Though it's still four months away, plans are moving right along for Geek.Kon, "Madison, Wisconsin's convention for all things geek."
Scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 6-7 at the George L. Mosse Humanities Building on the UW campus, this free convention will feature a wide variety of events. These include: anime viewing, sci-fi viewing, AMVs, an Artist Alley & Art Show, board games, CCG/Magic, cosplay, DDR/Guitar Hero, LAN games, LARP, a mixer (with music and possibly dancing), panel discussions, RPGs, vendors, video gaming, and Warhammer. A couple of weeks ago, the committee secretary for Geek-Kon released a teaser, urging viewers to come to the convention and "get your geek on!"
This one-minute teaser trailer for Geek.Kon 2007, which opens with an homage to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, follows below.
"We are in the process of inviting lots of really cool guests, both from the UW and the local community," promise the organizers of Geek-Kon, organized as a formal UW student group that meets weekly to plan for the convention. "Check back here often!"
The possibility of special guests was brought up a few months ago by one of the organizers, who discussed her job preparing movies and TV shows for screening at the convention, and gave a progress report on the schedule of events and list of vendors. She mentioned a few guests they were considering inviting. "Some of them are kind of pipe dreams, but some of them will probably show up," she said. "Chad Vader (of YouTube fame) is local, as is one of the Elvish language correspondents for the Lord of the Rings movies, and we're all hoping that they might come. There are also a lot of professors at our dear university that should have some cool things to say. I'm 'cited."
The origins of the con are shared in an online discussion about the gaming scene at the university. The student who released the teaser trailer for Geek-Kon explains: "Geek-Kon is a student organization unto itself now, since we have a lot of people from a number of different student orgs coming together for it. It started when a bunch of people who cross over from SciFi Club and Anime Club got to talking one night at the Anime Club's Alt.Room about 'wow, wouldn't it be cool to run a convention?' And the answer, we're finding, is yes."
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