The 1st ever CON*tourage Rock Star Photo Shoot held Saturday Night was a huge success!

Ahhh, the memories! It’s now 2011 and what an amazing year… to be alive, to be at Dragon*con and to be a part of CON*tourage! It is rewarding in a very unique way to each one of us. Now that Dragon*Con 2011 is past us, let’s take a few minutes and reflect on our own Dragon*Con histories and remember why we started coming to Dragon*Con in the first place (everyone’s got their own story and we invite you to comment with your own stories) .

The reason I started coming to Dragon*Con was my interest in gaming way back in 1999. I was into a little game called Magic: the Gathering, and a fellow player invited me to Dragon*Con.  GWAR and Mark Hamill were the big draws of that year, so it took little to convince me, and let me tell ya’, after that weekend I was hooked through the bag. Here it is over 10 years later and I’m still enjoying every moment spent at Dragon*Con.

DRAGON CON 2011 PICTURES

This year was was jam packed full of wonderful new memories. Arrival at the hotel had that usual air of excitement, magnified by the re-designed Hyatt lobby which was a refreshing change (though the old lobby will always hold a special place in our hearts). Check in was a breeze and we were up in our familiar CON*tourage Party Suite within minutes, which was a relief after a year of hoping we didn’t get screwed. We got everyone situated, including a few newcomers.

Badge retrieval, while slightly faster than in previous years, there were still no shortage of people, and the line was ginormous. After a solid 2 hours, we had our badges and could move on to setup duties. Mark, Adam and I went on our run to get all the supplies from Adam’s apartment and a Wal*Mart run for beer, beer and more beer and a few other important items, like beer cups.

Then we got ready for the Meet and Greet. We had planned to hold the meet and greet in the newly up-graded Twenty Two Storys Bar, located in the lobby of the Hyatt. The bar was already jam packed and the level of people who showed up was astounding. This quickly became a problem with the bar staff who promptly told us we had to “Do this somewhere else.” After some confusion, we moved our entire setup downstairs to an unused corner of the hotel and we continued on as planned. The raffle was held for the remaining passes and it drew quite an enthusiastic crowd, with some winners screaming in triumph. It was awesome to see all of the people wearing CON*tourage T-shirts, and Syd and Rich made us a fabulous new CON*tourage flag that helped out a lot!

Next we returned to the suite to get the room ready for the Heavy Metal Party the following night. Setup was fantastic and we want to thank everyone who showed up to help. There were seriously too many people to mention, at it made setup so much easier this year. We had the party 85% ready to go by the end of the night and everyone got a chance to hang out and re-unite.

Friday Night’s Heavy Metal Party was EPIC beyond human proportions. DJ Nemesis rocked the house till after 3 AM with his amazing skills and quick wit. The party was simply a triumph of light, color, awesome heavy metal and a huge costumed crowd having a great time.  Amazing drinks were served by our most AWESOME bartenders, Syd, Rich and DJLawless mixin a few drinks as well. For the first time we offered our own Collectible Cups emblazoned with the Dragon*Con, Con*Tourage and our sponsors logos (yes, that’s right SPONSORS!). Thanks to Mark, Maddie, Tarra, Bonzo, David, Adam, Emm, Lin, David, Jenn, Wil, Ty, and the rest of the group for helping set up and being there for us! We love all of you!

Saturday Night we introduced a new theme, the ‘Fiesta Con Loco’ party and it was a huge success. We had Booze-Filled Pinata Bashing, Day Of The Dead Costume Contest, Nude Bodypainting by Antonio Tiggs, a sugar skull shrine to dead rock stars, Cerveza and Margaritas all to the backdrop of DB BNOT. It was a CRAZY PARTY and everyone had a blast. Huge thanks to Leah, Marie and Lin for creating so many awesome decorations and for helping out so much.

Also a HUGE shout out to all of our Board of Directors. Thanks for being there everyone, this year couldn’t have turned out better in my opinion.

We finished up with DJNEMESIS at the Dragon Dance for the ‘last hoorah’ of Dragon*Con 2011. What a year! It went flawlessly and we have you all to thank for such great times.

Next up: Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando FL, on October 7-9, 2011 and then little 5-points Halloween festival on October 21, 2011.