New Date: June 19-20, 2027 and new format
AtomaCon is a nonprofit all volunteer convention for fans by fans. Folks want to nail us down to some kind of identity: Anime Con, Literary Con, Star Wars Con, Film Festival, etc. Well, we are all of those and sometimes none of those. It depends totally what you, the fans, want. We depend on guests and volunteers to suggest panels and activities. Sure, we may have some themes from year to year. Next year is the 50th Anniversary of Star Wars and Close Encounters as well as the 45th Anniversary of ET the Extraterrestrial. So we'll have a few activities centered around those, but it doesn't exclude other topics and activities. We have two days and as much as 7 locations we can have activities. That is like 90 hours to fill! Not including the 13 hours of the film festival.
We are changing things up just a bit next year. We've always been panel driven with a vendor's room, charity auction, cosplay contest, and film festival. That won't change. But what we are doing is making the convention highly interactive and more experience driven. More workshops and activities, more demos and performances. For example, instead of having a panel on SC Cryptids where a few panelist sit around and talk about it, we will now have say SC Cryptids trivia with prizes or Name that Cryptid contest with prizes. You still learn about the Cryptids, but now you the audience are an active participant.
We have always had make and take crafts but now-hopefully with the help of our artist/maker participants, we want to add things like basic crochet and advanced crochet, needle point, Quick Sketch Contest, maybe basic pottery, candle making, journaling, gardening, light saber building and then demos and teaching workshops. There may an occasional round table or pure discussion panel, but they will be in the minority. We have lots of ideas and opportunities but will depend on you the fans to help us out. It takes a commitment but it is an opportunity to be part of community. We need to that commitment early so we have time to advertise and to gather materials we might need. The worst thing we can do is advertise Advance Crochet workshop and then the person doesn't show up. So for most workshops we will try to have two folks each.