Sean Shaw, who traveled from Los Angeles for the convention, poses for a photo with Bianca and Angel, local Renton students, in his Black Manta cosplay. Shaw was also a judge in RenCon’s prop contest, and said he was blown out of the water by the creations.

A hometown event boldly went where it had never gone before this year as a new city found itself home to Renton City Comic Convention.

Renton City Comic Con, or RenCon for short, took place for the third year this past weekend, Sept. 15 and 16 in Tukwila at Hotel Interurban.

Founder and Renton Chamber of Commerce Board Director Ben Andrews said they had estimated about 3,000 to 3,500 were in attendance, a slight bump from last year’s attendance of 2,800 to 3,000, although they hadn’t finished evaluating by the time this article was written. Tukwila Police Department estimates a higher attendance of almost 5,000, according to a Facebook post.

Tukwila took in RenCon after it wasn’t approved for funds from the city of Renton due to limited funds for the Renton’s lodging tax advisory committee compared to the many applications for events this year.

Andrews said this year’s convention was really validating for him, and that he hopes to see RenCon grow into a regional convention, pulling help from many south end cities. He’s currently speaking with other cities like Kent and Burien for next year.

This year RenCon did something no other convention has done before and created its own original content: a 12-minute short film “JAMESON” that sourced previous RenCon guests who wanted to give back to the convention. Starring Son’s of Anarchy actor Brad Carter, and creature design by “Guardians of the Galaxy” Drax’s bodysuit designer Kenneth Calhoun.

It was also validating to have Renton fanbase follow them to Tukwila this year, he said. In 2017, 30 percent of attendees were Renton residents.

Three cosplayers of the cartoon “Adventure Time” were at the bottom of the Hotel Interurban staircase to snap their own cosplay photos. Almost anywhere there was a cosplayer, there was a photographer, from expensive gear to a smartphone, getting photos of them posing in-character.

“Everyone has been really nice about our cosplay, we’ve gotten a lot of photos, lot of compliments,” Marcia Phillips, cosplaying as Marceline the Vampire Queen from the show. “We were pleasantly surprised with the (RenCon) outcome, we thought it would be smaller. It is a little elbow-to-elbow bumpy. But the vendors and staff have all been really helpful, I would like to come back as an artist.”

Vendors were also pleasantly surprised with the traffic. Jolene, who crochets items for their shop Mabel by Design, heard about this event from a vendor group on Facebook, and said the traffic to the booth and response has been very positive, especially as a first-time vendor for RenCon.

Vendor Leigh Jones, who runs a science fantasy webcomic “AstralSounds”, is a born-and-raised Renton resident who has vendored all three RenCons. She said knowing the event had a rocky history, they weren’t sure how it was going to go. This year, however, there was a lot of positive energy thanks to a better venue. They’ve also seen a lot more cosplays and families with young children this year.

“It’s nice we have this good space, and I love the natural light, it’s nice not being in the backroom like last time,” Jones said. “I think it’s so great the nerd culture in Renton has blossomed recently. I love that RenCon is kind of a part of that. It shows how the RenCon community has been growing. It’s a lot of fun stuff.”

Cosplayers and RenCon attendees Nami, Finna and Eve met after complimenting each others costumes in the hallway, excitedly talking about their designs.

Nami bought her costume of Alluea from “Voltron” from online for RenCon.

Finna made their costume, taking about three months to get it finalized in their own design of Altaria from “Pokémon”, as well as making their friend Eve’s costume of Ampharos of “Pokémon.” Since Finna had never been before, it was exciting to make new friends and attend a more local convention.

“Comic book conventions are a celebration of the geek culture. What I like to say about RenCon is we view the geek culture as our family. So we really take that to the next level. So, not only did we have cosplay contests and winners, we had a geek awards ceremony where we gave awards to best podcaster, short film, feature film, best artist and concluded with our Geek of the Year. We just want to celebrate those who give a portion of their lives to the geek-onomy,” Andrews said.







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