Intervention Con, Day 3, Rockville, Maryland, August 24, 2014

This post is about the third and final day of Intervention Con 2014 that took place in Rockville. For my posts on the previous two days, see:

Intervention Con, Day 1

Intervention Con, Day 2

I’ve been to enough of these types of conventions in the past (such as Otakon, Katsucon, and Anime USA) to know that the third day tends to be pretty truncated because everyone is focused on packing up and checking out of their hotel rooms so they can catch the next flight out of town. The entire convention tends to shut down between 2-4 p.m. I usually don’t go to the last day of a con unless there’s a topic that I’m really interested in.

I decided to go on the last day because there were two topics that I was interested in. One was an 11 a.m. discussion on “Should I Care About Social Media?” and the other was a 1 p.m. panel with the intriguing title of “Blogging For Fun and Profit.” I also decided to leave behind the crochet project that I was currently working on because the con was going to be over by 4 and I wasn’t going to stay very long.

However I was out late last night at the con so I had a hard time getting going the following morning. I ended up missing the social media panel but I made every effort to arrive early enough that I could make it to the blogging panel. I arrived at the Hilton Hotel and I leisurely walked along the hallway. Near the area of the hotel where Intervention Con was held, I saw that one of the conference rooms was rented by a church known as the House of Divine Glory. I saw that the doors were opened and I noticed that this church service was held in a room that had a funky psychedelic Volkswagen Bus. Seriously!

I arrived at the front tables where I found this flyer announcing some last-minute changes regarding the blogging panel. The organizers flipped the times of the charity auction and the blogging panel without any prior notices whatsoever. I didn’t know about the time changes until after I arrived. What was worse was that the blogging panel now started earlier so I had suddenly gone from arriving early so I can make it to the panel with enough time to spare to being a half-an-hour late to the panel. To say that I found it annoying was a total understatement!

So I sprinted to the panel only to find that I had missed half of it. I still found it informative even though I would’ve loved to have been there for the whole thing. The one thing I found fascinating is the issue of whether a blog should allow comments or not. Apparently, according to those panelists, there have been a trend of getting away of allowing comments because of the problems with the trolls and spammers. The panelists made the point that the newspapers tend to limit which letters to the editor ultimately makes it to publication. So the rationale was why allow anyone to comment in your personal blog if it’s going to allow trolls to hurl insults at you.

That panel brought back memories of when I had a previous blog that attracted the attention of a few trolls (which I could easily devote a separate post about) who left nasty comments and I also had the occasional comment spammer hawking things like diet pills that had absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the post I wrote. I ended up pulling the plug on that blog by deleting it in late 2008 because I grew tired of the trolls and I was scheduled to undergo a hip replacement and I knew that I was going to have a long recuperation and I really didn’t want to deal with abusive trolls. When I started this blog, I decided to moderate all comments so I could approve which ones could be posted. (I’m also grateful that WordPress.com uses Akismet which also weeds out comment spam. I’ve read a few of these comment spams a few times but I generally agree with those being completely blocked.) I also tend to close comments after a post has been online for about a month or so in order to make my moderating duties easier.

Anyway, getting back to Intervention Con, after the panel ended, there was an announcement that a special charity auction was going to be held in the same room where the proceeds would benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). I originally had no intention of sticking around because I really couldn’t afford to bid on anything but then I learned that the same guy who had been cosplaying as Jesus throughout the entire weekend was going to be the emcee for the auction. I thought it would be worth it to stick around just for that. Here were some of the items that were available for the auction.

I had a feeling that having Jesus Christ emcee the auction would be ludicrously hilarious and I definitely was not disappointed.

The only sad part was that the auction was sparsely attended and there were quite a few items that went unsold. Even Jesus said that he’s going to tell the management that they should schedule the auction for a Saturday next year since there tends to be more people there. There’s a part of me who wondered whether the tanked economy had an affect as well. I know I’ve had a harder time selling my arts and crafts because of the economy and I came to that conclusion after encountering so many people at street craft shows who have told me “I’d love to buy something from you but money is tight because I’ve been laid off (or my spouse/parent/partner has been laid off) or my job is in jeopardy.”

During the auction my eyes glanced over to a wall in the room and I saw something I recognized from the previous night. I remembered that the same room was the one where the Drink and Draw Artist Jam took place. I made a quick drawing of an anthro female dog, took a photo of it, then left the con because I was very tired. I was surprised that the drawing still remained on the wall ledge where I had left it.

