by Amanda Sims, Reporter

I have a confession to make. Before August 30, 2012, I had never been to a convention. A bit shocking for a self-professed geek and sci-fi fan of my age and considering the area where I grew up (the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, home to Dallas ComicCon and AKON, among other large conventions), but true nonetheless. (Dirty, seedy underbelly of the above confession: I’m actually a Ren Faire goer and have been for ages – my daughter attended her first Ren Faire by the time she was six weeks old.)

But there was something special about Dragon Con that caught my attention. Not only was it a con that was within driving distance of where I currently live, but it had two other things going for it – Raphael Sbarge, a star on ABC’s hit show Once Upon a Time and voice of my favorite space husband in the history of space husbands, Kaidan Alenko, was going to be attending, and Bioware had announced plans that they were intending to be there in an official capacity as well.

I couldn’t say no to that. Not only is Mr. Sbarge one of my favorite actors, but Bioware is absolutely my favorite game developer. While I’d grown up gaming (Mom bought us a Super Nintendo the Christmas just before I turned 10, and I spent countless hours glued to my tv – “Just one more level, Mom!”), I hadn’t really been passionate about it before my husband brought Dragon Age: Origins into our home.  (I’d actually never had a PC capable of gaming before I married my husband – I’d been a console-only child, so wonders such as Neverwinter Nights or even the original Fable were complete novelties to me.) And as soon as I started playing, I was hooked. The characters were complex and deep and real – they had opinions and fears and doubts, joys and hopes and loves, the swells of triumphs and the marks of defeats. The stories the team wove were intricate and delicate and so astonishingly well written and affected me so deeply that, by the end of the game, I was actually sobbing over my keyboard as I, with trembling fingers, sent my lover Alistair to perform the Dark Ritual. I had never in my fifteen years of gaming had a video game touch me so deeply, so thoroughly wreck my heart and own my soul.

With what looked like the only chance I’d ever have to get to listen to these marvelous writers speak and tell one of my favorite actors how much his work meant to me and how much I appreciated what he’d done for his fans over the previous fall [seriously – he spoiled Mass Effect fans rotten, with a few extra bones thrown in for the Kaidan Alenko fans; he made regular audioblogs detailing the process of making the game, he interviewed Kimberly Brooks (Ashley Williams) and Jennifer Hale (Commander Shepard), and he went so far as to record the Horizon letter for the Kaidan fans, just to say “thank you” for being a fan, among other things.], the siren call was physically impossible for me to ignore.

So in April, my husband and I began making plans to attend: we arranged for the care of our children, we purchased tickets and a hotel room, and only then did I really begin researching what Dragon Con was all about. As I began poking around various internet forums devoted to Dragon Con and putting myself out there as a newbie and asking for advice, I noticed there were two really disparate groups of people answering me: those who said that I would enjoy it, and those who said I might be overwhelmed having Dragon Con as a first convention experience.

As the end of August drew ever closer, my excitement began to become tempered by apprehension – what if those who’d said I’d be overwhelmed were right? What if it wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be? Even I had heard the “horror stories” of fans at conventions who waited in lines for hours only for panels to be canceled or for their favorite stars to be absolutely cold if not downright rude.

Despite it all, my husband and I still set out early Thursday morning with the intent of enjoying ourselves. I knew, if nothing else, that I was expecting to meet a friend from a social networking site there, and I would have the opportunity to fangirl with her in person, so the trip wouldn’t necessarily be a total waste (and I won’t say the time alone with my husband wasn’t unwelcome, either).

Thursday, August 30, 2012
Technically, Thursday is the first day of Dragon Con, but my husband and I didn’t know this (apparently there are parties organized by friends who meet up there every year, and the bars at the host hotels are simply crawling with people), so we didn’t arrive until late Thursday evening, with really just enough time to find our hotel (which was not one of the host hotels) and drive into the heart of downtown to pick up our badges. Once we’d done that, we headed back to our hotel and looked over the massive schedule to see if we could figure out panels we wanted to see together.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Friday is the first official day of Dragon Con. It starts as early as 9:00 am, but we didn’t have anything we were jointly interested in until 11:00. I still told my husband I wanted to be in downtown as early as 8:30 so we could find decent parking and figure out the actual layout of the hotels and where our panels would be.

