Friends of Comic Cons

All Other Conventions (aka Friendly Neighborhood) => Other Comic Cons and Conventions => Topic started by: Transmute Jun on April 07, 2022, 03:18:24 PM

Title: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on April 07, 2022, 03:18:24 PM
Dates have just been announced, and badges are now on sale!

https://www.friendsofcc.com/2022/04/07/silicon-2022-dates-announced-tickets-on-sale-now/
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on May 05, 2022, 07:52:06 PM
I decided to skip last year as I felt it wouldn't be worth the $80 for two days for a smaller-than-usual pandemic-era convention, but I decided to buy passes for this year. Still dunno if it'll be worth the $80, but I do want to support a local con, as we definitely don't have any other big ones in the Bay Area, not since Wondercon moved from SF to Anaheim.

Anyone go last year? How was it?
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on May 05, 2022, 08:06:43 PM
We went last year. It was actually wonderful, for a few reasons. First, for us, it was our first post-pandemic con. So it was great to be back and also to see some of our con friends. Additionally, it was pretty empty. This meant that we had unprecedented access to the celebrity guests. It was so easy to just walk into panels, or see them walking around. There were so many guests whom we just ran into in the convention center and area around it, and we ewre able to thank them personally for being at the con. Heck, I even (briefly) ran into Shatner on the con floor.

Yes, the exhibit floor was lackluster, and NASA decided to bail last minute. But we were glad that we went.

Here's my review of last year's event.

https://www.friendsofcc.com/2021/08/29/silicon-2021-sets-the-standard-for-a-return-to-cons/
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on May 05, 2022, 11:04:10 PM
@Transmute Jun (https://www.friendsofcc.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=314) Thanks for the writeup. I would've been bummed about the lack of NASA. I really enjoyed the booth the times they've been there. It was either 2018 or 2019 where they had a replica of the Curiosity rover with on display, with a cool VR experience. Also, I'm one of those who enjoys the Exhibit Hall and Artists Alley more than panels, so I think I made a good decision to skip out. I hope this year it's a return to form.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: hikanteki on May 07, 2022, 01:08:04 PM
I went last year for one day. I almost didn’t go due to how bad 2019 was, but I’m glad I went. They did a good job last year. Like Transmute Jun, it was my first post-pandemic con. The mood was great and everyone (both guests and attendees) was glad to be back. Exhibit hall was very small but I still found a couple cool things (and the carpet was back, too.) Panels were entertaining and easy to get into. Compared to 2019: smaller attendance, smaller exhibit hall but about the same amount of programming and much better organized.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: alyssa on June 01, 2022, 12:46:17 PM
Quote
Get ready for some guest announcements coming next week!

In the meantime, don't miss an opportunity to grab your photo ops and autograph tickets for our current lineup featuring George Takei "Star Trek"), Christopher Lloyd ("Back To The Future"), and Alan Ritchson (Amazon's "Reacher"). Get ready for an amazing year and more action-packed announcements as we focus on creating the improbable!

Team SiliCon!
 
link for tix's

https://purchase.growtix.com/eh/SiliCon_with_Adam_Savage_2022
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on July 06, 2022, 10:42:32 AM
An update for those interested in attending SiliCon. Newly announced guests include Karen Gillan and George Takei, and hotel rooms are now available ($139 per night for the Marriott).

https://www.friendsofcc.com/2022/07/06/silicon-2022-promises-fun-for-fans-and-makers/
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: chocolateshake on July 06, 2022, 11:29:35 AM
$139 per night at the Marriott?  That's the most amazing news in that announcement.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Cut That Meat on July 27, 2022, 05:14:00 PM
This is my local con, but various travel plans have always kept me out of town in previous years. I will likely attend just one day, but looking forward to finally being able to support it!
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on July 27, 2022, 08:06:09 PM
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
This is my local con, but various travel plans have always kept me out of town in previous years. I will likely attend just one day, but looking forward to finally being able to support it!

We would love to see you there!

Who is going this year? Would anyone like to have a FoCC get-together?
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Cut That Meat on July 28, 2022, 10:19:36 AM
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
We would love to see you there!

