when answering questions about how she came to be Lt. Uhura on the show and it was certainly fantastic. Before she even started taking questions she moved the table that she was sitting behind so that she could sit on it and be more visible to the audience instead of being segregated and tucked away. It also took 3 people and several minutes to do so which I found very amusing. She answered questions like how Uhura got her name and what it was like to work with Gene Roddenberry, what her favorite episode was etc. When time was up she even told the convention staff to give her an extra 5 minutes to finish what she was saying. I'm going to be a little selfish here and not go into detail about what she actually said and no we didn't film the panel so if you weren't there then QQ. We do have several pictures of her that will be available on our facebook page soon if not already.

Either before of after Nichelle Nichols, Scott, Cody and I had the pleasure of talking to Matthew Grand of EARTHBOUND COMICS. We had a very interesting conversation with him that ranged from comics to his doctor's note that legally allows him to be mean to others (I'm jealous). What originally caught our eye is that the characters are a bit different from your average superheros and supervillains who live in New York City. Many of their characters are more Florida themed such as Cat 5 who is a sexy female superhero who can control the wind to create hurricanes. One of her enemies is Bull-shark who as you can imagine is well....a bad-ass Bull-shark with a nose ring and all (that seems like something we Floridians can all relate to). There is also a ghost pirate that was pretty cool and many more. Having lived in Florida off and on my entire life I am glad to see that we can have some superheros and supervillains of our own too.

Lastly, I would like to mention the SUPERHUMAN EXPERIMENT. These talented men and women are local to us here in Largo and they have created a comic that makes superheroes possible in everyday life and this unique comic may very well change your perception of reality. You can look forward to hearing more from them in the future.

To close us out, I would say that MegaCon was fun and worth going to this year as I expected it would. However, I felt like the panels were a little disappointing compared to last year's but there was certainly not a lack of interesting people to see and talk to which is a big part of what makes a Con successful. Hopefully, if we go back next year there won't be 3 other conventions going on at the same time but I'm curious to see if the volleyball and cheerleading conventions will ever come back after this again. Don't forget to check out the video chronicals of our misadventures on YouTube here.

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