So, by 8:30, we were standing in downtown Atlanta. We managed to work out the layout of the hotels and the main passageways between the three interconnected host hotels. We even found the proper hotel for our first panel, though it took us at least an hour to find the proper room for said panel.

At the time, I wasn’t too worried as all of the official information had said lines couldn’t be formed any earlier than an hour before the panel.

But, as any seasoned con-goer will tell you, as early as an hour and a half before the panel (if not two for some of the more popular panels), it isn’t a line, it’s simply a “group of people”. And this “group of people” had already been shunted outside and wrapped around the far corner of the building.

My husband and I decided that was a bit ridiculous for us, as the people we’d been wanting to see were scheduled to talk all four days of the convention. Instead, we headed over to one of the other major hotels – where our next panel was scheduled to be – and decided to people watch in the three hours between the current time and when we could line up for the next panel.

I won’t ever forget that experience, either – leaning over the balcony of the hotel and looking down over the lobby, watching Ghostbusters and Poison Ivys and Lokis and Skyrim characters, characters from countless tv shows and movies and comic books and video games (and I’m sure a couple of books) pouring in through the doors in an endless stream and fanning out across the tile, wandering in and out of sight, stopping for pictures or to chat. It was magical.

Eventually, though, it was time to line up for our panel [Voice Acting in Video Games, with official speakers Ellen McLain (Portal series, Team Fortress 2, among others) and Raphael Sbarge (Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect series), and officially invited party crasher Mark Meer (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, pretty much any Bioware game ever)]. In line for that panel, several things happened at once that, in their own ways, really informed my perception of what the heart of a convention truly was and shaped my entire convention experience: I got a chance to fangirl with a totally random stranger over Mass Effect, which really brought home that feeling of what a convention was for me – a gathering of people who are passionate about my interests, who will actually have a vigorous debate with me over character motivations, who don’t look at me weird if I start discussing how a character’s backstory might affect their current development and personality, a gathering of people just like me. I also met Karissa in person. She’d followed me on a social networking site just before I’d needed to leave my internet behind, but I knew who she was – I’d seen her around the internet and remember being really intrigued by some of her awesome adventures (her time at the Bioware Base during SDCC in particular). And I met two other people I’d known for ages online but had never gotten a chance to meet in person.

My first panel was a really interesting, informative experience. The opening statements were pretty much par for the course, things you see in every interview. But where it got really fun were the questions – the things the fans came up with that I’d never heard before (and good questions, too – ones I wished some interviewers had asked before) and the way the actors were so honest and real with their answers. And because it was a smaller panel, we actually had a chance to exchange a few words with the panelists in pseudo-privacy after the panel was over. It was just a nice, intimate feeling overall.

My next panel was really sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum – it was a Star Trek: The Next Generation panel. Well, really, it was a Will Riker panel. And I’m so very grateful I went. Jonathan Frakes was charming and engaging, not to mention completely entertaining. I laughed myself hoarse listening to that panel. Because it was a (much) larger panel, though, those few moments of intimacy weren’t available to us. But that’s okay, because I was fairly sure that my first panel had been the exception rather than the norm.

After the Jonathan Frakes panel, my friends and I all met up at the Walk of Fame to see about maybe getting some autographs (well, really, Raphael Sbarge’s autograph).

Let me tell you something about Mr. Sbarge – all those stories you hear about how he’s so sweet and charming and gracious and so happy just to talk to you, how he makes you feel at ease and comfortable and truly engages? All of them are absolutely true. I got a chance to speak with him at some small length, showing him some fan-made memorabilia from the Mass Effect series that involves his character (which he posed with at his own suggestion so the girl who made it could see him with it), telling him how much I appreciated the audioblogs and the work he put into them, telling him what a fan I was. Not once did he make me feel unwelcome or like I was wasting his time.