Who is going this year? Would anyone like to have a FoCC get-together?

I'd definitely be down for this!
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on August 19, 2022, 07:32:44 PM
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220820/fbecc19342bbb51b5da1ea551706acde.jpg)

Last time I went to SiliCon, we still only got wristbands. Nice to see we get badges now.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on August 25, 2022, 06:29:32 PM
Just got this email on their updated COVID policy

Quote
Dear Silicon Attendees,

Until now, all of our ticket purchasers have either been vaccinated or were planning to provide proof of a negative Covid test upon arrival.

Based on CDC guidelines, there are no current requirements in place for providing proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test, and because of this, we have amended our policy to remove onsite testing and/or proof of vaccination.

However, this does not mean we are less concerned about your health and safety. If you plan to attend SiliCon, we recommend testing yourself before arriving if you have not been vaccinated. Please do not attend the convention if you are not feeling well or have any cold-like symptoms. Masks will not be required, but we do strongly recommend wearing one.

We are beyond thrilled to see all of your healthy and happy faces this weekend!

-SiliCon with Adam Savage

I'm kinda sad about this. Yes, I know, you can still very much get COVID even with a vaccination / testing policy (see SDCC 2022 as case-in-point), but I still very much agreed with SDCC's policy in their attempts to mitigate infections, even if it amounted to a few percentage points.

Anyway, definitely keeping my mask on the entire time, like I did at SDCC.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 26, 2022, 09:50:08 AM
I was relieved... one less thing to do. And given how disorganized they are this year, I'm sure that the lines would have been very long.

My guess is that this is a financially-motivated move. Did you see the big 'buy tickets' button right under the announcement in the email? They clearly have not sold a lot of badges. And since the majority of people who attend this con are local, my guess is that they made this change last minute to encourage more badge sales amongst those who did not like the restriction.

Regardless, they are abiding my all local and state regulations, so this is not an unreasonable decision. I am really surprised that it came last minute, though.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on August 26, 2022, 12:56:05 PM
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
I was relieved... one less thing to do. And given how disorganized they are this year, I'm sure that the lines would have been very long.

Huh, I guess I hadn't been paying much attention. I didn't notice much in the way of disorganization. But this con is not one of those events I keep tabs on regularly, unlike SDCC.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
My guess is that this is a financially-motivated move. Did you see the big 'buy tickets' button right under the announcement in the email? They clearly have not sold a lot of badges. And since the majority of people who attend this con are local, my guess is that they made this change last minute to encourage more badge sales amongst those who did not like the restriction.

I don't know much in the way of the financial health of SVCC (ugh, I refuse to call it Silicon), but I could definitely see it being a major factor. There was an anime convention in SJ like last month that was sold out. It feels weird that this convention can't generate the same level of interest. Maybe it speaks to the disorganization you mentioned? In any case, I really do hope they are not in dire straits.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 26, 2022, 01:15:37 PM
They've been really slow with a number of things this year, including press and pro applications. I have sent messages to customer service and to real people behind the scenes that went unanswered. The schedule was published with no announcement, and then gets changed significantly every day. They are scheduling major celebrity guests on top of each other (e.g. they previously had Summer Glau's panel at the same time as the Expanse panel, now she's at the same time as Karen Gillan, etc.).

I spoke with the organizers last year and they told me that they were losing money on the 2021 con, but that they lost less than if they had cancelled it altogether. They clearly aren't sold out for this year. I suspect that the financial woes are real.

It also feels like the selection of panels this year is slim. If you aren't into Maker panels, there isn't a lot.

That being said, we are going. I want to support my local con. But next year, instead of buying badges the moment they go no sale, I think we will be waiting until the panel schedule is released to see if we really want to attend. If it is going to become a Maker Con (which is is 75% of the way to being this year) we won't be going.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: hikanteki on August 26, 2022, 03:29:53 PM
The anime convention that sold out (Crunchyroll Expo) probably did so because the are a well-run convention with excellent programming and have been every year since they started (which was around the same time as SiliCon.) It also helps that they're a professional organization that's now owned by Sony. They had a lot of panels with professional Japanese guests, exclusive premieres, and legit in-person concerts by Japanese major label rock bands. The past few in-person CRXs have been solid as well, and CRX's virtual con was probably the only one that I legitimately enjoyed.

