I write this as Keycon 2006, Winnipeg’s 23rd annual SciFi and Fantasy convention, wraps up. It was the first Keycon I had ever attended, and I admit I spent most of the convention wandering around and peeking in all the doors at everything that was happening.
Held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Winnipeg, the convention took over three entire floors. The 11th and 12th floor ballrooms, boardrooms, meetingrooms, and hallways were rotating schedules of events. The scheduled events were well attended, and there was always something going on. Roleplaying, board games, console games, a LAN party, and people running around in all types of costumes.
The main event for many people was the fifteenth floor. The entire floor of hotel suites were converted into specialized gathering places of geek awesome. There as a room an anime room playing japanese movies and cartoons. There was a movie room playing fantasy flicks. There was a pirate den serving free drinks. There was a Star Trek room, a comic book room, a fantasy room, and even a room where people were selling their souls for round cubes (I dunno what that was about).
If you were looking for like minded people, you’d find them on the fifteenth floor. You’d find something on the fifteenth floor. Two nights of DDR gaming on an eight foot screen. A Katmari Damacy tournament. A pirates versus ninja fight in teh hallways. Drinking with friends in a free bar. Henna in a quiet room. Saturday morning cartoons with cold milk and sugary cereal.
I went to Keycon primarily to LARP and to meet new people. Well, at least I succeed in LARPing :) We had two nights of Fred By Night vampire LARPing in large rooms we could run around and make as much noise as we wanted without anyone complaining. Hell, we spilled out into the hallways more than once and only got people interested. We had, at someone’s count, about ten or twenty people come in and play either NPCs or new characters.
After the first night, a couple of us ended on the fifteenth floor at the Short Plank, the aforementioned pirate den themed free bar. It was dark, there was wood benches and wood tables, candles instead of electric lights, and a bar wench. They draped cloth everywhere to cover the walls, making it look like a dimly lite tavern, complete with a fireplace in an off room. Had a great time, laughed a lot, drank a lot, and finally went to sleep at six the next morning.
Let me clarify that. The bar did not close at six in the morning. We finally decided to leave when others were waking up to restart the Con for the next day. Six in the morning, by the way, is when the sun is rising, went all the street lamps are turning off again, and when your glad to live three blocks away when your stumbling home drunk.
The downside is that I ended up sleeping through until about four that afternoon, missing out on may panels and presentations I was looking forward to. Missed the Havok Combat demo. Missed the Frantic Films presentations. Missed the Dark presentation.
Also, anyone who knows me knows I am not what you call an outgoing, confident guy. Too much new things, too many new faces, too many things to try and do. In the end, I don’t think I ever made a new friend. Disappointing, that way, as there were a lot of cool people there.
Ah well :) Maybe next year, when I’m not bowled over by everything Keycon, I’ll have a better chance to enjoy it all.