Karissa got Mr. Sbarge to record a greeting for a group of our online friends who were unable to attend Dragon Con, my two other friends got his autograph and spoke with him for a bit, and then we all dispersed with plans to meet up in the bar downstairs for karaoke in a few hours.

Karaoke, it turned out, was only part of the deal. There was also a bar set up and more people than I’d seen to that point were in costume (turns out Friday night is usually the official “costume test run” for people who are intending to wear their costumes all day Saturday due to the parade and the larger number of people in attendance).

We had enough people who’d joined our small group that there was enough drinking and singing and discussion (over topics ranging from Mass Effect to Young Justice to DC’s New52) that we actually ended up moving to another hotel bar to finish the evening.

If I recall correctly, it was somewhere around 1:30 before I staggered out into the street (yes, passing the keys to my husband quite willingly), though the Midori Sours may make that recollection a little hazy.

Saturday, September 1, 2012
Saturday started out a bit busier. I was supposed to have been at one of the host hotels for a photo op with Raphael Sbarge at 9:45.

Not only did I oversleep and leave my hotel with just enough time to get there, I ended up stuck in gridlocked traffic in downtown Atlanta for two hours. It turns out I’d underestimated just how popular the Dragon Con Parade would be.

Needless to say, I missed the photo op (thankfully the photographers had warned me about that on Friday when I purchased the op, saying that if I missed Saturday, I could just bring the receipt with me on Sunday and they’d take care of it). I ended up hanging around the largely deserted Walk of Fame for several hours, as there weren’t any panels I was interested in, and all my friends were in the Parade in one capacity or another.

It turned out to be a marvelous few hours – because most people were still at the parade, I was able to speak relatively freely with several actors I’ve admired for years without fear of holding up their lines.

(And if anyone ever asks, Jonathan Frakes is charming and witty, Garret Wang will talk to you like you’ve been friends forever, and Michael Dorn is one of the most quietly gracious people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.)

After the parade was done, the Walk of Fame was actually where I needed to be anyway – Karissa had been a victim of an insatiable camera (it ate not only all the videos she’d taken of various panels the day before, but the message Raphael Sbarge had recorded for her), and she and one of our other friends were dressed as Mass Effect characters and wanted their picture taken in costume with Mr. Sbarge.

Once they made it over to the Walk of Fame (I think it took an hour and a half – they kept getting stopped for pictures because they looked so amazing), my friends managed to get their pictures done and message rerecorded with no problem whatsoever. Raphael seemed thrilled with their costumes [he even tweeted the picture he took with Karissa and our friend to Jennifer Hale and Ali Hillis (the voice actor for the character our other friend was dressed as)], and he had no problem repeating the message from the day before.

And then there was a mad dash to the food court and a mad dash back to the hotel so we could hit the Meet Bioware panel [featuring official panelists Chris Priestly (Bioware’s Community Relations manager) and David Gaider (lead writer for the Dragon Age series) and officially invited party crasher Mark Meer. There was also a surprise party crasher about five minutes into the panel – Raphael Sbarge]. The panel was really interesting, but what was most intriguing to me were the people so intent about asking questions in regards to Mass Effect‘s writing (though trust me, I did understand the urge – I acknowledge everything the fans asked about were legitimate problems in the writing) as Chris is simply community relations, and David said repeatedly that he never touched so much as a punctuation mark on Mass Effect‘s script. I get the passion there, because Mass Effect is the series that unexpectedly stole my heart, too. I understand the disappointment with the ending and with certain directions the writing team decided to take with the overall plot. But, because of who Chris and David are, the questions just felt really out of place, which was a little unfortunate as they ate time that could have gone to questions David and Chris (and Mark and Raphael) could have answered.

After the Meet Bioware panel was over, my friends all had a photo-shoot with David, Chris, Mark Meer, and Rana McAnear (the face model for Samara and Morinth in the Mass Effect games – she was there in costume). Sadly, my own planned costume had fallen through, so I didn’t have the opportunity to partake.

