Orlando Sci-Fi Fans "Invade" Atlanta for DragonCon
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
By: Nicole Creston

September 17, 2013 | WMFE - Wonder Woman, Darth Vader, Doctor Who and two My Little Ponies walk into a bar...it may sound like the beginning of a joke, but it happens all the time during DragonCon, a four-day sci-fi and fantasy convention that turns downtown Atlanta into a kind of nerd Nirvana. Among the thousands of attendees were many people from Orlando who gladly save up their vacation time, and money, all year for the event.

[Image: Jamie Slomski of Orlando in costume and makeup for DragonCon]

It’s DragonCon, and it’s very crowded in the lobby area leading to convention rooms in one of the event’s five host hotels. The Georgia Celtic folk-rock band Emerald Rose is playing as the wide lobby space teems with DragonCon attendees, many of them dressed as their favorite sci-fi or fantasy characters. A family of four asks an impeccably costumed Mr. Spock if he’ll pose for a picture with them. A Harry Potter does an impromptu jig with several passersby dressed in their everyday “Muggle” clothing. This is DragonCon – 1600 hours worth of programs, panels, parties, shopping and celebrity sightings over the four-day extended Labor Day weekend.  

Most convention-goers dress up at least once during the four days. And some people, like Orlando’s Jamie Slomski, dress up every day.

“DragonCon has become an annual thing for us,” says Slomski. “It's really the only convention each year that I will travel out of Florida to come see.”

I find the aspiring special-effects makeup artist dressed elaborately as warrior alien Arissa from the SyFy channel show “Defiance.” Slomski’s had a new costume for each of the four years she’s attended.

“I'm usually quite shy and quiet, but when people see me in character, it's like a chance to get outside of your everyday world and be something else,” she says. “There's not really any other way you can accomplish that.”

A major bonus for Slomski this year – she was in this costume when she met the actor who actually plays the role of Arissa in the TV show.  

“She was like, 'Oh my god, how did you make that? How did you make this? How did you make that?’ And she's like, 'It looks just like the show, you guys are so amazing!' We put a lot of time and work into what we do because we love the character and we see they appreciate that, it's awesome.”

Slomski says experiences like that make the seven-hour trek from Orlando worthwhile. She says the only drawback is the size of the crowd, which has grown from 32,000 people in 2009 to more than 55,000.

[Image: DragonCon attendees fill the streets of downtown Atlanta]

Last year, DragonCon brought about $42 million into Atlanta’s economy in one weekend. And that’s good news for another Orlando resident, internationally-known artist Jasmine Beckett Griffith.

“It’s definitely worth the drive,” says Beckett Griffith. “We always do really well. We sell a ton of stuff.”

She’s at her booth in the busy artists’ room. There are little slips of paper that say “SOLD” tacked on most of the booth walls where her paintings hung the day before. She says coming to DragonCon helped to launch some of her products, doe-eyed fairies often seen as figurines, on t-shirts, and at her art gallery at Downtown Disney.

“It’s very lucrative as well as being fun, and also a wonderful place to make connections,” she says. “I meet a lot of art directors and publishers and people who do all my merchandising lines. A lot of them I met at DragonCon.”

Beckett Griffith has been coming to DragonCon for ten years. But in the massive vendors’ area, there’s a first-timer from Florida.

“This is quite the experience,” says Fort Lauderdale resident Andrew Hansen. He’s working at a merchandise booth called The Metal Mistress.

[Image: Andrew Hansen at his first DragonCon, working with friend Brenda "The Metal Mistress" at left]  

“It’s fascinating stuff. The people are really cool. I’m not going to make any stereotypical remarks about nerds and geeks, but they seem to be nicely self-identified as such, so I’m going to say it’s a 'geekfest',” he laughs.

Standouts for him are the celebrity guest roster – which includes one of his all-time favorites, William Shatner – and the costumes.

“Because you know, you can’t go to work in some of these costumes,” says Hansen. “You can’t go to a bar in some of these costumes. But at DragonCon, you can show up in pretty much anything and no one raises an eyebrow.”

Hansen himself donned a kilt for the occasion, but he’s a little disappointed at the reaction.

“I thought I was going to stand out a little bit, but no…there’s a hundred guys running around in kilts!”

Hansen says he’ll be back next year…probably without the kilt. Maybe this time he’ll try something a little more out of this world. Captain Kirk, perhaps?