I went to
DragonCon last weekend, for the first (and possibly last) time. 70,000+ nerds take over downtown Atlanta, GA. The scale is immense. We were there from Thursday night to mid-day Monday. I don't like crowds and I was regretting my decision soon after my arrival. My wife waited in line for the elevator to take our bags up to our room while I wanted in line at a different hotel to get our badges. She won that race by a small margin (both took over 30 minutes). As the days went on, my tolerance for crowds and lines improved. Part of that may have been learning to avoid them. We were only on the 7th floor, so I used the stairs more than the elevator. I mostly went to events in the hotel we were staying in, so taking refuge in our room was only 6 flights of stairs away.
I went to a Dr Who event and a Red Dwarf event. I went to 11 space/astronomy events (many back to back to avoid standing in line). After checking out Monday, I caught half of an Adam Savage interview. All but the last were in our hotel.
I know I sound negative, but as the cliche goes, "it's me, not you." It is an amazing event. It just isn't for me. I've often compared JoCoCruise to a combination of something like DragonCon plus a music/comedy festival on a ship. The scale is
completely different. DragonCon has 5,000 hours pf programming in 5 days vs 500 in 7 days. 70,000 people vs < 2,000 people. Half a dozen large hotels vs 1 medium-size cruise ship.
I guess now I can say I have gone! You can find lots of videos from it online.
