By Isaac Lew
Another year, another great time at Dragon*Con. While this was my sixth year attending Dragon*Con, this marked the third year that many of us collectors having been meeting together at the convention to hang out. This year's turn out was solid, with about 15-20 of us in attendance throughout the weekend. A few people had to leave early, or could only stay for a little while, but that was okay.
Many people arrived on Thursday, but I got there Friday evening. When I arrived everyone was attending the live wrestling that was going on. It was pretty funny with the crowd hollering and heckling and really getting into it. Plus, there was a midget referee for one match between three female wrestlers. How can you argue with that? After that we went to go eat dinner at a nearby diner which would become the defacto restaurant of choice for the weekend. The late night was spent with the classic people watching and photo taking into the wee hours.
Saturday morning we all woke up, ate breakfast, and got ready to attend the "Inside Star Wars Episode III" presentation by Lucasfilm. Since Steve Sansweet was still recovering from an illness, Mary Franklin gave the presentation. Most of what was shown everyone had already seen (especially if you had been to any of the other summer conventions), but it was still nice to see a big presentation on Star Wars.
After the Star Wars presentation, we attended the collectibles panel which was pretty much the same as last year. Soon after, some of us went to get lunch while others cruised the dealers room. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the dealers room, until we stopped by Will Grief's hotel room to check out some of his stuff. Afterwards we went to the Mr. Star Wars contest, which was quite funny. Basically, guys competed to have the right to be called "Mr. Star Wars 2004". The crowd was really involved and it seemed to be a big success. The rest of the night was spent about the same as the night before-- more photo and video taking.
Sunday we were able to sleep in a little bit, and later went out to lunch. We killed some time during the afternoon by going to the Klingon Beauty Pageant. Unfortunately, it wasn't as exciting as last year's. John Alvarez did, however, have to escape for a few minutes when we all pointed to him when a female Klingon started walking among the audience.
Sunday night was for me one of the highlights of the convention. It seemed that on this night everyone came out in costume. Tons of pictures were taken and lots of video shot. There were also concerts and dances going on and the mood in general was very alive and busy. We didn't get to bed until almost 3:30am.
Monday afternoon everyone said goodbye and unfortunately the convention ended on a slightly sour note as one of us had their car broken into over the weekend. Add to that the news of the impending hurricane and you can imagine just how everyone felt.
Monday notwithstanding, I think it's safe to say that Dragon*Con was certainly a fun time for everyone-- just check out the pictures below!
Dragon*Con 2004 Photos