SiliCon is a world of difference, they were off to a good start the first two years, the third year even wasn't bad, but they never really figured out what they were - and then year 4 was a total dumpster fire, it was bad enough to kill off my interest in it for good. Also this year (and the last few years) it has just felt like announcements have been thrown together haphazardly. That hasn't been enough to make me look forward to it for months (and it definitely wouldn't be enough to make me want to travel to it.) The announcement of the 2021 show was a complete surprise and I had no plans to go, but decided to go at the last minute for one day. I did enjoy it that year but not enough to make me do anything different this year. This year I figured I'd go last minute if I go at all (and most likely, I will still go for Saturday only.)
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on August 26, 2022, 10:13:27 PM
Man, now I’m completely lowering my expectations. Last time I went was… 2018 I think. It was the year Andy Weir had a panel, and NASA had a booth with a replica of the Curiosity rover. I enjoyed the science-y niche that the con had carved out for itself at the time. I just want more of that.

It seems like the con was better when it had Wozniak’s name attached to it than Adam Savage.

As I may have mentioned, the South Bay needs a good con (that’s not anime, as I’m not the biggest anime nerd).

Ah well, I hope to be surprised tomorrow.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 27, 2022, 08:17:16 AM
There is the livestream from the ISS this morning. That should help satisfy the science nerd in you. There is an Artemis panel too (the actual project, not the Andy Weir novel).
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 27, 2022, 01:16:44 PM
Not I pressed so far… of the 3 panels we wanted to attend, 2 were canceled because the panelists just didn’t show up. The ISS livestream was fun though.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: hikanteki on August 27, 2022, 11:25:39 PM
I’m back from today and had a pretty awesome time. I initially had some of the same concerns (overall too light, too many maker panels at the expense of not enough other panels and the schedule changing around a bit too much too soon before the show) but by the time the schedule settled, there was enough to occupy myself.

I didn’t get there in time for the ISS stream but I did see the panels with Ben Browder/Michael Shanks of Stargate, Christopher Lloyd, and the Expanse. The Browder/Shanks panel I originally only had a mild interest in but really it turned out to be the favorite panel I’ve attended at any con besides SDCC this year. They were absolutely hilarious. Christopher Lloyd was also great, and I was glad to see the Expanse was a real studio panel (SVCC has been pretty good about getting these in the past.)

I also attended a few of the Conversations with Jonathan Knowles panels. Some were more in my area of interest than others but it was nice to see intelligent discussion. I also tried to attend an author panel at the end of the day but it was ruined by Gary Whitta. There were 4 authors there but Gary Whitta was going on a series of rants that were neither interesting nor insightful and was barely letting anyone else speak. This continued for 15 minutes before I got annoyed and left. Come to think of it, Gary Whitta has ruined pretty much every panel I’ve seen him in the past. Maybe he is a good author but he is a terrible panelist - this is feedback I’ll be passing along to SiliCon.

Exhibit hall wasn’t big, but had a pretty decent turnout. And once again, the SF Giants booth single-handedly made it worth it. They were running a special where if you bought a ticket for the SF Giants Star Wars Night game next Sunday (which includes a limited C-3PO Funko Pop with admission), they would give you a free bobblehead, t-shirt or other gift from the table. I bought a pair and they totally hooked me up. They gave me 2 bobbleheads from previous Giants Star Wars nights, a Giants Hello Kitty lunchbox, and a Giants Harry Potter bat. All of those probably would have cost at least as much as the pair of tickets!

Registration was a breeze. It was in the main building this year (not in the giant blue tent like previous years.) I liked that they actually had badges instead of wristbands this year. They were probably a cost-cutting move but I hope they keep them. There were a couple of scheduling issues. Nearly everything I attended started late, some as late as 20-25 min. Although nothing was cut terribly short. The program schedule constantly changing was kind of nerve-wracking, although I do remember that last minute schedule changes are nothing new to this con. But overall, it was a very enjoyable day.

