The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 2
Day Two: “Come play with us!”
Because we had to kind of guess when the Con opened on Saturday, Dave and I arrived there around noon, when festivities and panels were already well underway. After negotiating with Christine Doyle, the woman in charge of security and front end badge sales, she allowed me to enter with a discount on behalf of my journalistic status; I was to help them by blogging about all the great things I witnessed, and in turn they would put up links on their site to advertise for us as well. I went in feeling optimistic, yet embarrassingly under-dressed. I was wearing jeans, comfortable shoes, my “Paper Street Soap Co.” T-shirt and my red leather “Starlord” jacket, but most of the people I saw were in costume as a character or uniform from one of their favorite sci-fi franchises. As much as I adore Fight Club, it’s not quite sci-fi, and it’s not much of a cosplay to just wear what I thought would look inconspicuous on the bus. Even the people working behind the badge booth were wearing colorful and unique nerd tees and seemed to be having the time of their lives working the Con. I watched a team of 5 fully decked out 501st members march by, lead by a Darth Vader who was fully in character and bigger than life. 
Then I saw two steampunk gear-heads and a Klingon warrior looking at the vendor’s wares (the Steampunk butterfly image I pulled off Dave’s novelty t shirt collection). The whole section of the hotel was refitted with various recycled goods and dressed to look like a late 60’s set for a space station or like the underground vaults of the “Fallout” video game series. I was excited, if a little overwhelmed.
The first person I met inside was a lovely young woman named Chantelle Aimee who was selling some Doctor Who themed T-shirts she had designed herself, as well as some words of advice on writing and some books. She had written and published a few books independently, including books on how to write, structure, edit, pitch and advertise independent books and just some regular fiction prose, but she was also helping a friend sell the books he’d written. Chantelle told me about her books on writing and she had brought them with her in the form of $15 thumb drives that were 3 books of information each (the set of two thumb drives or 6 books was just $25, but I was more interested in one, so I bought that straight off) because she didn’t want to have to pay for printing and shipping, and didn’t want to have to charge the people she was trying to help more for hard copies.
The booth next to hers was full of colorful silks and other rich fabrics and was tended by three colorfully dressed and dapper individuals named Katherine, Rob and Katherine (a blonde, a brunette and a redhead, my favorite!). The place they were working for was called “Blue Moon Designs”. Katherine (the blonde) rushed over to me and enthusiastically asked, “Come play with us!” and right after that, seeing my second-guessing, Rob (the only man in the booth and the brunette) very gently said, “Would you like to come play dress up with us today? It’s fun and you don’t have to buy anything. You look like you’d really fit in here.” I said okay. They tried some things on me, a dark gray vest with flask-holder layered pockets, a blue-green utility belt. It wasn’t quite right. Then they looked at what I had come in wearing and at my face, my coloring, the bright red of my hair and how I had matched my jacket to it. Then they put a rusty red vest with ruffles over the shoulders and D-ring details on the bottom that you could hook keys or a fob watch to, and a matching belt in a different velvety fabric. They topped the look off with a smoke colored silk scarf that had been burned and dyed on the ends by hand to make it look really textured, antiqued, and in close detail, like it was actually glowing embers on the tattered ends. I was a pirate. I promised them I would return the following day in my proper pirate regalia, and we would exchange ideas then. Rob was right. It was fun and I didn’t have to buy anything. And I did fit right in there.
(continued next post)
The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 1
By Jae Gibbs
September 25-28, at the SFO Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, CA
Day One: “What the Heck is Convolution?”
I had heard about Convolution when I attended Kubla-Con, a gaming convention which was also held at the Burlingame Hyatt a few months ago. The thing is when I heard about it, I didn’t hear much. What is Convolution? I was told it was just a general pop-culture convention, then a sci-fi and fantasy specific convention, then that it was about writers and finally that it was supposed to be focusing on sci-fi and the ways that fans of science fiction communicate and interact with one another. That still seemed very nonspecific to me, but I liked the concept and the location and I had heard something about a lot of the proceeds from the Con going to local charities, so why not, right?
As time went on I periodically would check the site to see if any more specific updates were added, but I was disappointed by the lack of user-friendly data on the site. I had a nearly impossible time finding usable links to the named guests’ websites, the accurate schedule for each of the days, or even a clear mission statement for the theme and reason for holding the convention this year (or how it related to charity, or how long this specific Con had been held at said location… ) so it was all rather frustrating, especially for Dave, who didn’t know if it was worth paying for a badge to go for just me or if he should (and would be able to) attend himself, or if we should try setting up a booth there this or next year. “I have no patience for bad marketing or poor web design,” he told me, and I was sad to agree. Things looked grim.
Due to all this plus unforeseen schedule conflicts, neither David nor myself were able to attend day one of Convolution, and that’s a shame. A friend of mine, author Fred Wiehe, was giving a lecture that day on something he knows a great deal about: Witches, Vampires and the Walking Dead 
(The Walking Dead image of The Walking Dead category.)
You can check out His book, “Alreric: Monster Hunter” on Amazon. This is how and when I realized that’s what this convention was all about: authors and artists and craftspeople taking their wares straight to the people and teaching them how to do these things themselves for fun and profit. It’s not just about going to Con to show off and argue and prove your fandom is better or your geek cred more true, it’s about community and education. That’s a worthy cause which feels very close to my heart.
