Debrief: Dragon Con 2026
Atlanta, GA – September 3 through September 7, 2026
Dragon Con 2026 has come to an end and the 40th installment was a busy one.
Attendance was reported at 75,000, dictated by the cap on badge sales. This matches last year’s numbers, but many of the anticipated no-shows actually showed up. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were swamped with partying nerds. The con’s traffic management was decent, but the logistics for badge pickup and lines were challenging (to say the least).
Those 75,000 fans did a lot of good charity work this year, offering at least $320,000 for Hope Atlanta. The blood drive was very successful as well, earning the distinction of the largest convention-based blood drive in the world and the third largest blood drive in the world. Dragon Con also exceeded expectations in a book drive held in honor of Dolly Parton.
I left the con physically exhausted but emotionally energized after hanging out with con family.
On to the discussion!
First on the list, as always, I want to thank the track directors and their volunteer staffs for welcoming me into their homes for the weekend and offering the chance to talk on their stages.
- Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel (American Science Fiction Classics)
- Karen and James Henson (Military Sci-Fi Media)
- Caro Tidwell (BritTrack)
Second on the list, but by no means any less important, I’d like to thank the volunteers. There are so many who help bring this convention to life every year. In fact, the vast majority of the people who keep the convention flowing are volunteers. As always, I’d like to especially note Disability Services and Tech Ops. These folks push the limits and innovate to keep this show moving. Your hard work does not go unnoticed.
Number the third, I’d like to thank the convention for having me back as an Attending Professional. This was my eighteenth Dragon Con (counting participation since 2009, missing only one year in 2023) and my ninth as an Attending Pro (counting participation since 2016, though I wasn’t an AP in 2020 or 2023).
[Note: Yes, these posts vary from year to year. I think my count is accurate now. I even took off my shoes for enough digits to count. Best to get an accurate count now before I run out of fingers and toes.]
I appreciate all of these wonderful folks for having faith in my abilities to both participate and moderate programming events. I really enjoy spending the weekend having fun, catching up with my geek family, and meeting new people.
Okay, let’s break this convention weekend down a bit with some highlights and lowlights.
On Schedule
One of my core drives in life is helping people and building communities. The Dragon Con Newbies program does that by offering walking tours and Q&A sessions to help people get their bearings and start Dragon Con on the right foot. Sue Kisenwether, Kim McGibony, and Kevin Bachelder are amazing friends and a joy to work with. Thanks to all of our tour leaders and wranglers for volunteering their time and knowledge, as well as our team of moderators in the Facebook group who work hard all year to keep the malcontents out.
We actually sent fewer tours that normal due to the problems at badge pickup. We’re estimating 550 tours for this year, and that’s reflected in having a mostly empty waiting room before the end of the tour block.
My panel schedule was well balanced this year with one or two events per day except Thursday. I got to talk about Aliens, Starship Troopers, Terminator 2, Farscape, Batman (1966), Smallville, Doctor Who, and tales of Dragon Con itself. I was also asked last minute to moderate the Aliens and Starship Troopers panels, and was complimented for how well both of those panels moved. It’s good to know that I still have it.
The panels were quite fun this year, and most of them were stacked with experts and well-read fans of the respective properties. I felt like moderating the Aliens panel was akin to holding on for dear life given the team of Keith DeCandido, Drew Gaska, John Hudgens, Darin Bush, and Shaun Rosado in the car with me. These folks are experts on the Alien franchise and that discussion wandered where it wanted to go with plenty of audience interaction.
The Starship Troopers panel was a personal favorite given the breadth of discussion from the movie to the book and the politics involved with both. Kevin Stallard, Darin Bush, Michael Wesley Collins, and Tony Bowers brought their expertise to bear with a good amount of audience participation to help drive the panel. The Terminator 2 panel was also fun as Gary Mitchel drove the HK-tank as moderator with Derek Gayle, John Hudgens, Calvin Watts, and me.
