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A very large number of people who have never attended a Sci-Fi convention have the idea that they are all about people standing in line to get autographs of actors while wearing Klingon makeup and costumes or pointed ears. I’m not saying that those stereotypes don’t exist, but the Convention experience is much richer and diverse than you may have been led to believe. To get the best experience it is important first consider your interests and then match them to what conventions are available.

Conventions come in two primary flavors: professional and fan run. Professional conventions should have actors who have appeared in genre television and films ready to sign autographs and have their photos taken with fans. Some of these conventions include the costs of autographs and photo sessions in the cost of admission others operate in more of an a la carte fashion.

Often genre conventions have previews of new shows and films, and usually an extensive dealer’s room where you can buy anything from jewelry, ornaments, t-shirts and action figures to full scale replicas and costumes… and more. While there are a number of professional promoters, the best known and run are Chiller Theatre Expo, Creation Entertainment, Fed Con (Germany), Starland and Vulcon. Do expect things to be as advertised and run on time. Do not expect warm and fuzzy.

Warm and fuzzy is more the field of fan run conventions. Fans who get together to run conventions have a great deal of enthusiasm, but usually are run with a volunteer staff and can be a bit \”bumpy\” with organization of the activities.

What you can expect? A movie room, anime room, gaming room, art show, dealer’s room, and various special interest group rooms and tables. It is a rare con that doesn’t have a dance and a masquerade.

Many fan run conventions also have guests ranging from actors, authors, cartoonists, illustrators, scientists etc. You may also find workshops for writing, acting, art, costuming, make-up and special effects. It all varies from convention to convention and year to year. Older fan run conventions such as Aggie Con, Balticon, Bay Con, CONvergence, Dragon Con, ICON, Shore Leave, United Fan Con, Toronto Trek to name a few.

The following sections may help you in selecting the kind of convention you would enjoy the most. Don’t be afraid to try other sorts once you’ve sampled those that are in your comfort zone. Exploration can be fun:

LITERARY CONVENTIONS

Love to read speculative fiction? Do you have an interest in attending workshops on writing and publishing? Would you like to mingle with like-minded fans and meet professionals in the field such as authors, editors, illustrators and publishers? Then a literary convention would be the place you might enjoy most.

Conventions such as World Science Fiction Convention (which is where the Hugo awards are announced), the World Fantasy Convention, World Horror Convention, Balticon, Philcon, Lunacon, Boskone, Readercon, Wiscon and Capclave are all reader friendly and while you may find the occasional filking group, men in kilts, swords and women in medieval garb, I doubt that you’ll see many people dressed like the attendees of the convention seen in the movie Galaxy Quest. OK maybe one or two, but they are a tiny minority.

MEDIA CONVENTIONS

Media conventions are very much about television and film. Science Fiction and Fantasy or Horror and Paranormal guests abound. You may meet and hear behind the scenes stories of actors and illustrators, SFX experts and make-up artists and a host of media professionals. Many of the attendees may be wearing costumes. Depending on whether you are going to a \”pro\” con or a \”fan run\” con the rest will vary greatly.

Parties are expected and encouraged. At a pro convention this will take the form of a banquet with the guests at a fee and/or a dance or cocktail party all for various prices. Fan run conventions may also have a price attached to a banquet or \”private\” gathering with a particular celebrity or celebrities, but they will also have fee free dances, masquerades, art shows, filking, sword demonstrations etc. Toronto Trek, Celebration, BotCon, Dragon Con, Comic-Con (both Dragon Con and Comicon will appear under many categories).

GAMING CONVENTIONS

Gamers come in all shapes, sizes, ages, colors and ethnic backgrounds, but they all have something in common. A love of games.

Role playing, live, pen and paper, MMOG as well as video gamers and board gamers all have a lot of interactive fun at gaming conventions. You can meet game designers, try out new games that have yet to hit the general market, and play in tournaments for glory and prizes. Once an almost male-only pursuit, gaming now has a growing number of female enthusiasts. Gaming has become so pervasive that it is now nearly socially acceptable to the mainstream public. Nearly.

There are giant conventions like GENCON and ORIGINS, where it is so crowded you may have trouble negotiating the exhibition halls due to the crowds. The upside is the great diversity and FREEBIES as there are so many gaming companies competing for your attention. Then there are the more intimate play intensive ones like Archon, CastleCon, Dragonflight Dreikonigsnacht (Twelfth Night), Festival of Dreams, HexaCon, KublaCon, MACE, MarsCon, Marmalade Dog, ShaunCon, Strategicon, The Once and Future Con, and many many more.

