See original post as well.
Silicon 2007 was a big success with attendance easily topping last year. According to a staffer I spoke to, there were over 1,000 attendees, including staff, volunteers (can’t run a con with out ’em) guests and kids in tow.
Silicon 2007 also hit an important milestone by selling out their room block. This is important as it helps a con get discounts on the function rooms from the hotel as the hotel is able to make good revenue by selling room nights.
As I mentioned earlier, there were a number of great panels providing how-to on special effects makeup and casting latex appliances. Cool stuff. Also, the film festival is a big hit with Silicon with more entries.
This year’s undeclared theme was horror film. I’m not a big fan of modern day horror films, as I tend to prefer the classic Universal monster pics of the ’30s and ’40s. They did have some hot animated films and other fun stuff, including a parody of the WW2 training films featuring zombies.
On the downside, I wasn’t able to attend some of the panels I was most interested in. Kind of hard to get on the road to a con with a two-year old to get ready.
The dealers room had a few different non-standard tables from what you typically see. One was a table of reps from Smooth-on, a special effects materials supplier. They ran a couple of how-to panels and answered a lot of questions on casting materials, etc.
The best part about Silicon was hanging out with some of my friends that I don’t see too often since I moved to Minnesota. It was good to get caught up with them and pal around, and Tilly the Wonderdog is always a treat to see.
What was surprising is that Mitchell, who is one of the Klingons of the IKV Bloodlust and a buddy for over ten years now, went to the same high school I went to. A couple of years after me, so there was no chance of crossing paths there. Small world!
The party scene was top notch with a lot of good parties. The Black Hole Bar, hosted by the Bloodlust, was probably the best decorated and serving the best booze.
Silicon may not be drawing big name actors to it. by skipping the big price actors they are able to bring in substantially more people involved in the film industry capable of putting on demos and how-to’s which is far more interesting than listening to someone like Leonard Nimoy reliving his glory days.
I have one negative to say. One of the video production exhibitors was showing clips from their film in the main hallway which is very public. Now normally I wouldn’t give a rat’s you-know-what, but this was graphic sexual content from a racist-porno film. I also really don’t care about the movie’s content. It’s the displaying of graphic sex scenes where children are present that got my goat. There were also some other inappropriate antics by the strippers (they call themselves “dancers) who were featured in this porno film. Fortunately other people voiced their disgust with Con-Comm. That was the one negative with Silicon.
Photos:
 Gene and Mary |
 Geek! |
 Doctor Who and his new companion |
 Sara and Gene, agents of KAOS |
 Anna with a monster |
 FX demo |
 prop room |
 prop room |
 Mary as the Doctor |
 Not sure who this is |
 ambulance from Firefly |
 Masked Mustang and a Princess |
 Cassandra, the Last Human |
 Guitar! |
 Qayla |
 Katah |
 Pete |
 Sqotty with the gang |
Tags:
Comments are closed