Saturday brought two panels. The first was “Space Muppets & CGI,” a discussion of the non-human-acted characters of Farscape. I had a great time talking about Rygel, Pilot, and the Leviathans with Kathleen O’Shea David, Amanda Tillman, Laura Schroeder, Lacee Aderhold, and moderator James Henson. The second panel was a celebration of the 1966 TV show Batman with Michael Bailey, Michael Gordon, Keith DeCandido, ToniAnn Marini, and special bat-guest Bob Greenberger.
Sunday brought a discussion on Smallville with Michael Bailey and Derek Gayle. It was a good discussion to start the day. That evening, I joined the BritTrack to talk about the new “wilderness years” of Doctor Who with Anthony Williams, Rob Bowen, and moderator Mark Heffernan.
Monday wrapped the convention with Classic Tails of Dragon Con, a panel where Jen Schleusner, Rob Levy, Ryan Carey, and I were joined by Sue Kisenwether, Gary Mitchel, Keith DeCandido, and an audience to swap stories ranging from silly and weird to serious and heartbreaking about the convention. It was a beautiful and chaotic community way to put a bow on 2026.
Off Schedule
Thursday night was also quite fun as my wife and I wandered the hotels and watched the cosplayers. At one point, she found a “quest giver” who was handing out Avery labels with various tasks to take photographs. Each completed quest earned her a different ribbon, and the final quest resulted in a shiny glittery ribbon. The final quest required her to wrangle six different pairs of cosplayers into one photo, which was a bold step out of character for her to negotiate with strangers to gather. She was the first to complete all of the quests. The quest giver was impressed.
We also stopped by the Swag ‘n’ Seek gather for a spell. Dragon Con Swag ‘n’ Seek is a fan-driven cause to leave trinkets or gifts around the convention as an act of kindness to others. They’re a great group of people. I didn’t bring anything this year, but I routinely leave books and toys with the requisite SnS tags to explain what the treasure means.
After my Friday panels, our little group visited the blood drive, then visited the Fantasy Literature track for a panel called Battle of the Bodies: Bodies in Motion. It was about how to write the movement of bodies in various situations, but it focused a bit heavily on sex. We then jumped in line for the Improvised Dungeons & Dragons show, which was hilarious despite the very late start. We ended the night with the Fantasy Gather where we bought Keith DeCandido’s new book, The Inflictors: Come Together. We wander a bit more but left the Gather soon after because the room was way too crowded.
We were invited to watch the Dragon Con parade from a friend’s office overlooking the route. It was a great experience, especially with some of his clients (who didn’t know what Dragon Con was), some con newbies, and a group of kids. I haven’t watched the parade live for a long time because of the crowds and the heat, so a more intimate setting was a nice change of pace.
The 2026 parade was filmed by both Dragon Con TV…
…and our local CBS affiliate.
Saturday also brought the annual performance by the Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra. This year’s program included selections from Dune, Alien3, Labyrinth, How to Train Your Dragon, Wonder Woman, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Star Wars: A New Hope, Outlander, Bridgerton, The Muppet Show, Lightyear, Super Mario Bros., The Mandalorian, The Avengers, Spider-Man, and The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. This event is highly recommended for fans of live orchestral music and soundtracks.
One of the funniest things at the Georgia Philharmonic performance was The Muppet Show. The drummer disappeared for a second and popped back up in an Animal cosplay for the number. I was amazed that he was able to see well enough to finish the performance.
We wrapped up Saturday with “Exploring Strange Old Fics,” the annual deep dive into Star Trek fanzines with Sue Kisenwether. The content skews into adult territory so there are no photos or videos of the presentation, but Sue also presents her research and sources, which I find fascinating as one of those Trek nerds who reads reference books.
The pages between my Sunday bookend panels belonged to a Firefly panel and a table read of Manimal in the Classics Track. Manimal was entertaining, carrying on the joke established by Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel, but who can compete with a Firefly panel staffed by Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Summer Glau, and moderator Brian Richardson? The cast shared a lot of jokes and humorous stories, and I laughed for a good hour as they entertained a jam-packed ballroom of fans.
(Yeah, that photo is a bit dark. It was the best I could do in that ballroom with standard panel lighting.)