Instead I set out for a panel I’d been looking forward to all weekend – a panel on Jack the Ripper (and I still remember how surprised I was that there was a panel about Jack the Ripper at a geek-based convention). Somehow, though, I ended up walking a mile in the wrong direction. In the baking heat of the day. In Atlanta.

I did eventually realize my mistake and got turned back around the right way, but I was completely roasting alive by the end of it. I’m still not sure how little Irish me escaped burning to a crisp. But I did make it to the proper hotel in plenty of time for the panel, which ended up, I won’t say disappointingly, but not quite how my husband or I had hoped. We’d hoped it would be a bit more in depth and perhaps talk a bit more about current theories – in other words, a panel for people familiar with the case. Instead it was a basic primer type panel. It was still highly entertaining, though, and I did learn at least one thing I hadn’t been previously aware of, so I still think of it as a win.

Then my husband and I broke off for dinner and then made our way back to the hotel to meet up with our friends for David Gaider’s Sex in Videogames panel (which really isn’t as salacious as it sounds. It was actually a funny, witty, informative look at sexism in the game industry at large and other -isms present in current video game writing and advertising).

After that panel, all of us retired to the hotel bar. This time the evening was much quieter (though the Midori Sours were just as good). In fact, I spent most of the evening tucked into a corner of the table with my husband and one of our friends, discussing simple, everyday things and just having wonderful conversation.

Though somehow, that evening also lasted until 2:00 am or so.

Sunday, September 2, 2012
Sunday also started bright and early (how I wasn’t falling asleep standing up by the end of the weekend, I still have no clue) with a panel about writing in video games and how to do it – and the panel they’d put together was well equipped to lecture us about this: the lead writers for the Dragon Age series, Infinity Blade, Saints Row 3, some of the Tom Clancy games, Gears of War, Fallout: New Vegas, Transformers: War for Cybertron, and a couple of other games I can’t even remember.

The writers were all very giving of their knowledge and their time, and it was really interesting to listen to the different takes on writing for these disparate series and for the very different developers (Easiest lesson to pick up: Bioware does it differently from every other studio out there. Second easiest lesson: Writing combat barks is a pain in the rear.).

After that panel broke, I had to dash down two flights of stairs and to another hotel to finally get my photo op with Raphael Sbarge (who, upon seeing me gave me a huge hug and said “I keep seeing you at all the most fashionable places!”). That was over so quickly, which I totally expected, but it was still immense fun and the picture isn’t half bad, either (of me – he, of course, looks fantastic).

My next panel wasn’t for two more hours, but Karissa and I went and lined up anyway, expecting it would be full. (And a brief aside about awesome people – when they moved our line outside from inside, I didn’t realize I’d forgotten my purse until probably three minutes after we’d left it. The official Dragon Con rep who had been leading our line in the moving process said he’d handle it and immediately radioed someone about it and then took off at a brisk clip. Not two minutes later, he was back putting my purse directly into my hands. I still wish I’d gotten his name so I could commend him to a supervisor.) In line for the panel – a Once Upon a Time panel, in fact – I had another wonderful, brief experience that just drove home that feeling of togetherness that I’d been fortunate enough to experience the entire weekend: I began chatting with the people behind me in line, and began trading theories about the show and where it might go in the next season (and all the fangirling over some of the characters). Just the ability to do that was a wonderfully rewarding moment for me.

The Once Upon a Time panel, by the way, was great – and all three of the actors who sat on it (Raphael Sbarge, Tony Amendola, and Lee Arenberg) are absolute pros at dodging some of those stickier questions that might inadvertently reveal upcoming plots. My favorite question, though, was probably when someone asked the gentlemen which other character they would be on the show. Not only was it a good question, but the answers were pretty fantastic, too: Lee and Tony answered Rumplestiltskin for various reasons (I believe Lee said because Rumple was so powerful, and I think Tony was intrigued by the portrayal of such an old and ancient evil and the internal struggle with the man himself – though don’t quote me on those), but Raphael’s answer was quite unique: “I’d like to be the Evil Queen. I don’t know how I’d look in the outfits, but.” And there was much uproarious laughter. He went on to explain why he’d actually said the Evil Queen, but I was laughing too hard to remember his justifications.

