Welcome to Con Bravo! The annual festival of everything geek!

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Con Bravo! is the annual festival of everything geek that’s held every year in Hamilton, Ontario. This year it was at the Hamilton Convention Centre, offering con-goers three floors in which to explore, shop, take in panels or even meet new people. This year was it’s fourth year of operation and everything seemed to be running smoothly with a fantastic group of staff members volunteering their time to make the convention work.

One of the biggest problems facing conventions today is staffing. So often you hear of stories where the volunteers know as much or less as the con-goers themselves, which is worrisome, especially if it’s your first convention. Con Bravo! isn’t like that at all. There was always someone available wearing a bright blue shirt announcing that they were staff and everyone was very happy to help with any questions that the con-goers had, including start times and locations of certain panels or autograph signings. It was also quite clear that the staff were often going out of their way to assist someone, which was great to see.

Our first panel I attended was a Mass Effect panel, where the moderator spoke with eager participants about the BioWare game. The topics of discussion ranged from favorite characters to how everyone tended to play (the Mass Effect game allows you the option of playing through as a Paragon (good) or Renegade (evil) or neutral) and of course, the controversial ending to Mass Effect 3 and BioWare’s subsequent attempt to fix legions of upset fans with a DLC.

Another thing I noticed while I walked around to see all there was to see was that there was no congestion. Everything was well laid out in terms of spacing and things that would attract bigger crowds (such as autographs or larger panels) were kept to the third level where smaller panels were hosted on the second level and the exhibitors and our favorite, the game room were on the first. The Con Bravo! team optimized the convention centre space well in that regard. It was great to be able to wander about the convention without finding gridlocked traffic of people along the way!

On Saturday evening I took in the Mark Meer Q & A; he may be a familiar name to any of those gamers that play Mass Effect. For the BioWare developed game he played different alien races, as well as the voice of Commander Shepard. He’s not just a voice actor though, but instead a very talented improve actor as well who performs at places like the Rapid Fire Theatre in Edmonton, or the 50 hour Improv-athon in London, England. The panel was exciting for all fans in attendance who were able to ask him about his work with BioWare games, what was coming up next in his career for him (including a show he’s in called Tiny Plastic Men that has just been renewed for a second season), and what advice he had for people wanting to get into the industry. I thought it was a great panel and Mark stayed afterwards for some photos with fans and autographs which I thought was a fantastic way to make the panel memorable for fans as most guests don’t do that.

You can download and listen to the entire Mark Meer panel HERE

The artists area was great and I was able to get myself some new wall art (I always tend to pick up new art at conventions now) and they had a little something for everyone. There was even a place to buy some soap and some beautiful jewelry pieces as well.

The great thing about Con Bravo! too is that they have activities late at night. On Friday, some great late night things to do were Improv Against Humanity or Fan Fiction Mad Libs. These events were all 18+, but they started around 11PM and lasted until 2AM. On Saturday there was a Con Bravo! dance party that went until 1AM, a D20 live event, Inappropriate Karaoke until 2AM, and open rounds of Cards Against Humanity until a staggering 5 in the morning! I’m in definite favor of other conventions doing late night things as well, especially for people who don’t care to go to an afterpatty at a bar. Some people are looking for get-togethers where they can get to really know people so I think having both options was a really great idea. Of course, the really late nights made for a difficult Sunday morning, but there was too much going on not to go!

Some of Sundays events included taking a look at film making basics, the Versus Valerie Q & A with 3 Killa Bytes, and all kinds of games including a personal favorite, You Don’t Know Jack! with speakers Lewis Lovhaug, Doug Walker, Jared Knabenbauer and Kyle Kallgren. There were also rounds of Quidditch in the courtyard, RPG versus LARP discussions, a charity auction and a Game of Thrones panel. Sunday was so jam packed, we could hardly decide what we wanted to see and how we’d fit it all into our busy schedule!

All in all it was a fantastic convention and the GCE were very happy to be in attendance and see some of our friends like Cosplay For a Cure and Studio Comix. I just want to take a moment to send my thank you to Scott McCutcheon for all of his hard work before and during the convention. It was an absolute pleasure working with you Scott and I hope to see you next year!