Keep in mind that many conventions other than pure gaming conventions have gaming tracks. If you like to game but want to do more than only game during the weekend you might look into some of the other cons with a strong gaming element.

ANIME CONVENTIONS

For the older generation anime seems so foreign, even unreachable. It shouldn’t be.

Yes, anime and its siblings manga and ahem [cough] hentai are of Japanese origin, but the striking visual styles and beauty, the characters and stories, connect with westerners as well as with audiences in the east.

Because they are animations, they can either be sub-titled or dubbed in the language of the country where it is being broadcast. In anime the stars are the illustrators, authors, and voice actors.

At conventions you will find many of these sorts of guests as well as companies promoting their projects. You will also find some of the most imaginative of costumes created and worn by fans.

At larger conventions you may find multiple rooms running films day and night. At smaller ones perhaps just one room will be devoted to showing their favorites.

There are often panels discussing aspects of cosplay, fan fiction, video games, favorite voice actors, anime series or movies. As in literary conventions there are often workshops. These workshops are mostly how to draw manga, make computer animation, or how to become a voice actor. The dealers room will be filled with DVDs, software, graphic novel manga, art books, apparel, toys and exotic (for us) foods.

While the U.S. and Canada have the largest SF conventions in the world, the largest Anime conventions are Lucca Comics and Games in Lucca Italy (85,000), Japan Expo in Paris France (83,000), Salon del Manga in Barcelona Spain (63,000), and Romics in Rome Italy (50,000). The big guys in North America are Anime Expo Los Angeles California (41,000), Otakon Baltimore Maryland (23,000), and A-Kon Dallas Texas (14,500). Hey, size isn’t everything and some of the smallest might be the way to start if you have never been to a con before!!

HORROR CONVENTIONS

What a perfect place to let it all hang out (dating myself but who cares).

Horror conventions revel in going over the top. Long live Elvira, Freddy Krueger, Jason, Dracula, Zacherley, Even the names of these conventions and expos are meant to be graphic illustrations of what you will find there. Chiller Theatre, Fangoria, Fright Night Film and Fantasy Fest, HorrorFind, HorrorHound Weekend, Spooky Empire. Nothing to subtle here. No sparing of the gore.

It’s like the rollercoaster of genre conventions. If you have a strong stomach and a dark sense of humor, you will have tons of fun.

The dealer’s room, art show, video rooms all are in sync with the horror theme. Guests that reach back decades up to the present. Once again there is a chance to meet actors, artists and authors for autographs, photo shoots, and anecdotes.

Attendees go wild with costumes and you can do so too, even without a ton of money or a pile of cash. Try out your best monsterish clothes and make-up or come as a victim… or not. Costumes aren’t required, they are just fun.

There is usually a monster mash even if that isn’t the name given. Some horror conventions invite guests that more about nostalgia than horror. Chiller Con is a good example of this. Some of their guests are Micky Dolenz from the Monkees, Ernest Borgnine , Lindsay Wagner, Brigitte Nielson, Katey Sagal (Married with Children), Stephen Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin, Barry Bostwick, Erin Murphy (Tabitha of Bewitched), Avery Brooks, Armin Shimmerman, Robert Picardo, Geri Reischel (Jan from The Brady Bunch), Susan Olsen (Cindy from The Brady Bunch),Joe Pantoliano,Richard Kiel (\”Jaws\” Moonraker), Lou Ferrigno, William B Davies (X-Files-Cancer Man), Stella Stevens, Frank Stallone, Ron Bumblefoot (Guns N Roses) and a host of others.

COMIC CONVENTION

When you think of a comic book convention you will probably think of a sea of old comic books, toys, Star Wars stuff, Star Trek stuff, action figures, collectible card games and magazines for sale and you would be right, but that is only a part and an increasingly small part of the experience.

You will find illustrators, authors, publishers and very often interesting workshops and panels that deal with every aspect of the industry past, present and future. There are the costume contingents that always show up at the larger conventions and some are so good that you could almost believe you were seeing superheroes and villains walk out of the pages and off the screen to meet you and be photographed.

Some cons such as Dragon Con and Comic-Con began solely as comic conventions but grew to tremendous size, scope and diversity that they have transcended the genre that gave rise to them. Even those such as HEROES which remains focused on comics, manages to have a number of other aspects and should be able to keep the whole family amused for the weekend.