I’ll also say that I appreciated that they removed the vaccine requirement. I think vaccination is important but it has to be a personal decision and even though I’m vaccinated, tbh I’ve been extremely uncomfortable at being asked to show my medical records to go to things this past year. I understood the rationale for vaccine mandates when they actually provided a decent shield against infection and when covid was more than a mild to average cold in general…but those rationales have passed. Removing the vaccine mandate solidified my decision to go to SiliCon.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 28, 2022, 09:10:46 AM
We definitely had fun yesterday. I learned that the reason that some of the earlier panels had been canceled (with panelists not showing up) is because SiliCon was approving panels very late and often the panelists didn't even know that they had a panel! I attended a writing panel where the panelist stated that it had been an attendee who had told him that he had a panel, and he would not have known otherwise.

The show itself definitely has a Maker feel. I have to wonder if it will settle at this level or increase. At this point, more than half of the show is Maker-related. The pop culture and tech aspects (which were the things that drew us to this show initially) felt more like afterthoughts, with the celebrity guests there mostly to earn money selling autographs and photo ops. This being said, the celebrity panels I attended were good, with thoughtful questions. The Expanse was undoubtedly the star of the show, and the Main Stage was packed for their reunion panel with cast and creators. We had enough to occupy us... barely. We felt like we were done with one day, and there wasn't enough on Sunday to interest us in going back.

All of this being said, everyone we encountered appeared to be having a good time, and there was a good amount of cosplay representing many different fandoms.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 28, 2022, 12:12:44 PM
@Miclpea (https://www.friendsofcc.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4892) was notified this morning at 11 am that his Expanse fan panel would have to be moved. Thing is, he hadn't been told that he had been approved for a panel to begin with!
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on August 29, 2022, 10:27:16 AM
Here is my review of the show's evolution to a Maker con.

https://www.friendsofcc.com/2022/08/29/silicon-2022-a-new-kind-of-con/
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on December 13, 2022, 10:43:53 AM
They just sent out a survey for next year. My feedback was pretty much along the lines of more vendors & more artists.

Also, it seems they're considering relocating to the Santa Clara Convention Center, as there was a whole page dedicated to that. My response was along the lines of "hell no".
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on December 13, 2022, 02:39:25 PM
I just got one question: 'Have you ever attended an event at Santa Clara Convention Center?' or something like that. I said no... so I guess I got booted out of a bunch of questions.

I told them that I was not interested in the conversion to a Maker Con and was unhappy with the limited celebrity panels this year. I also mentioned that I have had a VIP badge at this con every year since it was founded, but wasn't planning to purchase one for next year unless I saw a great celebrity/panel lineup first.

So ultimately, we'll see if they 'heard' me or if there are a ton of people who want the Maker Con. I still don't know if I'll be going next year, and that's really sad, since this con is 'in my backyard'.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: accelerate on December 13, 2022, 03:59:07 PM
@Transmute Jun (https://www.friendsofcc.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=314) Completely agree. Turning it into Maker Con is terrible and not what I want at all from a convention. The first few SVCCs were great in that it had a good mix of pop culture and Silicon Valley tech. I love how NASA always has a booth (though this past year's showing was disappointing). The years where they had a room just for artists was tremendous. This disappointed me the most for 2022, where there were barely any artists in attendance. Also, past years there was a great gathering of cosplayers and even a dedicated area for pro photographers. SVCC did truly scratch that Comic Con itch. But now...

If I had to choose one Bay Area con to go to next year, it's most definitely Fan Expo SF.
Title: Re: SiliCon 2022: August 27-28
Post by: Transmute Jun on December 14, 2022, 05:27:29 AM
Yeah, it used to be a great mix of tech and pop culture, and there was even some gaming. Remember the arcade and console games on the lower level, all free? I don't mind Maker activities... they just don't interest me so much. If the entire con has a Maker focus, then it's no longer a con for me.

I didn't go to the SF con this year (I have tried it in the past) but might next year if we skip SiliCon. Oh wait, the SF one is Thanksgiving weekend again, right? Yuck.