My family recently went to the DragonCon convention for our Labor Day Vacation. FYI, ” Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!” We had a great deal of fun, but we were woefully unprepared and that caused undue stress and missed opportunities. With the knowledge we gathered as first time attendees, we will take steps to do it right next year, when we plan to go back.
The first thing on our list to do is to get tickets for next year as soon as possible to take advantage of the lowest price available. We already missed getting $60.00 tickets by not purchasing at the convention, but if we buy by November 15, we can get $70 tickets that will give us entry for the entire weekend. This will give us an $80 savings from this year as we purchased the tickets by the last price hike deadline.
Fortunately, DragonCon is a local even for us, but people travel from everywhere to be there. If we were flying we would have to book our flights six months early. But even still, we know that other people will be flying in, so we should probably check into the hotel the day before the convention so as to not get caught up in the frenzy.
Our hotel choice was our biggest failure. We didn’t bother to try to book a host hotel and instead trusted Hotwire.com to get us close to the convention. We ended up two miles from the convention, and forced to use the MARTA subway system which was a nightmare. You really need to be experienced to use the MARTA system as no one is there to advise you on the vending machine ticket purchasing system, but they will show up and berate you at the gate if you make an error. (Just to avoid our error, if you are riding the Marta, purchase a separate round trip ticket for each person, don’t put them all on one card. It is not allowed.) So, be sure to get a room at one of the host hotels. It is advised on the DragonCon website that you secure a room by March.
Finally, our biggest error was not having enough cash. Because we’d had two other vacations last summer, he didn’t have any money set aside. After paying for the hotel, we were pretty broke and had little money to splurge on food, water, and trinkets. We survived it all, but being economical took a lot of extra time away from having fun. Running out of money also meant we only got a hotel for 2 days of the 4 1/2 day convention. So we missed the first and last days as we didn’t feel like driving back and forth. To be safe, I think we need about $1000 dollars plus some mad money for the teenagers. The kids have already started change jars to save for spending money at next year’s convention so they should have $100 each by then. As for my husband and I, we plan to only take 1 mini vacation each quarter this year, so that we will have enough cash on hand for DragonCon. I am also planning to put aside $100 a month from my writing income to guarantee extra cash should we come up short.
With all of that said, the biggest expense of DragonCon weekend is clothing. It is a lot more fun if you wear a costumes. I will definitely be visiting my favorite thrift store on a regular basis to find items to make my own costumes with. I will also raid after Halloween Costume clearance sales to see what I can find.
The one thing we did to right for DragonCon was to use their app which let us know what was going on schedule wise. I do need to find a purse that will be more ideal way to carry my iPhone and a small messenger bag just for my husband’s iPad. It was kind of stressful moving in such large crowds trying to hold on to our electronic devices which were so important in helping us control our schedules.