I took the fact that my drawing was still there as a sign of some kind (as to what kind of sign, I haven’t figured it out yet) and I decided to take the drawing. I ultimately brought it back home with me.

I took one last look at the Dealer’s Room but I found that half of the tables were empty and there were very few shoppers.

The Tau Radio Independent Broadcasting continued with their live broadcast from Intervention Con.

I took one last shot of Intervention Con before I decided to head home.

Lately I’ve been saving on gas by making a point of combining trips as much as possible. I decided to check out Micro Center because the store is located just a block or so from the Hilton Hotel. I ended up not buying anything but I took a few shots of some of the cool statues that came from the 3D printers that the store sells.

The last photo in this post is of this really cool Mr. Potato Head that was based on Doctor Who.

By the way, check out this Washington Post story about Intervention Con.

Intervention Con, Day 2, Rockville, Maryland, August 23, 2014

Late last night I posted online my experiences with the first day of Intervention Con. This post is about my second day, which not only had more people attend (compared to the previous day) but there were more things for me to do.

The weather outside that day was nothing but non-stop rain, which made me glad that I was at an indoor convention.

Yesterday I started this crochet project during some downtime because I had thought about going to the Early Bird Stitch-n-Bitch that was scheduled for 9 a.m. on the second day. Except I didn’t make it because I overslept a little bit. I still brought my crochet project with me and I worked on it some more during downtimes. Of course I took some more photos, such as the next one of one of the official Intervention Con camera operators with his high-end equipment.

The major bummer about oversleeping is that I not only missed the Early-Bird Stitch-n-Bitch but I also missed half of the documentary Plastic Galaxy, which is a fascinating look at the Star Wars toys, the original Kenner employees responsible for creating them, and the collectors. I’m sorry that I missed the first half and I was too broke to buy the DVD that was on sale in the Dealers Room. I’ll try to catch it online at some point.

There were a few more cosplayers walking around but it seemed like the vast majority just wore casual clothes.

And here’s a rare online picture of me with a Doctor Who cosplayer that someone else volunteered to take with my smartphone camera.

At one point I ate the lunch that I brought with me then I attended a session on “Manga Studio 5: An Intro”. The leader of that panel was one of the leaders of the previous night’s panel on “Comics Rehab: Overcoming Creative Depression” that I attended and she promoted this one towards the end of the previous one. I decided to check it out because my potential future is in a constant state of flux and I wanted to know what software is out there. (I have a friend who’s practically an open source evangelist who frequently promotes the idea that open source applications are the solution to almost everything. I just wanted other opinions so I can think about things, which was why I attended the workshop.) Manga Studio 5 looks like a very interesting program even if it’s not open source. (The retail price is $50 but one can find that application online for far less.)

I stayed in the same room after that panel ended because I was interested in the panel following it which was titled “The ToonSeum and Creating a Museum Celebrating Your Passion!” It was given by an artist named Joe Wos who was the original founder of the ToonSeum, which is a museum dedicated to cartoons and comic books in Pittsburgh. I found his talk totally fascinating as he gave details about the challenges of trying to find space for such a museum and getting the funding in order to keep it in operation. I found his talk so interesting that I would definitely put the ToonSeum on my personal itinerary if I ever find myself in the Pittsburgh area again. (Come to think of it, I’ve been through Pittsburgh—usually when I was traveling to Ohio—but I’ve never actually stopped in that city. I need to rectify that one day.)

Joe Wos mentioned that his young daughter had her own table in the Artist’s Alley. I came across her table later, which had this amusing sign.

The sign convinced me enough to shell out $2 for one of her small drawings. I have to say that she has a lot of potential. 🙂

I spent time in the Dealers Room perusing the various items on sale.

Here’s another shot of one of the two rooms that had video games available to play. I focused more on the vintage arcade games from the 1970’s and 1980’s (such as Super Mario Bros., Tron, and Wizard of Wor) than on the later console games.

Walt’s Cards & Board Gaming Room, named after one of the sponsors who provided the games for this room, was full of games and players.

I had wanted to attend a panel on “Living the Dream: Planning a Sustainable Career.” I walked into an empty room that I thought that the panel was being held in. To pass time, I took out my crocheting and started to work on my latest project. Some guys came in and they started to talk about the joys and struggles of making a web series called Shotgun Mythos. It sounded really interesting even though it didn’t sound like the panel I had planned on attending. It wasn’t until about a half an hour into the presentation that I looked at my schedule and realized that I had walked in the wrong room! It was a workshop on “The ABCs of Creating a Web Series/Shotgun Mythos.” It was still an interesting workshop even though I had never heard of this web series before. (I should at least check out an episode online sometime in the future.)

