Conventions & Other Events

I use to go to sci-fi fandom and gaming conventions as often as possible. If I wasn’t going to a convention as an attendee, I was running parts of or the entire convention. I was a very active participant of fandom at one time. It was one of my many obsessions. As time went on, I invested a lot of passion into it and as passion grew, so did my negative emotions when things did not go well. At the same time, Fandom culture has changed a bunch and I don’t feel like an old Gen Xer belongs in it anymore. Gaming conventions were more my thing and I was involved with many, as a participant or a organizer. I also ran gaming rooms for many sci-fi fandom conventions, and did it successfully for several years.

Gaming Cons

MACE Events – MACE was a gaming Cons that started in 1996 by Justus Productions as ROC 96.5. I ran gaming for it since 2000. We started MACE West in 2011 in Hickory and moved to Asheville in 2014. We ran MACE East in Wilmington NC, but not successful enough to continue. The last MACE West event was in 2022 just after the death of Jeff Smiuth and the last MACE – JeffCon – was November that same year. I ran both those. This 22 years with Jeff, my family and everyone else involved was amazing. I had a great time doing it!

Mythic Con Events – I coached a new team of people collectively calling themselves Games For All, Events Inc., to carry on the spirit of MACE and MACE West. Starting in 2023, Mythic Con (Prime) in Charlotte and Mythic Con West in Asheville are both carrying things on with just as much gaming and fresh new approaches to things. Once I feel they have things figured out, I will retire.

Other Gaming Cons

Origins – I reported on Origins 2013 for The Gamer’s Codex.
GenCon – I attended GenCon 2008 for Gaming Report.com.

Sci-fi Cons

Most Sci-fi cons have gaming, so I participate in both kinds of cons as much as I can.

ConCarolinas – A general sci-fi Con I helped start and ran for a 11 years at various executive levels (2002 until 2012). From 2013 to 2015, I was not involved with it and someone else ran gaming. In 2016, they asked JustUs Productions to run their gaming again. We came up with an agreement that was mutually beneficial while protecting my interests from their toxicity. Unfortunately, that only lasted 3 years and I was once again out in 2020.
StellarCon – A general sci-fi Con I ran gaming for from 2000 to 2006.
ConGregate – I briefly ran gaming at this convention but for various reasons, I stopped.

Sci-fi Fandom has become entirely too toxic for God-fearing, Family-loving people like me with values, honor and integrity. Unfortunately, I can’t see myself returning to that cesspool of hatred, intolerance and extreme left-wing agendas.

Convention Timeline

This is as a complete list as I can remember of all the Cons I have been to. Plus through the years, I’ve been to at least four minor Star Trek conventions called Trek-o-Rama in Charlotte, where I remember seeing Gates McFadden, William Shatner, and Marina Sirtis. Additionally I have organized a few Guild Game Days.

Full Timeline

Awards

2019 Rebel Award Winner – In 2019, at ConCarolinas 2019/DeepSouthCon 57, Jeff Smith (JustUs Productions) and I were jointly given the Rebel Award. The Rebel Award is a lifetime achievement award for a science fiction fan who has done a great deal for Southern Fandom. They gave it to Jeff Smith (JustUs Productions) and myself. Between me and Jeff, we have been involved with almost 100 cons, not all gaming MACE events. Many of them were in fact fandom events, although those giving us the award probably did not know that. I suppose they saw the body of work that they knew of, between the both of us and gave it to us.
2019 Rubble Award Winner – The Rubble award is given to the person who has done the most *to* southern fandom in the past year. This is intended to be less an honor and more of a ribbing but good-natured. The Rubble is not an officially-sponsored award and some cons don’t even do it. I didn’t when I was 2010 con chair. According to the staff who I talked to later, I got that because it’s my fault for bringing a certain person that nearly bankrupted the con, into the committee in the first place.

Additionally, I have won:

MACE 2021 Best Story Craft in the Dollarstore Crafting Contest

Fandom & Gaming Community

The UNCC Guild- I help get the Guild to where it is today, but I didn’t help “start” it. The Guild is now over 15 years old and holds gaming of all kinds every Friday, Saturday and Sunday on UNCC campus. I also help start the John D Reavis Hammer of Thor Scholarship fund that awards a Guild student $1000 for tuition each year.

Through the years, I was involved with other fledgling clubs include a gaming club in Gastonia, a sci-fi and gaming club in Winthrop, as well as several online groups, meetups and meeting lists. By now, they are too numerous to mention. But over the years, I tried to use my passion for sci-fi and gaming to grow the community where I could. I can’t say I was solely responsible, but I would like to take some of the credit for state of Charlotte fandom is now – in addition to the long running HeroesCon (which I had nothing to do with), we now have 1 major sci-fi con, a few anime cons, as well as a college sci-fi club and a community sci-fi club that continue to thrive. While I may not be totally responsible for this, I am somewhere in that foundation because when I got here, sci-fi and gaming fandom was dead in Charlotte.

Getting too old for this

Unfortunately, like everything in life, things grow old and stale. And sometimes mold and mildew, disease and pestilence spoils the beauty of things. Fandom as well as the gaming community have grown to be a cesspool of anger and hate at a time when this country has grown more and more divided. I hate that it has gotten to this as I used gaming and fandom to escape such things. Instead the bullies and generally ugly people have come to something I have put so much time into.

Since 2012, I have focused strongly on gaming conventions and gaming at sci-fi cons. I have no desire to be involved with organizing fandom events anymore. Since 2020, that which infested fandom has now reached gaming, much to my disappointment. I had hopes that it would stay out of our little corner of fandom but I was wrong. My time organizing for conventions is constantly evolving. I have yet to find a real reason to stop but at some point I know I will have to.

In 2022, my best friend Jeff – my team mate in all the MACE events – passed away. It has broken me. It has affected not only my passion for conventions but also gaming. I miss you brother. I am trying to do more writing and stay involved with gaming in that way but it’s a struggle. I am slowly handing over my skills to others – Mythic Con – so I can move on from Conventions.