After the panel, it was back to the Walk of Fame – I’d gotten it into my head that I wanted a picture of the four of us girls, who all knew each other online in one capacity or another, with Raphael before he left.

When we made it to the Walk of Fame, though, both his line and J August Richards’ line (who is repped by the same lady, and the two of them were sharing a table) were huge. I was simply going to ask Raphael’s rep when he’d be leaving, but when she saw me pop my head out of the line, she waved me over and asked me something I’d never thought I’d hear.

She asked me to help.

She and I have a bit of a friendly relationship going back months, so it wasn’t as if I was a complete stranger to her. But I still didn’t expect what she asked of me. She’d had a friend taking pictures of J and Raphael with their fans so that she herself could man the line (and deal with the monetary portion of it all), but her friend had needed to leave unexpectedly to catch a flight and the convention hadn’t been able to find a rep to replace her friend.

And that’s how I ended up spending an hour and a half taking pictures of Raphael Sbarge and J August Richards. (And J, by the way, is one of the classiest gentlemen I’ve ever met. He’s an absolute sweetheart. I say that admittedly as a non-fan: I’ve never seen Angel and had no clue who he actually was.)

Somehow, in three days, I’d gone from a nervous newbie, to being in love with the idea of the convention and everything it represented at its core, to “behind the curtain”. (I haven’t yet had the urge to demand people call me “The Great and Powerful Oz”, but that may change. Eventually. Maybe.)

After the Walk of Fame closed and we were helping Raphael and J’s media rep break down the autograph tables, she mentioned to Raphael that all of us girls (my friends had all shown up at various points in that intervening hour and a half) wanted a picture with him. He immediately responded: “Of course! Group pictures, individual pictures, all of it!” and very graciously took those few more minutes to pose with us and to actually visit with us one-on-one a bit, which was lovely of him.

My husband and I called it a night after that, going to dinner and then back to our hotel (and then I eventually did wander back over to the host hotels for a quick drink with everyone, but that only lasted a few minutes).

Monday, September 3, 2012
Monday also started early with a panel about breaking into the video game industry. I was actually a little sad to see how few people were at the panel, how few people were around the host hotels in general. And it was a little bit disheartening to see how few costumes were around – it felt like it was already ending, even though the day was just beginning and there was still a day full of panels scheduled.

I only saw one other panel that day, a fan-run discussion panel about Doctor Who. There was still quite a bit of missing context, as my husband and I have just started watching recently (we finally reached the Series Four premiere only two nights ago now), but there were still a couple of things discussed that we were able to enjoy and appreciate.

The rest of the day was spent quietly, (finally!) going through the dealer booths and seeing what sorts of swag we wanted to bring home (final answer: our son got a plush TARDIS that makes actual TARDIS noises, our daughter got a plush baby werewolf, and I got a Master Sword, a deck of playing cards with Batman comic book cover backs, and a Commander Riker Christmas ornament. I was sort of disappointed when I couldn’t talk my husband into a remote controlled flying TARDIS for himself) and visiting with friends we likely wouldn’t see again for another year.

Dinner that night was wonderful – we got the extraordinary opportunity to sit down with some new friends and visit until the restaurant closed, talking about our passions and our interests and our lives in general.

And that’s really what the convention was about for me. Yes, my experience was wholly atypical, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Because, for me, Dragon Con was about the people. It was about sharing the experience, sharing the passion for a story and the love of a character (or twelve). In the course of four days, I made amazing friends, got to listen to talented people share their passions and experiences and insights into their jobs, and created memories I’ll treasure for years to come.

It was wonderful enough, in fact, that my husband and I actually started planning next year’s trip to Dragon Con on the car trip home.

For further convention shenanigans (and my story of how this year I ended up drunkenly writing adult fanfiction) and for everything geek pop culture, be sure to check comicsonline.com, as well as our Facebook and twitter.