Dragon Con, comic book artists, STEM, Kid’s Track-oh my

“But we don’t dress up”, I need a button that says that when our neighbors ask us about Dragon Con. As a family, Dragon Con gets more and more entertaining every year we go.  Dragon Con happens in Atlanta over Labor Day every year. It is also family friendly. Our neighbors give us a side-eye when we say that also. All one needs to do is walk around downtown Atlanta when Dragon Con is happening and you’ll see hundreds of children accompanying their parents. This is a massively fun time for kids and families who have the right mindset.

By the right mindset I mean, be OK with crowds. Over 85,000 people attended Dragon Con in 2019. It’s crowded everywhere you go. What’s amazing is that, despite its massive size and crowd the lines are constantly moving. Another mind boggling fact is that the vast majority of people you’ll encounter are chilled out.

Hint: use the app. The Dragon Con app is easy to navigate and allows you to save things to a personalized schedule, complete with maps and locations of any meetings. Cross reference that with the printed version of the schedule, just to ensure that you don’t miss anything. Our kids are really interested in science, comic books, pop culture and cosplay. People enjoy Dragon Con in any manner of way or subgroup. That’s important to mention because there’s a Dragon Con experience that is entirely for you, regardless of what you like, it’s just up to you to find it.

Dragon Con is much more than a thousand or two people gathering in a hotel ballroom to hear the cast of Arrow speak. While there are dozens of television and movie stars in town for the event there are hundreds of smaller meetings that can satisfy any sci-fi or pop culture itch you have.

 For example, we mainly stayed in the Kid’s Track or the Science Track. Again, using the app, you’re able to scroll exclusively through any track that you’re interested in.  I asked our kids what they wanted to see and their answers were hands-on science stuff, Disney stuff and meeting some comic book artists.

All of the presentations in the Kid’s Track and geared for kids 12 and under. The content, language and atmosphere in this area has all manner of kid-friendly cosplay, hobbies and more. There were fan conversations or meetings about Disney Descendents, Mary Poppins, Marvel, Star Wars, anime and so much more.

In the Science Track our boys got hands-on and touched a genuine asteroid. It’s amazing how dense they are, combine that with the fact that they are pure iron and the kids really got an education as to how cool space is. Our boys couldn’t visualize that an asteroid is pure iron until they saw a magnet stick to it. Actually, I didn’t know that it was pure iron until I saw that either. This led to an amazing peer-to-peer conversation between the scientists about NASA’s plans to go to Mars and what’s currently happening regarding the exploration and future colonization of the moon. Our kids got to chat with a real astrophysicist-and here’s the kicker, she was able to explain things in a manner in which they (a 7 and 9 YO ) could understand.

Another big interest for our kids is comic books and the Artist’s Alley at Dragon Con increased its kid friend content big time from the previous year. That was accomplished by the fact that kids 12 and under were provided with a Kid’s Sketchbook. Artist’s Alley is where the comic book artists are; they do commission portraits, sign autographs and sell some of their comics or graphic novels. Many of the artists also has a special dragon illustration on their table. This meant that kids could ask the artists to draw a quick illustration or get an autograph.

“You’re pretty good at this, you should do this for your job”, our 7  year-old said to Joe Staton. Staton is one of the legends in the comic book art. We have his copy of The Six Million Dollar Man on our wall and now our kids got to meet him AND get a free sketch. In all approximately 20 artists were kind enough to sketch something, by request, for the kids. When I asked one of the Dragon Con organizers why they did this, their explanation was simple. They wanted kids to discover the love of comic books. Our kids already have that love, but for thousands of other kids who attended Dragon Con, mission accomplished.

Families need to plan ahead to attend Dragon Con because there is something for every family who has any degree of interest in pop culture. Don’t be put off by the crowd. Yes, it’s a huge gathering, but it’s segmented such that once you find your niche, Kid’s Track for example, most of the events are in that area. Branch out and experience even more so that your children can have an even better time.