Convention Schedule Previous Reports Personality of the Week About this Site Search this Site Racing and More E-Mail the Author

Gen Con Indy - Saturday Walkabout - 2007 On Friday, this registration area was nearly deserted. On Saturday, the place was crowded and the lines were full. although they didn't extend into the street and around the corner as they had on Thursday. As with most fandom conventions, Saturday is Gen Con's busiest day, with waves of fans crowding the dealers' room. This card construction zone looks like a busy downtown in fast forward. Most of this wasn't around when we last took a look at this area on Thursday. You'd need a tall stepladder to reach the top of the tallest towers. And you thought the spam-eating contest at the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention was bad? Too bad we had to skip this major contest, and that we missed a chance to see -- or consume -- Friday's winners. The Spam-carving contest was a short distance from the Klingon jail, one of Gen Con's traditions. The jail seemed to have less business than in previous years, probably because they had a location further back in the convention center's concourse. But costumers were popular at this non-costuming event, with this group of Star Wars empire costumers among the most photographed. The end of the movie series hasn't diminished the appeal of people who dress as if it was 1977 all over again. It was a tough time for this Chinese manufacturing group to have a U.S. display. A few days before Gen Con, Mattel announced its second recall of Chinese-made Fisher-Price toys that contained lead paint. Gamers might not care, but it's rough for any Chinese manufacturer because of the bad news from Asia, whether or not they've had any trouble with their products. Another dealers' room vendor who was selling DVD's got some additional attention from a member of the Gen Con staff who walked up to the booth, examined the disc package and informed him that the DVD was a bootleg. The disc vendor protested that the series hadn't been released in the U.S., but the convention staffer noted that the disc was still a bootleg. Gen Con Indy Main Page