The Comic-Con sent out a magazine this week with some practical advice for attendees, which included:
Holster that weapon, sheath that sword! If you wear a costumer that includes a replica weapon, please keep it attached to the costume. Don't draw it or aim it.
Please don't smell bad. It's a jam-packed show: not the time to skimp on basic grooming.
I do wish more attendees would pay attention to that last suggestion. Showering daily should be a requirement. I’ve never smelled so much B.O. as I do when I attend comic/scifi cons.
I think there are times these might well apply to mystery conferences….
And a few people dressed like Jedis might be fun.
Last year at wizard world we saw a 350 pound wonder woman in her 50’s.
Good advice. It works for job interviews and first dates too.
Every little bit you can do helps when you have 100,000 fans in one convention hall. You can’t keep fans from getting sweaty over Kristin Bell, but you can do a little bit. One year we gave everyone who asked nicely at our booth a piece of minty gum. The San Diego show is now more of an endurance test than a fun show.
Bill
At the risk of creating as many enemies as you, my dear cousin, let me just say that comic-cons GROSS ME THE FUCK OUT! I travel a great deal on business and had the severe misfortune of staying in a hilton that had been taken over by some sort of anime-comic-con sex hell show. I like lots of things, all sorts of genres of books and media but there has never been an occasion where I felt the need to dress up like my favorite charactor (save when I was 6 and wore a princess leia costume for halloween). Add in that there is a great amount of costume sex going on at these conventions and my ICK factor goes up tenfold.
With all that being said, the final piece of advice that is given is a good one even at high tech trade shows (events I do need to attend for my work). Geeks of all stripes (in costumes with swords or suits holding cleanroom notebooks) sweet and get excited in crowds. A little pit-stick is never a bad call.
Irony of ironies…I’m going to Baycon this weekend. Thus I will be stuck with more than a few smelly cosplayers (people that dress up in costumes) and furries (people that dress up like animals) and plain old smelly folks during the numerous panels and such I will be attending.
Of course, for every smelly nerd there are a dozen families with smelly toddlers they have dressed up as Yoda.
It’s at times like this I wish the Boston convention Hygiene Ninja was still active…
I’m going to ComiCon myself this year and it’s kind of sad that this information has to be repeated. I see it in the pre-con literature for every ComiCon and science fiction con I’ve ever been to in the last ten years.
Strange how that kind of stuff isn’t in the program for Bouchercon or Left Coast Crime, huh?