A Small Con with a Big Heart
Photos and Review by Anna Fischer

I was just about to chat up the cute blue-eyed brunet boy behind the registration desk about his my little pony laptop when I notice the rainbow stitched in to his black knit cap, danm. The girl behind me didn’t have the experience to piece it together, she was all smiles and “ooh I love your necklace”. Miss directed enthusiasm was a big part of Connecticon, so was inexperience. Before we even got to the end of the registration line some of the regulars on the con circuit were calling it “rookie con”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

True there were a lot of attendees who had never attended a con before, or who only attended Connecticon. However with out a localized enthusiastic following Connecticon would not have been possible. In ’05 Connecticon went bankrupt, they like many cons had gotten ambitious and over reached their means. But the local fans raised the money to save the convention. To me this was just another in a long list of east coast cons, but to the locals it was their con. That hometown pride and feeling of fidelity shared by the staff and attendees gives Connecticon its unique conculture.

A culture in which microphoned staffers can tell each other to “Go fuck yourself” on stage and say it with more genuine affection then you here in the tamest conversations between staff members at other cons. A culture in which the winning AMV could contain both decapitation and nudity and still be screened in front of a general audience. A con as GLB friendly as Yuricon without militantly confining it’s self to that specific interest group.

I’ve given you a lot of the good news first so that it doesn’t sound like an apology latter. Unfortunately bravery doesn’t always make up the difference. I don’t regret going to Connecticon, it was worth the 4+ hours round trip drive on 3 1/2 hours of sleep. But then I wasn’t driving and the car ride was with my friends. Good friends aside I’m not sure I’d attend Connecticon again next year. Both the live and video programming left something to be desired. Many of the panels were one’s I’d already attended at other cons. The video programming was mostly things that had been widely screened before. Several times I found my self with nothing to do, when usually my con Saturdays are so packed I can’t make it to half the events and screenings I need to cover. I was glad I only chose to attend Connecticon for one day. I think a weekend long stay would of pushed the con from “pleasant experience” in to a “waste of time”. Thirty-five dollars is a little high for a one-day pass to a small convention, if they dropped it down to Thirty or be better yet Twenty-Five dollars I think they’d get a lot more NY and NJ day-trippers. Hell, for Twenty-Five dollars I’d probably shlep back up next year.

Logistically Connecticon was way ahead of the curve compared to most small anime cons. Thanks to a wisely obtained best buy sponsorship, the huge game room was filled with really nice flat screen TVs, and the screening rooms had slick sharp projectors. The Hartford con center is both attractive and comfortable, with plenty of room for expansion in coming years. The con hotel is literary steps away from center, and the staff of both was surprisingly polite.

While I might not be heading up to Connection next year, I’d defiantly check back in on their progress in the next few years. It’s a con to watch, with the right economic management and their attendee friendly attitude it could easily surpass Anime Boston (it’s closest competitor) in the next few years.