Con-munity engagement: Building community at conventions

So I’m heading to my second convention within the last 30 days, to moderate my second panel of the year, Scion or Shafted: Being Mixed race in Science Fiction and Fantasy on Sunday at 3pm. This time it’s going to be at GeekGirlCon, which unlike conventions like Rose City, is organized around a central theme, the Geek Girl. Other cons like this, such as Flame Con, rather than being organized geographically, though that’s always a component, are organized around a particular nerdy community. Their mission is to promote intersectional nerddom, the promoting LGBTQA+ community, people of color, and especially women in nerd spaces. While the con is not perfect, with early years being dominated still by a white-girl-nerd narrative, the con has been evolving to better represent their mission statement.

It is also the convention that got me started down the road of “Con-munity” engagement because of their explicit focus on diversity and talking about issues that many “mainstream” nerd venues consider secondary.

So, what is a “Con-munity”?

Conventions, whether comic or centered around any other theme, are a type of impromptu-community. Large amounts of people descend onto a particular space for a limited amount of time, all to celebrate the them. It means that at any given moment at a convention you are probably near someone who shares an interest of your or will get that reference you know none of your co-workers will get. These even get more specific as people self-select to attend panels or other gatherings. This means that, while ephemeral, conventions recur and act as a reunion. Attend enough conventions and be consistent with your interests, you’ll probably find and make a couple of con buddies. These are people who clearly share your interest and probably live in your area, assuming you’ve seen them at geographical cons. So this is the con-munity, people aggregated together for that convention that over time might become part of your actual community.

So, how can they be engaged?

The great thing about the con-munity is that, conventions create a captive audience. Walking around the pop-up mall that is the convention hall is great, but tiring and at one point, you run out of money or credit. Additionally, the people who are interested in what you have to say about pop culture are already there as they choice to attend the convention. Like a conference, people are there to talk about and listen to topics related to the central theme, comics/nerd stuff, so they are looking for what you are selling. Additionally, comics are returning to being more socially engaged. This means the community who reads and creates them are becoming more actively political and engaging with social issues. They want to know how to be better at portraying culture, science, gender, etc. because they know it’s the right thing to do and that it creates better stories. This means if you are a socially-engaged creator having a table, or if you are a specialist in a particular topic organizing panels around that theme

My goal for engagement is to bring issues that I know and care about, discussions of culture and science, to the greater con-munity. Helping them find resources that they can use to make better creations.