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Trying to write about Dragon Con each year is honestly the hardest column I have to write. That is not because it is such an awful event that I have to struggle to figure out what to write positively about it. Far from it – this is actually my favorite convention I attend each year, and stepping off the insanely long escalator at MARTA’s Peachtree Station really imparts a sense of ‘coming home’ each Labor Day weekend. It is simply that there was so much going on at Dragon Con this year that it was impossible to attend it all and see it all. I know this because, for the first time ever, I picked one type of event – child and teen friendly content – to attend as much as possible. That was, of course, on top of going to a variety of other activities during the day while still finding time to eat, check out the vendors, see my friends, and still attend some adult-oriented activities in the evenings.
Just to give an idea of the wide variety of content, let me tell you about my Thursday at Dragon Con. That day, I flew into Atlanta, and I attended Sherrilyn Kenyon and Friends: Costume & Book Signing Extravaganza in the Westin to get my anthology copy of Dangerous Women autographed by Ms. Kenyon. Even though I have not read anything else by her, the passion of her fans in the queue for her Dark Hunter series was incredibly intense. There were so many other authors there as well that everyone kept being swarmed by Dragon Con attendees wanting to buy books and get them signed. Despite me coming in with only one book to be autographed, I somehow left the event with several more books to take home and read by different authors.
After dropping off all my new books and deciding to not worry about how to get them all home until Monday morning, I ate dinner, attended the last couple matches of Dragon Con Wrestling, and then attended the 8-Bit Ball, put on by the Video Game track that is held on yet a completely different floor of the Westin hotel. At this concert, the DJ spins music from the 1970s and 1980s while projecting game clips onto a screen. The music was amazing, and I ran into both long-time friends, and I made a new friend who came dressed in all white to go kill a king (it’s a Stormlight Archives thing!) while holding up a fan that said “FAN SERVICE” on it. Just to reiterate what happened within 12 hours: I arrived in Atlanta, went to a book signing, hit up a wrestling event, and then danced the night away.
On Friday, I went to a FINAL FANTASY XIV Online fan-run panel at the Westin that talked about how the different fish in Eorzea tell aspects of the game’s lore that isn’t revealed elsewhere before attending An Evening at Bree in the Courtland Grand. I’ve been going since 2014 to Dragon Con, and I have never heard of this family-friendly panel before. Put on by the High Fantasy track, I saw live music, a massive Elf Choir singing songs in Elvish, and I saw a costume contest themed after The Lord of the Rings. An Evening at Bree was incredibly child-friendly while staying fun, and I loved all the different costumes people had. That night, I attended the K-Pop Dance Party at the Marriott where DJ Tiger Scratches and DJ IC3NIN3 played K-Pop music and music videos by the hottest artists – and yes, it included music from K-Pop Demon Hunters. It was incredibly packed while also being incredibly fun.
On Sunday morning, I attended my first-even Splendid Teapot Racing event on the Kids Track. Families come with their own RC cars to compete in an obstacle course. There are few rules, other than each car must be able to drive by itself and there must be some teapot element to each one. Points are awarded for how the vehicle looks, the racer introduction (you have to introduce yourself!), how you complete the obstacles and hazards, how long it takes you to do so, and oh yes – how well you bribe the judges. I’ve never seen customized tea towels before until I attended Splendid Teapot Racing and realized people spend a lot of time figuring out how to bribe a judge for maximum points in that category. Watching each child and/or adult introduce themselves and their car was incredibly fun – especially when chaos erupted and the RC cars would sometimes shoot off in some random direction on stage or knock over parts of the obstacle course.
Continuing the theme of remote-controlled vehicles, I attended my first-ever Robot Battles event on Monday just as the convention was winding down. If you’ve ever seen BattleBots on Comedy Central or Discovery Channel, then you already know what you’re in for: robots of different weight classes throw it down on top of a giant wooden stage in Hyatt Regency VI-VII until they are pushed off of the stage by their opponents or until they cease to function. It is fun, amazing, chaos that is replete with creativity. In between bouts, Gary Poole – the founder and host of Robot Battles at Dragon Con – would regale us with stories and humor, including his reasoning behind why the Hyatt pool is now closed during Dragon Con.
Because I made the time to attend all of these events, I didn’t make it to any open filking this year (think home-brewed fandom music), any celebrity panels beyond a single Back to the Future one, and I definitely missed out on Sunday night’s Masquerade competition. What I instead left Dragon Con with was a ton of memories, a lot of new books, and a dragon plush that is sitting to my right as I write this. And all of this so far doesn’t even include me attending a Raspberry Pie concert, a Silly Walk competition, the Young Adult Literature Track’s Magic & Mystery Ball, or The Late-Night Puppet Slam w/ Bob & Carl (the last of which is DEFINITELY for adults only).
Next year is their 40th Dragon Con ever, and the people in charge of the convention said during this year’s closing ceremonies that at one point, they had more guests booked for that Dragon Con than for this year’s Dragon Con. Tickets are for sale now, and you should absolutely go. When I made a deliberate attempt to see kid-friendly and teen-friendly programming that I ordinarily would not go to, I was just shocked at how much of it there is during the daytime and the early evening time and how simply fun so much of it is. Dragon Con is, in other words, absolutely not an adults-only event.
All of this, put together, makes Dragon Con so hard to write about in a truly coherent way. Ultimately, even if ‘your’ favorite show or fandom isn’t heavily represented at a particular year’s Dragon Con, there will be so much to see and do and discover that, if you give it a chance, you’ll fall in love with Dragon Con just as much as I have.
You can buy your memberships for Dragon Con 2026 here.
Are you planning to go for the 40th Dragon Con event?
What guests are you hoping to see there next year?
Let us know in the comments below!