I decided to head into another panel that I was interested in and, this time, I made sure that I found the right location before entering the room. Kelsey Wailes gave a demonstration on how she creates her Doctor Whooo owls. I took a few photos during the presentation.

Here’s an interesting story about the below photo. During my weekend at Intervention Con I had uploaded a few select photos on both my Twitter and Instagram accounts. A few minutes later I got a notification from Instagram that the Official Instagram of Doctor Who on BBC America had hit the “Like” button. Seriously, my modest photo was noticed by someone at BBC America. That was so awesome that I approached Kelsey after the panel was over and I told her about this. She was so thrilled when she heard this that she had me forward that photo to her Instagram account with the indication that BBC America had liked that photo. I don’t know if anything will come of that attention from BBC America but it’s pretty cool.

By the way, if you like her art, you can not only check her out on Instagram but also on Deviantart, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Etsy.

After the workshop was over I ate the dinner that I brought with me. I also saw the sign leading to this special party that was only for designated Enablers, who are the special attendees who paid a higher admission fee than the basic admission fee that I paid. (The Enabler passes started at $15 above the basic admission and there were different levels of Enabler where the more money you paid, the more goodies you get.) One day, when my fortunes improve, Ill seriously consider being at least a low-level Enabler and I’ll be able to attend parties like the one indicated by the sign in the photo below.

The Internet radio station Tau Radio Independent Broadcasting did live broadcasts from Intervention Con the entire weekend.

I hung around the con while killing time alternating between playing video games and working on my latest crochet project. I patiently waited until the 8 p.m. magic hour arrived. There were subtle hints of what was happening on the second day of the con such as what I found at the water fountain below.

Intervention Con was hosting the premiere of the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who.

I could’ve watched this same episode on my own TV at home but there’s something special about seeing the show in a large room with a bunch of other like-minded individuals.

There were also people who even arrived totally dressed up for the occasion, which I would not have experienced had I sat home watching television alone. (Besides, given my current situation, I have plenty of other opportunities to watch TV at home alone so I didn’t mind seeing Doctor Who at Intervention Con.)

After the episode ended, there was supposed to be a general party but most of the people left immediately. I hung around because there was one last event I was curious about. It was called “Club 242 Presents Drink and Draw Artist Jam” and I was curious about it even though I left my drawing pad and pencils at home. (I didn’t realize it until after I arrived at the hotel.) But it was okay because the organizers provided paper and pens for those who didn’t bring their own. There was a lot of serious drawing going on while dance music played.

There were a few people who opted to dance instead of drawing.

I even shot a short video of the dancing mainly because someone was playing this techno dance music cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” that I only recognized because of the lyrics. The music part sounded pretty different from Madonna’s original version.

There was a bar that, for a fee, served booze so people could drink and draw. I didn’t drink any alcohol mainly because I had a half-an-hour commute in front of me but I drew some anthro female dog. (I was kind of influenced by these really cute Pinkie Cooper anthro dog fashion dolls that I saw on sale at Target. I ended up buying a couple for myself because they were so cute. I should write a separate blog post about these dolls at some point since I’ve had them for a while.) The biggest challenge was that it was getting late at night and I was pretty tired after a full day of being at Intervention Con. I drew a really quick sketch until I felt too tired to attempt another drawing.

I decided to prop the drawing on one of the decorative ledges on the walls of the room where the party took place. I took a quick photo from that horizontal perspective but I was in a really tired mood and I didn’t think that it was among my better efforts so I decided to leave it on the ledge and left for home.

Intervention Con, Rockville, Maryland (August 24, 2013)

I first learned about the existence of this convention when I was at Otakon because the people behind Intervention Con had a table in the Dealers Room promoting it. I went to the official site online and I found that there were a couple of panels that I was interested in. However, since I was still trying to recuperate from the massive convention monster that is Otakon, I really didn’t think I could handle all three days of Intervention Con. The good news was that, unlike Otakon, an individual had the option of buying a one-day pass. After going through the schedule online, I picked Saturday to go because that day had the most panels I was interested in.

So I packed a lunch, dinner, and a few sodas and drove to Rockville. I found that, compared to Otakon and BronyCon, Intervention Con was smaller and more intimate. I didn’t have to do as much walking and there weren’t huge crowds like the other recent conventions I attended. While there were cosplayers at Intervention Con, there were far fewer of them and they were definitely in the minority. (The vast majority of Intervention Con attendees wore jeans and t-shirt and eschewed costumes.) The few cosplayers I saw had interesting costume, like the person in the photo below.

