Dragoncon: A Bad Time

Probably the worst convention experience I've had in recent years was attending Dragon*con 2015. An important note: this was by no way a fault of the convention itself, in fact I'm sure a lot of people had an amazing time and other years I might have too, it was just unlucky circumstances really.

So:

Nothing that starts off with food poisoning ever turns out well. Especially when that thing is a 7 hour road trip. I was driving two strangers that I would be sharing a room with (with the addition of some not-strangers, it's not weird, I promise), we set off from my place at 7am, we're all tired as heck, and it's time to get breakfast and coffee. I get a breakfast sandwich and iced coffee from a Burger King. I love BK breakfasts, I've gotten them many times, before, but this time was nothing but a mistake. Two hours later, I had to stop. And then another hour after that. About 4 hours into the trip, my copilot notices I'm looking pale, and says "Want me to drive now?" I hadn't realize how spacey I had been (please don't drive like this, don't be like me), so I promptly pulled over at the next rest stop and vommited everywhere. Good timing at least. The rest of the drive was spent in the passenger's seat battling dehydration and struggling to keep absolutely anything down, fainting in a bathroom at least once and having to ask one of the people (men) I was with to bring me water in the ladies room, and generally just having a bad time. We finally got to the hotel and I was able to crash for the next 12 hours.

Photoshoots were cancelled, group cosplays were bailed on, I suffered. The nice thing about all this though was that one of the girls in my room was a nursing student, another had chronic stomach problems, and another was a mom friend to the girl with stomach problems who came equipped with medicines of all sorts. 

And THAT'S how I spent over half of Dragon*con and wasted $60 + $160 for the hotel + gas money.

It's impossible for a convention not to leave a bad taste in your mouth (literally) when you have to experience it from your bed heaving into a trash can.

The silver lining of all this was I did get to spend a little time at the convention, and I went to the  Georgia Aquarium which is amazing. It just would have been more amazing if I was able to get calories from anything other than gatorade and crackers.

Here are the two costumes I managed to wear (out of 6 planned):

This is the friend with stomach problems, hopefully you can't tell but we are both suffering in this photo.

I'm the blue one

Now the important question: would I go back to Dragon*con? The answer is no. It's bigger than most conventions I like, it's expensive, it's hot (as are all Florida conventions, but it's downtown in a big city with a lot of people in a small space so it is HOT). 

Atlanta is really pretty though, so it made me want to go to a smaller convention there at some point. Maybe Momocon or AWA? Either way, hopefully they will be better than Dragon was, and I promise I won't be eating Burger King at any point.