My Experience at Westercon/GEAR Con 2016

I’ve done a variety of events in the last few years. Writing conferences, retreats, festivals, cons… each type of event seems to have its own way of doing things. I consider Westercon/GEAR Con to have been my first traditional-style con, with round-the-clock programming, at least six panels during each hour of the day, and cosplayers representing movies, games, and a variety of speculative fiction tropes.

Of course, I saw most of the Con from behind the Clockwork Dragon table in the vendor building. While this did occasionally become fairly boring, it did give me a great opportunity to see some terrific outfits and meet with dozens of interesting people. Topics of conversation with passing attendees included the various incarnations of Thor in the Marvel Universe, the accuracy of 19th century rifles, and the anatomy of various monsters. It was a wonderfully nerdy time.

The conversations were more focused but often just as interesting at the various panels that I sat on. With subjects ranging from steampunk media recommendations to maintaining suspension of disbelief, I had some great dialogues with my fellow panelists as well as the audience members. I will admit that the casual atmosphere took a little getting used to, as I'm used to a more structured, orderly set-up, but by the end of the Con I felt like I had at least started to get a handle on the informal culture.

While sales of my books were not the best I've seen at an event, they were respectable and helped make the trip a productive one. I was a little surprised that all of my titles sold almost equally as well, but that was likely the result of this being a multi-genre Con. It will be interesting to see how my various titles compare at the other three events I have coming up this month.

While Westercon was a good experience, there's a part of me that looks forward to next year when GEAR Con will be on its own once more. Thrilling as the big Cons are, there's something to be said for the more intimate setting of a smaller event. It's also easier to remember people's names.