You can check out Dragon Con on the official website, on Facebook, on X, on Instagram, on Bluesky, on Pinterest, and on Discord.
Tickets for Dragon Con 2027 are on sale now.
You can find out more about LifeSouth Community Blood Centers at the official website, on Facebook and Instagram, and on X.
You can also find out more about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library on the official website, on Facebook and on Instagram, on X, and on TikTok.
Everyone who attends Dragon Con knows that when you put 75,000 people into downtown Atlanta over Labor Day weekend across five host hotels, there is too much to see and do. In fact, it is impossible to see and do everything that Dragon Con has to offer across the numerous pop culture, sci-fi, gaming, filk, fantasy, and more tracks with all the guests and performers that show up year-over-year from Thursday through Monday. Heck, there is even a parade that goes through the heart of Atlanta on Saturday morning!
What people do not know, though, is that Dragon Con has finally started to bleed into Wednesday evening. In my never-ending quest to see something new every year at Dragon Con, I decided to attend “Onesie Wednesday” in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis.
Onesie Wednesday sounds a lot like what you would expect: you wear a onesie and you show up at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis with a lot of your other congoers. What Dragon Con has done is turn Wednesday night into the official countdown-to-midnight party. This means there is a live DJ playing music up in the volunteers-only loft, there is a giant clock counting up to midnight, AND there is a full dance party going on in one of the side rooms complete with another DJ. And of course, practically everyone is in a onesie.
This was a lot of fun, and I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be as popular and as exciting as it was. I, dressed in my onesie, kept going between the lobby and the dance floor to have fun, see friends, and dance the night away until the final countdown started. Of course, once the clock hit midnight and everyone celebrated, everyone gradually left to go back to their respective hotels to get ready for the first true, full, day of con on Thursday.
Onesie Wednesday is that kind of event that contains that classic Dragon Con silliness and fun with the party-like atmosphere that often prevails the event as a whole, and it is absolutely worth getting to the convention on Wednesday if you want not only that Thursday-morning jump in getting your badge, but also if you want to extend your con stay just a little bit more.
Interestingly, Dragon Con also ran a book drive during Onesie Wednesday for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to benefit the Fulton County Library System and Georgia Public Library Service. They were taking book donations at a table during the event, and there were a ton of books people brought in to donate. It turns out that Dragon Con collected more than 5,000 children’s books this year that will be distributed out to families and children all over Georgia who don’t have readily available library access.
Speaking of charities that Dragon Con works with, Dragon Con 2026 was also the first year I volunteered at the convention. Dragon Con hosts LifeSouth Community Blood Centers each year at the event in the bottom levels of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, and this is the 24th year they have partnered up to collect blood donations for not just hospitals in the Atlanta area but across Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. They called this the “Robert A. Heinlein ‘Pay It Forward’ Blood Drive,” and it is named after the famed science fiction author/naval officer/engineer as part of The Heinlein Society’s efforts to pay his ‘legacy forward.’
This year, before Dragon Con, a call went out for volunteers. It turns out you can volunteer for as little as just ONE hour during the entire event weekend if you want. I signed up for exactly that: one hour on midday-Thursday in the Courtland Grant Hotel during badge pick-up. I went into this not knowing what to do, or anything about it, really.
The volunteer work for LifeSouth Community Blood Centers turned out to be simple: I was given a sign describing the blood drive that had a QR code on it, and I was told to walk around the hotel for an hour to advertise the event. I ended up walking up and down the badge pick-up line as it wound around outside the hotel and then inside the hotel, and I criss-crossed the inside queues for the Dragon Con merchandise store as well. At the end of my volunteer shift, I returned my board back to the LifeSouth Community Blood Centers setup at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.
I ended up getting five people to sign up through the QR code and actually make an appointment during Dragon Con! A standard blood donation takes roughly one pint from a person, and so that means I got five pints of blood donated. According to LifeSouth Community Blood Centers, each blood donation can save up to three lives. That means my one hour of donating my time impacted and potentially saved up to 15 lives somewhere across four states who needed a blood donation. Those five people who signed up were just part of the over 4,000 donors who donated blood this year, which turned out to be a Dragon Con record.
Dragon Con has so much to do and to offer people, and with this year being the 40th Dragon Con, that was no exception and there was a lot to see and do there. You can just look at my interviews with Judy Alice Lee and some of the cast from the FINAL FANTASY XIV Online: Dawntrail expansion to see that. However, if you’re looking at coming to the convention for the 41st event, consider donating your time — even just an hour of it, like I did — to help leave the world a better place after everyone has returned back home and the countdown has started to next year’s Dragon Con.
And of course, maybe wear a onesie on Wednesday while you’re doing it.
Tickets for Dragon Con 2027 are on sale now.
What cosplay onesie would you wear at Dragon Con on Onesie Wednesday?
Would you be willing to donate just an hour of your time for LifeSouth Blood Drive Centers?
Let us know in the comments below!
