Decepti-Kon Gen 1 Report: by Sean

Howdy hey readers, it’s time for a con report.

Last weekend Mission Start came out to Decepti-kon. When I first heard the convention was going to be at Red Lion Hotel, flashbacks of the over crowed, small roomed Sac-Anime at the same location came to mind. I was surprised to find out that the hotel had been remodeled, which did make a noticeable difference.  However, even though the hotel has been remodeled, it’s still a small location for a convention.

That being said, with Cherry Blossom Festival down in San Francisco on the Sunday, and a major cosplay picnic going on the Saturday, the convention didn’t drive out hoards of people, and this made the con pretty roomy.

For the convention first starting and getting on its feet, I think it turned out pretty well. Although, after about an hour, you could kind of get a feel for everything the con had to offer. We found ourselves just wondering the halls taking some pictures, and getting some taken of us ourselves. 

Artist Allies I’ve noticed usually get their own dealers halls, given space and such, and having them thrown in the halls is nice for exposure, but if the convention gets bigger numbers it makes the halls crowded.

Guests? Well, I have to say this disappointed me a little as well. As being a local to Sacramento, it seems that Sac-anime/Sac-con seems to like repeating it guest list, and thus kind of making it not so exciting.  When I found out that pretty much the exact same guests that I always see at these two cons, it made it feel like repeat of the others. 

The dealer’s hall, was decent for the size of this convention, and offered some decent goods. But was once more, nothing new from these areas conventions.

The gaming lounge, had some nice arcade throw backs which were cool, and even had a game retailer set up as well, which I thought was cool, but the game room was the hottest area of the whole con, including the outside areas. I understand why that can happen, all the systems, lights etc., but I didn’t feel much like staying long enough to rock out on some of music games because of the heat.

I really felt like I was getting more of the same, except for a few pleasant exceptions.

The con offered older 21+ events, like a beer pong tournament, and a “after-hours” club.

Having the RC drift cars up to drive the day before the race for them was also great. It was awesome to those little RC cars drifting around the course set up. As drifting is is in the street racing culture and comes from Japan, I thought it was a fun add in.

Nice martial arts demos that happened out in the grass areas, right up close to the attendees was great. It felt like being part of open street brawl. People who I thought were just random cosplayers were actually part of the demonstration.

Over All I can’t fault this convention to much as it just getting on to its feet and hitting the con scene. I’ve heard the convention will be relocating to another, and in my opinion, better hotel. A lot of the location issues happened due to change in managements at the Hotel, which we also can’t fault the con of as well.  It was fun con to hang out at, and I’m sure Anthony will be getting his post up about his thoughts as well.

-Sean Chapman

A Second Opinion- Anthony Beanes

As Sean pointed out in this review, there were some good ideas set in place for this convention, but was affected by several problems with the hotel and certain events going on last weekend. What I had envision of what the convention will be like was completely different then what actually turned out to be. Instead of loads of people there was just barely enough that came to make this called a convention, not all of the events were there as advertised, the hallways were pretty empty, and so on. I know this is the first convention for these guys and I do applaud them for accomplishing getting this convention off the ground, but I hope they can use this to learn from their mistakes to go forward for next years Decepti-kon.

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