I am back from Pensacola, Florida and am starting the recovery process from a 5 day trip to a wonderful con. Pensacon is one of my favorite cons. The staff are friendly and well organized, and the town gets behind the con in a way I have never seen before.
The downtown strip closes down for Pensacon, and there are events everywhere with parties for people to attend all over the town.
We woke up at 6 am for the drive, and escaped Texas after several long hours on the road. The views are spectacular once the sun comes up and you cross several large bodies of water on the trip. Crossing several swamps, Lake Charles and The Mississippi.
Once the drive was over, we unpacked the van quickly into the con. The title photo is the shot of the setup. This is a small show, but they make amazing use of the space. This is the vendor floor. Artist alley takes over the second floor and the celebs are up in the very top floor.
This is the love and support this show gets from the community. For the entirety of the weekend this street is closed to traffic, with live music in the street to entertain the crowd. Every restaurant and bar in the downtown area has a different theme to play into the spirit of the show. The local community comes out in support and the fans of the show party late into the night.
The line for this show wraps around the building. The downside for Pensacon is they struggle to get all the congoers into the show. The building is designed to handle a hockey game, or a concert, this show has a much larger drawl than either of those events making it a struggle for them. The con wisely uses nearby theaters for the large panels with a free shuttle service between them.
I rarely photograph food, but I had to get a shot of this. Lionfish, an evasive species in the gulf and Atlantic. It is also poisonous. I noticed it on the menu as an appetizer and had to order it because I was incredibly curious as to what it tastes like. This dip made for a really smokey flavored meal on some large tortilla chips.
I am really curious know to see what Lionfish tastes like when prepared in other ways, it really did take a few bites for me to decide that it was something I really enjoyed.
Gretchen, our photographer at the show and I posed in front of the Tardis for a selfie. The Tardis is a special treat for us, last year at the show we worked together at the Tardis running photo ops for the con goers. I really do enjoy the prop photography side of the business, which is something we have phased out.