GlitchCon brings fandom worlds together
BECCA MARTIN-BROWN
bmartin@nwadg.com
Photos courtesy Jamey Massey
This weekend’s GlitchCon, like last year’s, will be populated by fans of anime, tabletop gaming, Dr. Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, steampunk and the latest pop culture craze, Wastelanders.
The theme this year is “Across the Stars,” but that doesn’t mean only Wookiees and Starfleet officers are welcome at this weekend’s GlitchCon in Springdale.
Terra Massey, one of the event organizers, promises the convention will also be populated by anime, tabletop gaming and Dr. Who fans, along with the latest pop culture craze, Wastelanders — described by the Ozark Wastelander Society as “fans of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic subculture” — and Airship Isabella, “a group of artists, performers and visionaries who have bound together to create characters who explore the boundaries of the Steampunk community and a menagerie of worlds to put them in.”
“Something we’re really pushing this year,” Massey adds, is a storyline that will continue through the three-day event, pitting two “factions” — the Untold Horizons Federation and the Fallen Empire — against each other. They’ll be competing to take over meeting rooms at the Holiday Inn and Northwest Arkansas Convention Center — sectors at one of the Untold Horizons’ “tightly secured orbital relays.” Fallen Empire operatives will try to capture the sector beacons “to allow [them] to download any intel [they] can to find the Untold Horizons’ fleet and destroy it.”
Photos courtesy Jamey Massey
This weekend’s GlitchCon, like last year’s, will be populated by fans of anime, tabletop gaming, Dr. Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, steampunk and the latest pop culture craze, Wastelanders.
Participants can also expect standard convention fare — an artists’ alley, a vendor room, panels on everything from props and armor to special effects makeup, cosplay guests of honor and two special appearances: Maile Flanagan, who has voiced the lead in the hit cartoon “Naruto” and “Naruto Shippuden” for more than 600 episodes, 40 video games and five movies, and Don Teems, who has played more than 25 “featured walkers” on “The Walking Dead.”
Jamey Massey, also one of the event organizers, says the con is now in its seventh year, and he expects 1,000 people to participate sometime during the weekend. And, he adds, he and his wife prove the con is open to everyone.
“I’m very much sci fi and superheroes, and ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek,’” he says.
“And I’m definitely a fantasy nerd — old school Dungeons & Dragons and Dr. Who,” Terra Massey says. “You’re going to see a wide range of people, everything from children to grandparents and anime to gaming to sci fi to fantasy to pop culture.”
