Convention Review - LI Con 2! Science and fun comes back to Long Island!

LI Con returned for its second year and this time around LI Con 2 had a few notable changes. With a new venue and a unique guest list ICON Science Fiction Inc., the organization running the convention, looked to draw in geeks of all genres from Long Island. I was unfortunately only able to attend two of the three days (Friday and Sunday) but I still had a great time and saw plenty.

In just its second year LI Con has shown that it has a loyal fan base as I found many statuses and tweets expressing excitement for it leading up to the convention. Based out of Ronkonkoma, New York on Long Island, LI Con is a smaller convention with big aspirations for the future. The convention moved to a slightly larger venue with the Clarion Hotel this year giving it a fresh feeling. The guest list may not have been your typical guest list for a con these days; going with mostly scientists and authors over main stream media guests, but the convention proved that these guests can still draw a crowd. There were some truly amazing panels looking at the future and science and what it means for us as a people and a society and authors held "Author Readings" panels where they read excerpts from their books to their fans in attendance. If this didn't interest you, you had a wide variety of other panels with discussions and meet ups from various fandoms to choose from.

Lolita 101

Walking around the convention, which unfortunately didn't take that long given the small size, you found there was plenty to look around at. Located in the main lobby was Mr. PoppinTwist, a very talented and friendly balloon artist making some truly incredible balloon creations. Two he had on display were a 4 foot high Rocketeer (from the 1991 Disney film) and Venom (enemy of Spider-Man). If you ventured upstairs you found an art gallery with some really beautiful and geeky pieces of art; most of which were for sale. Unfortunately, the art gallery was only open on Friday and Saturday. When I return on Sunday I was saddened to see that the gallery had been entirely packed up and put away. In the main ballroom you found a small vendors room which had a few interesting booths from art and jewelry to games and books. There was also a gaming room where there were some wonderful table top games being played.

Friday night I attended a Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcast by The Zen Room that I really enjoyed. The cast did an amazing job but I have to make a special note for the gentleman playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter. I was extremely impressed by his performance and he sounded just like Tim Curry when he sang. What I really liked was that he did all the tiny nuances of the character and it really made his performance stand out.

Rocky Horror shadowcast - The Zen Room

When I returned on Sunday I was greeted by some really fun cosplayers who were excited to be taking part in the cosplay contest later that day. I attended some really interesting science panels and then walked around to see what was going on. I spent my time taking pictures of cosplayers and when walking around I noticed that the convention had water stations in multiple areas around the hotel for attendees. Not every convention does this (but they should!) so this definitely stood out and made me smile. The cosplay contest hosted some great contestants who put a lot of work into their costumes. You could tell the contestants were having a good time and the crowd had fun cheering them on. The judges asked some very interesting questions on the creation of each costume and as the contest went on the cosplayers remained in high spirits and played up the crowd. Before the winners were announced, a custom made Sith lightsaber (from Star Wars) by Ing Chao's Armory was raffled off by the Empire Saber Guild. (Congrats to the winner!) The judges then announced the contest winners to cheers from the audience. Congrats to these winners! The awards were well deserved.

Cosplay contest winners (Left) and judges (Right)

Overall, LI Con 2 was a small but fun convention that deserves your attention if you are in the New York area. This is an up and coming con that looks to push fun, educational topics as well as main stream media and that is a rare find today. The convention attracted a fun crowd that will hopefully grow as word of the convention spreads. I look forward to seeing what LI Con 3 will bring. Thanks, LI Con, for a fun weekend!

You can see all my photos in my LI Con 2 Flickr album or scroll through pictures in the gallery below. (119 photos)



You can visit the official convention website here.

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