I’m off at DragonCon in Atlanta, the largest media convention in the world.
Trying to pin down numbers is really tough. When I inquired about attendance figures I was told that they wouldn’t be released until after the close of the con, but, that pre-registration was about 25,000. From just looking at the lines in the registration area it appeared that more people register onsite rather than in advance, making some estimates of up to 60,000 attendees not outside the realm of possibility.
The con is run in several tracks–TV and movie science fiction and fantasy are the biggest draws and costuming is extremely popular. However, as one SF editor pointed out “if there are 60,000 people in attendance and 10% are interested in written SF and Fantasy that is 6,000 people.â€?
While the sessions dealing with written Science Fiction and Fantasy were well attended they didn’t have lines of people stretching out the doors and around the block. Nobody had to stand in line for two hours to get into the lit related panels. That is a very good thing.
Because the World Science Fiction Convention is this same weekend it has affected the attendance of people one would expect to see at an SF con. Some of the bigwigs, like Tor publisher Tom Doherty, are off in Yokahama, Japan attending WorldCon, while many fans who couldn’t afford travel to Japan are attending DragonCon instead.
The panels and programs in the SF Lit track have been well attended with some programs, such as publisher previews, attracting standing room only audiences. The panels are varied, including examinations of religion in Speculative Fiction, sex in Speculative Fiction, and the popularity of Fantasy vs. Science Fiction.
Genre conferences can be very helpful for RA librarians, as they provide a fan’s eye view of the books. Watch this spot for more reports from DragonCon.
