By Katharine Star

From Friday April 4^th through Sunday April 6^th, Stony Brook, NY hosted the 27^th I-CON, a science fiction and fantasy convention that has historically been held each year at the Stony Brook University campus of the SUNY system.

            A convention known for its extensive programming, this Long Island convention saw a great turnout this year as attendees stood in a long line to get tickets and get into the university’s Sports Complex, which boasted member services, organization tables, and an extensive dealer’s room where many a vendor hocked wares from a full spectrum of the science fiction and fantasy fandoms. An estimation of over 6000 attendees a year was reported by www.goingtomeet.com.

The convention was not limited to the Sports Complex, however. An almost campus-wide event, panels, TV show and movie screenings, gaming demos and much more were held in classrooms, auditoriums, and other spaces across a conglomerate of 9 different university buildings. This made the timing of the convention important: being held in early April helped ensure more balmy weather and thus made it more comfortable for those in less-than-covering costumes to walk around the campus. While at some points it was, in fact, not quite warm enough for those among us in not-as-warm costumes, overall the weather was agreeable and the bouts of rain that came brief.

Most of those in costume were wearing garb that was anime or manga oriented, and the majority of attendees were teens, though there were plenty of people of all ages in attendance. Many a person in Goth gear was also to be found, as well as the usual attendees in T-shirts with geek-oriented slogans splashed across the fronts.

Representatives from groups including the 501^st (Star Wars oriented), the SCA (Renaissance oriented), and the New York chapter of the Browncoats (Firefly/Serenity oriented) were found to be there, as well as actors, performers, artists, and the like. With tables set up in the main lobby of the Sport’s Complex, organizations with set ups there were likely to see a good deal of traffic, though many who came through the area simply picked up their passes and schedule of events and panels and headed either outside to find a gaming room or TV show marathon or headed downstairs to the dealer’s room. Unlike most conventions, there were no booths set up, and the number of organizations represented was small. To see actors and artists in panels meant finding your way to a specific classroom in a specific building, and while the map on the back of the convention schedule was certainly helpful, finding one’s way around could be confusing at times.

Despite these problems, the number of options for attendees was great. Whether your geek-thing be RPG’s, video games, old TV shows with cult followings, learning how to become a comic book artist, learning to belly dance or simply hearing some professionals speak about their respective forms of work, one could find something to do at I-CON 27. To top it all off, on Saturday night the convention and it’s sponsored hotel, the Ronkonkoma Holiday Inn, hosted a masquerade ball which was attended by only a small section of attendees but still boasted a good turn out and crowd-pleasing performances by the lightsaber enthusiasts collective NYJedi and famed band Aerosith.

Overall, the 27^th year of this convention was successful in the great scheme of I-CON things, and while it may not be worth a trip halfway across the country, for those in the NY-Metro area and the like I-CON is a fun time for those in driving distance. Next year’s convention will, sadly, not be held at the Stony Brook University campus due to renovations on the Sports Complex, but rather will be held at the Brentwood Campus of Suffolk Community College. How this will affect attendance and programming has yet to be seen.