I took the family to Magic City Con at the Hyatt Regency in Hoover, Alabama, June 10-12. I’m already planning to go back next year.
I’m a giant nerd: I love Star Wars. I enjoy professional wrestling non-ironically. I watch The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. I was a big fan of the Battlestar Galactica reboot from about a decade ago, and low-grade sci-fi flicks about alien invasions and giant spiders (sometimes both!) are among my guilty pleasures. Watching my kids develop interests in Minecraft, superheroes, My Little Pony, and so on has been one of the great joys of fatherhood.
I’ve never really been to a Con, though. I decided to change that by going to Magic City Con, and we decided to make it our Big Summer Fun Thing by staying at the Hyatt for the weekend (the kids also love staying in hotels, and they’ve been over the moon about actually staying at the Hyatt Regency ever since I told them we would).
As luck would have it, all three kids got sick in some way while we were there. That still didn’t overwhelm our ability to have a good time. Here are a few of the things we did:
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The Club Floor at the Hyatt Regency. We decided to drop the extra few dollars for our two nights and stay on a Club Floor, which meant we were staying on the very top floor of the hotel (!!, thought the kids), and we had access to the Regency Club, which served breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres. Especially since we had to deal with unanticipated kid illness, having breakfast and dinner a few doors down was a major stress-reducer. We were there from Friday night through Sunday morning, and the only time we had to go out for food was when we met my Dad for lunch on Saturday.
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The WWE panel put on by Shout Out World. It was lightly attended, but it was still a very neat discussion. I recommended that next year’s installment include a presentation for old-school fans of World Class Championship Wrestling titled “Our Five Favorite People Skandor Akbar Tried to Set on Fire.”
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Cartoons. Three seasons of Teen Titans Go! on my laptop provided a viable alternative to conferencing when one or more of the kids wasn’t feeling well.
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Cosplay. Lots of very cool costumes, from Mandalorian battle armor to elves, sprites, and wizards of different origins.
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Kid Con. On Saturday morning they held two “Kid Con” events—one was a Star Wars Galaxy Training Camp at which the kids were able to choose Light Side, Dark Side, or Mercenary and get an appropriate weapon (a blue or green light saber, a red light saber, or a dart gun) and training. The other (which we didn’t attend) was a Hogwarts wizards camp.
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Vendors. If it’s sci-fi/fantasy related, you could get it in the dealer room. The kids, each of whom had a few dollars to spend in addition to saved allowance, took full advantage.
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The Walking Dead panel. Obviously, “who did Negan kill?” was the big question, with additional questions surrounding who would likely die during the first few episodes of season 7. We were unable to come to a consensus, but I was surprised that when I googled it the betting favorite is apparently Rosita. We didn’t have time to get to Fear the Walking Dead, but in light of the mid-season finale, I’m anxious to see what happens next—and when the main characters will all be reunited.
We had a great weekend, even though we weren’t able to do everything we wanted to do. We’ll definitely be back next year.
