New Comics Events Site Launched
While it's still largely focused on US events, comics fans and British convention organisers might want to check out UpcomingCons.com, a new web site which hopes to list conventions around the world.
Offering a new fan convention resource focused on anime, comics, gaming, and sci-fi the site already features over 200 upcoming conventions listed with links to official websites, with the added feature of enabling users to use the website to find convention roommates.
Every year, thousands of convention attendees look for people to share rooms with, to help offset the typically high cost of having a room at a convention hotel for three nights. Any fan can register for an account, go to the page of their favorite convention, and sign up to find hotel space, or to offer their hotel space for others. Other users who does the same thing will have a chance to see who else will be going to the same convention.
Ryan Kopf, a board member for the fan organization Mindbridge Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation organized to provide a resource group for those interested in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and related area, began working on UpcomingCons.com and developing features last month. His hope is to create a resource that would enhance fandom over multiple genres.
"I think convention attendees have always needed a good, reliable place to find upcoming conventions,” said Kopf. “Game, Comic, and Sci-Fi conventions had seemed the most neglected."
While there are several sites that list disparate genre events (including downthetubes), this site seems to be out to be a useful one stop shop for fans of comics, manga and film, offering not just event info but photo galleries and reviews, too. The room mate feature could also be useful, assuming certain safeguards are built in to protect users.
“We help connect the people together who might want to share rooms, but they do the communication and arrangements themselves,” Kopf explains. “The listing of people attending a convention links to their profile, which contains general contact information for the person. They have to get in touch themselves and see if the potential roommates are the kind of individuals they want.”
• Check out UpcomingCons.com here
• Convention fans may also be interested in conventionfans.today.com, a news blog for convention happenings.
and all good comic shops.
2 comments:
Zeus, it looks horrible. I'll stick with Paul Gravett's Events listings I think, which is only the odd contribution short of just what I'm looking for. That webpage has much of my hate about cons: badly laid out, tacky, full of poorly placed adverts and it looks like spandex. Some Americans really should re-evaluate definition o 'big in comics'.
No, it isn't exactly eye-catching although it is only a frew days (weeks?) old so I'm guessing there will be a lot of revamping in terms of look over time. As I said, it's very US-centric, too - a bugbear I have with Yahoo's upcoming.org, but that's really dependent on people contributing information, isn't it...
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