Dragon*Con 2010 was

estimated to draw more than 40,000 fans, dealers, exhibitors, artists,

guests, and volunteers from all over the world…

This year at Dragon*Con

was the first year that I attended the Parsec Podcast Awards at the

downtown Atlanta Marriot. The shows up for trophies included novelists,

short-story writers, fan-groups of various films and TV shows, comedic

podcasts and – a new category called

‘Fact Behind The Fiction’. I held my phone open to

‘tweet’ the results via Twitter, hoping to reach the rest of the

internet-savvy crowd across the way at the Hilton, where a live recording

of the ‘Monster Talk podcast’ was in progress. Would a skeptical

podcast win the day?

Since 2008 I’ve volunteered

to work behind the scenes at the Skeptic Track (or as it’s more fondly

known as, ‘SkepTrack’), after being told by Skepticality podcast’s

Derek Colanduno that it was a ‘don’t miss experience’. Why? The

four-day event (running across the September Labor Day weekend in September

in Atlanta, GA) has more broad talks and topics scheduled than any other

skeptical convention that is currently running. Dragon*Con 2010 was

estimated to draw more than 40,000 fans, dealers, exhibitors, artists,

guests, and volunteers from all over the world – including myself,

all the way from Australia, with a flight-time of nearly a day to get

there. It’s worth it, I assure you!

Apart from the high attendance

rate, another aspect that makes it very useful in terms of attracting

new people to skeptical thought is the way that new people (who might

never consider attending a skeptical convention) regularly drift in

from other ‘tracks’ and venues. While ‘ordinarily dressed’ people

are not uncommon, you should not be surprised by the occasional Star

Wars costume or homage to a Doctor Who character. There’s even a full-blown

H.R. Giger ‘Alien’, who is quite a skepticism fan, if his regular

presence around the Hilton Hotel is any indication!

Some of the highlights of this

year included the annual blood-donor drive, a vaccination clinic (held

a few hotels over in a empty storefront in a mall), and sightings of

a bemused comic-book legend Stan Lee in nearly every elevator in the

Hilton foyer. This mixture of serious outreach to the hundreds of thousands

of attendees and light-hearted fan homage makes this quite a unique

experience and one that is clearly embraced by all ages. You don’t

have to be dressed as a Stormtrooper to brave a shot, but it kind of

helps – especially if you are the sort who winces at the sight of

needles.

Talking to fellow Skepticality

podcaster Swoopy, I learned that this year attendance at both the SkepTrack

and Podcasting tracks were up – and so were the range of topics and

investigations. Naturally, what might be considered typical ‘Skepticism

101’ presentations appeared on the schedule, as they have in past

years – I greatly enjoyed Maria Myrback’s ‘Skepticism in Daily

Life’; a ‘introduction to skeptical blogging’ led by Australian

Dr Rachael Dunlop and I even caught the early morning ‘Coffee Talks’,

with the much-loved James Randi explaining what ‘Zwinge’ meant,

why he became a US Citizen and what were the beginnings of his skeptical

career.

There were also a healthy helping

of new presentations and even new faces in evidence. These included

magicians (Brian Brushwood, Jamy Ian Swiss), paranormal investigations

by Joe Nickell, Blake Smith and Benjamin Radford, and even a fully packed

talk for Mythbuster’s Adam Savage, with views on ‘raising skeptical

kids’ with Daniel Loxton, professor Barbara Drescher and Canadian

‘Skeptically Speaking’ radio show host Desiree Schell. Members of

the Skeptic Zone podcast team returned with the Mystery Investigators

show, which drew in more children this year – I guess my only

criticism is that there aren’t more shows that consider the younger

years attending skeptical conventions.

I had the opportunity to present

on several psychology and/ or education panels with Barbara Drescher,

and (like last year) people approached the stage after every panel to

ask questions, get information, and continue the discussion. We did

not see ‘the same old so-and-so’, nor did we get the impression

that many were ‘those regulars you see at the James Randi Educational

Foundation (JREF) Amazing Meetings’. This was particularly encouraging

for me, as not only do I travel a great distance to attend, but grumbles

about ‘preaching to the choir’ lead me to seek out potential presenters

with a variety of qualifications and skills. Thankfully, the SkepTrack

is more than keen to improve; even the technology in 2010 was stepped

up, with Abrupt Media’s Mark Distler providing some fantastic interactive

timing devices and recording equipment for every show.

Just a few of the discussions

that Barbara Drescher and I had at Dragon*Con (with people who, for

the most part, didn’t know much about “us”) included a new father

looking for a community, but afraid to join an atheist group for fear

that he would be indoctrinating his child as much as any religion does.

After the panel introducing JREF’s Michael Blanford as the new Director

of Educational Programs, we spoke to a woman who was teaching a pseudoscience

course for the first time and wanted help finding materials to use in

classroom demonstrations. While serving at the Skeptic.com table, a

man who was seriously questioning a long list of beliefs soaked up every

detail we could give him, while another loaded up with Daniel Loxton’s

book ‘Evolution’, with an aim to suggest using the illustrations

in a power-point discussion with her primary-age classes.

This year Dragon*Con even included

a two-hour sold-out Scientific Paranormal Investigation Workshop by

Benjamin Radford that was hosted by the Paranormal Track, indicating

that a cross-over with different content was not out of the question

for those who wanted to work with other groups at the convention. The

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K) appeared at a late-night show

and guests from Troma Films who wandered into the SkepTrack were warmly

welcomed and incorporated into presentations. Martial arts myths (and

quite a lot of weaponry!) by John Clements and the addition of Sheer

Brick Studio’s Donna Mugavero and artist Melissa Kaercher to panels

on topics like consumerism, skepticism and feminism, led me to wonder

if it would be a good idea to suggest to Derek that there be a mandatory

‘new person’ per panel to help liven up the mix. I have read that

Margaret Downey even plans to promote a ‘skeptically-minded addition’

to the annual Dragon*Con Parade (this year she featured as a beautiful

tree from the movie ‘Avatar’).

As for the winner of the Parsec

Award for the best ‘Fact Behind the Fiction’ podcast this year?

Well, in 2010 I continued my tradition of not only filming fun, short

YouTube adventures around the vendors rooms (where board games, comics,

steampunk goggles and corsets were being snapped up by eager attendees)

– I also filmed some of the ceremony. My friends Swoopy, Jennifer

and I heard the announcement for Skeptoid Podcast as the winner and

immediately ‘Twitter-alerted’ Brian Dunning that he was missing

out on his presentation – unless he ran over immediately! It’s these

kind of experiences that will stay with me: being with great friends,

challenging my mind and my beliefs, the recognition of excellent and

effort by an audience beyond those who identify as ‘a skeptic’…

and the sight of Brian Dunning shyly slipping into the back of the hall,

amazed that his work really does matter and that conventions like Dragon*Con

allow it to be showcased.

As Swoopy herself has pointed

out – ‘Everyone is welcome to contribute/suggest/participate –

it’s your convention – it doesn’t belong to any one group or organization.

Skeptrack.org is the place to go to do that. By the way, have you noticed

how other conventions like Indianapolis’ GenCon now feature Skepticism?

Wonder how that happened…?’