This site spends most of its time at anime conventions, but there are
other kinds of fandom celebrations. To see how others enjoy their
genres, we spent some of the Thanksgiving weekend at two conventions -
and found some quiet events. Most relaxing of all was Starbase Indy, a
Star Trek convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. This site is used to the
frantic pace of anime conventions, something caused by the number of
fans and the youthful energy they bring to the events. There was none
of this at Starbase Indy because there weren't many people on hand - we
bought a badge on Saturday afternoon that had a number less than 300
and we figured there were no more than 100 people at the convention at
the time.
Who was on hand was Ray Park, the martial artist who fought as Darth
Maul in the Star Wars series. Yes, a Star Wars performer was the big
guest at a Star Trek convention that has had some major Trek figures in
the past (and had the appearance fee checks on display to prove it).
By contrast, the big star at the Mid-Ohio Con on Sunday was Doug Jones,
whose motion capture performance was a highlight of the Fantastic Four
- Rise of the Silver Surfer feature film. Nine months earlier, that
performance had been shown in previews at the New York Comic-Con
covered by this site, and here was the real thing with people queuing
for an autograph.
The Mid-Ohio Con, always on the Thanksgiving weekend, had moved between
various Columbus, Ohio hotels before staging at the Batelle Hall at the
Columbus Convention Center. This was around six weeks before the
Ohayocon anime convention would use the same facility, but Ohayocon was
expected to use far more of the center. Mid-Ohio was essentially a
one-room event, with most of the action in this sales room that was
roughly the size of the Ohayocon dealers' room from January. Again, the
comic convention audience was an older and quieter crowd than you'd
find at an anime convention, but it was far larger and younger than
what we had found at the Star Trek event.
