ComicConversation

ComicConversation is the brain child that resulted from the successful Whostravaganza. A library comic con was born to satisfy our geeky community.

The first ComicConcersation was scheduled for August 2014.

My part as a comic con goer was to figure out some of the logistics and how that could be translated into the library comic con.

We were able to lean on a lot of patrons and friends of friends for our first one as guests and vendors. I recruited a photo booth, 2/3 cosplay judges and 3 vendors from my own friends group. I also became the minder, the person who reminded people that things had to be done by certain dates or delegated tasks such as delivering posters to local businesses.

 The first one was a success, so for the next 2 years I assisted in helping grow the comic con and every August we got new community groups, solicited local businesses to donate or participate and geekified the community.

The cosplay competition needed an Under Age 10 category from the first year. We got to meet out local 501st, Mandalorians and Ghostbusters. In 2016, we even had an indoor laser tag because of rain.  I gained skills in space planning and flow.  We also started cosplay dating game, which is done to this day, but did test our crowd control skills. 

For 2014, 2015 and 2016, during the day of, I was a runner who was ensuring everything was running smoothly, vendors/guests and patrons alike were not having problems, no one was running out of supplies and that other staff was getting breaks. I definitely got my 10k steps in on those days, as well as the night before when we would set up the library.

The night before set-up and the night of tear-down taught me a lot about other skills as assigned as well as about volunteer recruitment and bribing cosplayers with food. 
In 2015 we had technical difficulties during the cosplay competition and we learned to role with it and use a megaphone from our emergency kit.

 After the success of the initial ComicConversation, a facebook page was started as well as a private group for planning meetings. I was given admin privileges and was able to post geeky articles, events in the community and art as well as memes.

It has been amazing to see how the event has grown and while I did move in 2017, I was able to do some of the logistics and facebook planning from afar. Especially reminding people about dates and editing documents.  

This past August was the 6th ComicConversation and while I am no longer involved. I am happy for their success and that I got to be a part of it. I learned a lot about big event planning, space usage, community outreach, social media marketing, involving the entire staff in an event as well as recruiting community members.