There are good conventions and there are bad conventions that come through Dallas-Fort Worth. Some of them aren’t really worth the money. Some of them just aren’t that fun because they’re overcrowded and way too expensive. However, There’s always been one Convention that gives you the ultimate nerd experience and that is All-Con. It may not have A-List celebrities, but it is the ultimate fans convention with over 300 events and panels you can participate in, as well as some of the best cosplay in the world. It’s like a 4-day nerd party or spring break for nerds. All-Con is back 19th year.
All-Con has a new home at the Hilton Dallas Lincoln Center that features an open bar lounge area where convention goes can congregate and party. The best part of the convention is that it is all inclusive. No matter what your thing is. No matter how weird you may be, there’s a place for everybody. It celebrates all nerd culture. You have a nerd burlesque show. You have a nerd dance or prom with a better theme then you would have ever gotten in high school or the fancy, smancy Margarita Ball that’s like a prom for adults. There are game shows that you can experience. Comic book and Cosplay workshops you can learn from. There’s something for everyone.
Thee highlights for this year is getting to meet Duncan Watson and Melanie Kohn who voices Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts as well as Stephanie Nadolny who voices Son Goku. But if you’re looking for great exhibits then this year’s features a life-size replica of a Battlestar Galactica Viper from the original series. You can sit in a Colonial Viper and pretend your Starbuck. Of course, the big highlight is That Nerd Show will be back this year doing a panel for fans. We have done a panel at All-Con for the past 9 years. This year our panel is called “House of the Dragon vs. Rings of Power: Good Fantasy vs Bad Fantasy. “We will be discussing the differences in the two shows and how one got it right, while the other, screwed up its own lore. With so much to do at All-Con, you don’t want to miss out, the convention runs from March 16th – 19th, 2023.
To find out more about All-Con, check out our Interview with the con’s director, Todd Carlton
INTERVIEW
What do you think makes ALL-CON one of the best conventions in Dallas/ Fort Worth?
Todd: ALL-CON’s core strength is that we aren’t commercialized. We don’t put on a production to entertain fans, we put on a convention to involve them and to include them. Our mission isn’t to figure out what’s trending or niche at any time. ALL-CON gets great joy from others showing us what they are interested in. We have had robotics content, and speakers from NASA; Professional creature designers, the man who sculpted the models for Darth Vader’s original armor; Cosplay guests and puppeteers. Some panelists want to cover classic Britcoms while others want to discuss the latest theater offerings. We’re like an annual Muppet show with special guest stars and you never know if an act is going to be performed beautifully or if suddenly the set is going to fall over in a moment of hilarity. And it’s okay. People who have been coming to ALL-CON for years know that we are here for the community culture. We’re the family reunion for fans of all ages who just want to be around others who understand their passions and pass time.
Many businesses and events did not survive the pandemic, what do you attribute to ALL-CON surviving and still going strong?
Todd: ALL-CON didn’t actually survive the pandemic unscathed. We have some very close fan friends who are no longer among us. Our venue of fifteen years is closed permanently. Financially we were devastated after making sure every bill was paid on time and in full, even after being shut down mid-event by judicial health order. But with all the havoc the pandemic rained down upon us and our community, it didn’t finish us off. Just as if we had been caught in a natural disaster or a house fire, our convention family of sixteen years stepped in to give us shelter and support. We’re only here because our attendee family believed that if we were willing to struggle back to health, they would support us in our recovery. There were months of working closely with the public, individually, at the grass roots level. The Hilton Lincoln Centre gave us a new venue and an opportunity to explore new content designs. We asked, open heartedly, what it was that people would like to see develop in the new space. Our strength now comes from the results of listening. Most of the new content is what people have asked for. Sometimes vague concepts developed into fully fleshed features. A whole community designing the convention that they would love to see. The pandemic resulted in adding more voices to the “ALL” in ALL-CON. As one, the convention and the audience, we are all stronger together.
This year will be the third convention at the Hilton Dallas Lincoln Centre since moving over from the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in what ways do you consider this a better fit for ALL-CON?