Comic conventions often have a lot of pop culture and nostalgia guests. So if you would like to see people like Creature, Parthenon and Fat Mama from Who wants to be a Superhero or maybe even Stan Lee himself, you might get your chance. How about James and Oliver Phelps who played the Weasley Twins in the Harry Potter movies? Or perhaps Sean Astin or Billy Boyd and even Elijah Wood. From Heroes Hayden Paniterre and Masi Oka, or Ice-T… yes I said Ice-T AND his swimsuit-model wife Coco.

For a walk down memory lane there is Erik Estrada, Betsy Palmer, Soupy Sales, Richard Hatch, John Saxon, Adam West and Burt Ward (Batman and Robin) , Julie Newmar, Peter Mayhew, Eddie Byrnes (77 Sunset Strip), Erin Gray (Buck Rodgers), Gary Coleman, Lou Ferrigno and on and on. Some are from your childhood others are from your parents childhoods. I can tell you that when I unexpectedly got to meet the very ladylike and gracious Betsy Palmer, it was a thrill.

The bottom line is conventions are places where adults can go and play and slough off the average workday week. Have fun !!

About The Author:
June Williams
VP Buzzy Multimedia Publishing
http://www.buzzymultimedia.com
June Williams has worked the convention circuit as a professional and been to scores of conventions as a fan over a period of more than 25 years.

From its title, this burn the fat program is clearly going to insist that you exercise. I guess anyone who hates that idea will not be purchasing it! The author, Tom Venuto, is a natural body builder (which means he does not use drugs) so his plan includes lots of movement, including cardio and strength training, to burn fat.

So this is not a miracle burn fat fast diet but a genuinely healthy fat burning program. It might be too much of a good thing for some people. If you are itching to get to the \”diet plan\” you will be disappointed. You really do have to read the whole book, there is no one page summary. But its worth it, for its 300 pages are packed with information. Actually make that 400 if you include supplementary books that are included.

This is a weight loss plan for anyone who is ready to make an effort and to keep making an effort until they reach their goal weight, and then to carry on keeping up the good exercise and eating habits that got them there. Tom says himself that if you are scared of hard work this program is not for you. He then goes on to explain that we fail at our weight loss efforts because we don’t know how to defeat the inevitable problems that arise. I can’t do better than to quote him again;

\”Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle teaches you the secrets of goal setting and mind power to achieve any goal you desire. All the knowledge in the world is useless if you can’t get yourself to apply it. What’s the difference between someone who knows what to do and someone who does what they know? Why is it that some days you just can’t get motivated to work out? Why do you sometimes have those \”lapses\” in willpower? Why do you follow a diet for weeks and then \”fall off the wagon?\” Why do you sabotage yourself? These things only happen when you don’t know how to set goals properly and you don’t understand how to harness the power of your subconscious mind.\”

This is spot on as far as I am concerned. Dieting, losing body fat, exercising, you need to be motivated. Its all in your head. The mindset is there or it isn’t and when we fall down its usually because we can’t control what happens in our heads.


The Diet Basics

Body builders have to get their body fat right down to single digits for their sport and Tom Venuto has 20 years of experience in this as a competitor, a personal trainer and a coach. He has a BSc. degree in exercise science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He has helped hundreds of body builders to lose fat which has given him plenty of opportunity to test fat loss methods. This is such a good idea that I am surprised that no one has done come up with this before. Body builders have losing fat down to a fine art and what works for them will work for the rest of us. Of course we don’t need to get down to the very low body fat percentage that body builders do but we can certainly learn a lot about losing the wobbly stuff from them.

Venuto promises to show you a sure fire, 100% guaranteed way to lose body fat. His plan is written for everyone who wants to lose fat, not just for body builders. The diet is not a re-hash of methods that failed you before, there are some new ideas in here. They may not be secrets in the strict sense but they have certainly not been common knowledge for anyone outside the body sculpting crowd.

I learned a lot from this book and I have read just about every diet book there is! It gives practical advice as well as theory and each page is there to teach- there is no padding and no fluff.

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle is an excellent fat loss plan and will lead you to your goal if you want it enough. It is hard work! You knew all along that losing weight was hard work didn’t you?

To find out more about it click here: Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle. Don’t be put off by the muscle man photo of Tom, it was a bit off-putting to me I must admit, I don’t find body building or body builders bodies at all attractive! The weight loss plan is brilliant though and suitable for anyone wanting to lose body fat. Highly recommended.

About The Author:
Liz Beresford owner of the Insider-Gold website. http://insider-gold.com/burn.fat.html