When I got my pass, the first thing I did was sit down in a hall chair and eat the lunch I brought with me. Once I finished, I proceeded to tour the entire Intervention Con, starting with the LARP Room, which provided pretend weapons for anyone who wanted to engage in live action role playing.

The Internet radio station Tau Radio Independent Broadcasting did a live broadcast from Intervention Con.

The Video Gaming room had a variety of the latest video games for computers and consoles that convention attendees can try, such as Rock Band. There were also a few of the older consoles (like one of the first Nintendo consoles) that one could use to play older games like Super Mario Bros. I had fun trying out some of the games, such as Fruit Ninja for the X-Box Kinect.

Walt’s Cards & Board Gaming Room was named after one of the sponsors who provided the games for this room. There were a lot of board games and card games that one could purchase. However, if you weren’t sure about purchasing a certain game, there was a Game Library on one side of the room where people could borrow a game and play it on one of the tables in the room.

The Art and Music Studio room was a place where people could create art and/or music. When I was there, people were drawing on the boards using the dry erase markers.

I have to admit that my favorite room at Intervention Con was the Arcade Gaming room, which had a variety of classic arcade games from the 1970’s and 1980’s. What was really cool was that all of the machines were on Free Play so I was able to take a trip down to my high school and college years as I played games like Tron, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Tetris, Arkanoid, and Wizard of Wor.

The biggest room at Intervention Con was one that housed three different things—a guest area where some of those who gave panels and workshops signed autographs, the Artists’ Alley where aspiring artists tried to sell their handcrafted stuff, and the Vendors who sold t-shirts, buttons, and similar geek-oriented items.

The same room also ran a Charity Auction, which was a silent auction where people could bid on various items ranging from t-shirts to plushies. The proceeds from that auction went to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The first panel I went to was on "Making Makers" and it was given by Mark Frauenfelder, the person behind both Make magazine and BoingBoing.net. It was a very informative panel on how there is a trend towards people making their own things, which has been spurred on by the rise of 3D printers.

After that panel, I walked around where I found this flyer touting the official Twitter hashtag for Intervention Con (#interventioncon).

The last two pictures I took were of cosplayers (one was wearing a neat red dragon tail and the other was fully dressed as one of those Transformers robots) before my smartphone battery totally died. (Yes, I stupidly forgot to fully charge my phone before I headed to Rockville.)

Despite my dead cell phone battery, I did plenty of other things (like frequently returning to the Arcade Gaming room so I could play those old arcade games I used to love so much). I managed to check out Mark Frauenfelder again as he was among those who sat on a panel I attended titled "Revenue Streams: How to Make Ten-Tenths of a Living". It was basically advice from professionals on how one could potentially make at least a part-time income through their own original creative product/idea (like a self-produced comic book). That panel recommended an online essay, which I later read, titled 1,000 True Fans, which showed that a creative person would only need to cultivate that amount of true fans in order to make a living. There’s also a book, called The Art of Doing, that the panel also recommended reading. The panel was basically positive and upbeat and it also had this message, it takes time to cultivate being able to make a full-time living off of what you create and you shouldn’t feel like a failure if you have to get a day job to pay the bills. I enjoyed myself watching the panel while eating the dinner I had brought with me from home.

I also attended a panel titled "So You Wanna Be an Artist?" and it was given by a former Disney animator named Raul Aguirre, Jr. He gave a really upbeat talk on how he managed to make a living as an artist despite being the son of Mexican immigrants. He has a webstie called Man vs. Art where he has a podcast series that’s designed to provide insipration to would-be artists and urge them to not abandon their dreams. After that panel, I attended another panel titled "Sh!t Gets Real: A Conversation With Frustrated Artists" that provided a sobering counterpoint to Aguirre’s previous panel. (It was too bad that the powers-that-be at Intervention Con couldn’t combine the two panels into a point/counterpoint on the issue of trying to make a living as an artist. That would’ve been cool to see.) This panel was pretty funny while the participants provide their horror stories (complete with gallows humor) on trying to make a living as an artist. Basically the message is that many artists may have to get side jobs to pay the bills.

After that panel I grew tired so I drove home. I learned a lot at Intervention Con that day. I also liked the fact that it was a smaller convention because I didn’t wake up with my body hurting the next day (unlike Otakon).