Todd: The Crowne Plaza employees became like family. We are still in touch with several of them. But the Crowne Plaza had limitations for design. It wasn’t bad for the first ten years, but it got to where, when we wanted a new feature here just wasn’t any place to put it. In the Hilton we have had room to add Escape Rooms, a mini-golf course, our laser tag arena… Gameshows get a dedicated room. Steampunk gets a dedicated room. The Crafty Corner is no longer in a 12-person meeting room. And yet the Hilton isn’t “too big”. You still get to pass / recognize the same people in the halls every couple of hours, especially if you are a people watcher. The Hilton’s spacious lobby is the hangout that we were always missing at the Crowne. And the Hilton staff are so engaged! ALL-CON isn’t their usual business client and they have been fascinated to see the transformation of their property from a hotel proper into more of a cruise ship with people and activities in all rooms at all times. I think we have had as much fun watching them as they have had watching us.
What do fans have to look forward to this year at ALL-CON?
Todd: As ALL-CON understand our new space, we have been improving the design for traffic flow and feature locations. Most of all though they are going to get to see the brand new Lakeside Ballroom for the first time ever. When we had space at the Hilton in 2021 and 2022 the ballroom was under construction. This is the first year the Lakeside Level is fully open with the ballroom, the restaurant, and the Conservatory. For fans who remember the Crowne Plaza vividly, the new ballroom is a larger than the old vendor room… quadruple the size of our former performance space. This is allowing us to have even bigger draw content like the Drag Roulette on Thursday, Court of Dreams and Goblins (a Labyrinth inspired masquerade) on Friday, and a fully realized Steampunk live performance ball on Saturday, right after Burlesque. A larger space allows for larger acts. Elsewhere larger spaces, like the vendor room, allows us to bring in physically larger attractions. This year we are hosting the 1:1 scale life-sized colonial viper replica from Battlestar Galactica. At the Crowne we were only able to bring in the cockpit and wing section. This year, the entire ship in her magnificent glory will be on display.
With of the biggest attractions this year is a life-size replica of the Battlestar Galactica Viper Ship, how did that happen?
Todd: One ALL-CON my mom was visiting from Arizona. I got a call on the radio that she wanted to see me in the lobby. I’m kind of busy mid-event, but it was my mom looking for me. (Keep in mind I was in my late 40s at the time.) When I got the lobby, there she was just chatting away with Anne Lockhart. I had never met Anne before and there she was talking with my Mom. She was in town and I have no idea how the conversation started, but from there we started talking about her booking agent and how she might like to be a guest at future shows. I think some of her fans had told her about us and that we were worthwhile to check out. Through Anne I met Richard Hatch and during that time, the organization now known as the Battlestar Raven started to form at ALL-CON. The Raven, the Colonial Warriors, and the group now known as Team BSG Viper continued their interest in ALL-CON and we enjoy having them both as attendees and also as what we refer to as Content Partners. The auxiliary performance space at the Crowne was never large enough to fit the Viper as, as I mentioned earlier, parts of the ship were brought in for photo ops. It wasn’t until we reached the Hilton that we had a space big enough to put it together. I will confess that I have not yet seen it fully assembled in person and I an dying to see it, myself. The Viper connection happened organically. Fan to fan. Friend-to-friend. Just like ALL-CON. We are grateful to Team BSG Viper for bringing the ship in this year. In 2020 there was going to be another Battlestar Galactica cast gathering at ALL-CON that didn’t happen due to COVID-19. Getting the Viper test fit in the new venue is step one to getting that reunion back on track.
Next year you will be celebrating your 20th anniversary, not many conventions get to say that. What do you attribute to the longevity of ALL-CON?
Todd: People. People who organized the convention originally in 2003 (2 years before our opening), people who have presented content over all of the years, and people who continue to join us both in production as well as in attendance to enjoy the attractions. People and their freedom to choose. We don’t produce a show and invite an audience. We open up our once-a-year home to 5,000 of our closest friends and ask each one, ‘So. What will we choose to do today?’