On Monday, we started slow before my last panel of the convention by visiting the American Sci-Fi and Fantasy Media Track for an intimate discussion of Upload‘s final season. Beth Verant, Marghie Parsons, and Isabelle Hardy discussed the season with a small audience what amounted to a fireside chat. I wasn’t pleased with the final season, but after listening to the discussion, I almost want to watch this series again straight through without the unpleasantly long breaks between seasons.
Charity and Community
Dragon Con turned out big time for charity this year.
As I mentioned earlier, the 75,000 fans offered more than $320,000 for Hope Atlanta in support of their mission to end homelessness. The blood drive was very successful as well, earning the distinction of the largest convention-based blood drive in the world and the third largest blood drive in the world.
Of course, I had to get my annual blood drive shoe selfie and a photo with my forever con buddy.
Dragon Con also turned out in support and in honor of Dolly Parton. Inspired by her Imagination Library, Dragon Con led a book drive benefiting the Fulton County Library System and Georgia Public Library Service. The goal was 1,000 children’s books. The Dragon Con community delivered 5,000 instead.
Wowzers.
There were some rough spots in this year’s milestone convention.
The first relates to the Courtland Grand. There are a lot of rumors and speculations out there about why things fell apart at this host hotel, but they did fall apart and in grand fashion. Before the convention, hundreds of people had their reservations cancelled or moved to inconvenient contingency locations. A good chunk of that was tied to a fire sprinkler system activation that flooded nearly 300 rooms in the north tower.
Additionally, the hotel’s air conditioning system couldn’t keep up with the high temperatures and high number of people, resulting in events being cancelled during the convention. From what I have heard, the events that did continue were uncomfortable at best.
Finally, logistics issues (and, I’ve heard, connectivity issues) forced long lines for badge pickup. I mentioned that impact on the newbie tours, but it also became a serious safety concern with daytime temperatures in the high 90s (~35C to 37C) and heat indices making it feel like the low 100s (~38C to 40C). Several people collapsed after spending hours in the high heat, and those events made local news.
To their credit, Dragon Con started crisis management procedures to help mitigate the problem. During the convention’s closing ceremonies, they assured everyone that they would be having some tough discussions with the Courtland Grand. Rightfully so.
If you’re on any of the convention’s social media channels, it won’t take long to catch up on this story. There are a lot of people in those forums with a lot of opinions and recommendations, two of which have come up before.
The first is the suggestion that Dragon Con should move away from the host hotels and into a convention center like the nearby Georgia World Congress Center. This would kill Dragon Con as we know it. Part of the convention’s charm is how it goes for 24 hours a day over five days. Dragon Con doesn’t close until Monday afternoon, but convention centers do close at night. All of the events and parties and spontaneous happenings that pick up after a convention center would normally close down wouldn’t have a place to thrive.
I have been to corporate conventions in convention centers, both locally and in other big cities. They are sterile and low-key in comparison to Dragon Con. I don’t want that vitality to vanish. Quite frankly, Dragon Con has done this live 39 times, and many of those have been with attendee numbers close to or vastly exceeding this year’s. It can be done successfully without moving to a convention center.
The other big on is about badging. Some suggest mailing badges ahead of time to minimize lines, but Dragon Con has resisted this due to counterfeiting concerns. Those concerns aren’t minimal: I have heard people talking about picking up a five-day badge on Thursday, visiting a copy center or using suitable equipment purchased on Amazon to make suitable copies, and getting friends in for free. Counterfeiting does exist, and it would likely be exacerbated by earlier access to badges.
Similarly, people suggest using RFID chips to scan in and out of the con. This works at convention centers with limited access points, but the host hotels have a ton of doors and the manpower alone to implement these chips would be prohibitive.
The bigger picture with the flood of recommendations is that they look good on the surface but tend to ignore the larger logistical picture behind a volunteer and fan-driven convention. None of the improvements are a one-step fix, and it’s up to Dragon Con to decide what they can and cannot accomplish to streamline operations.
My other downside to this year’s convention relates to the Marriott. We were lucky enough to have a room at that host hotel this year, though we scored it on loyalty points rather than by winning the Hunger Games. It’s the second time we’ve stayed at the Marriott during Dragon Con, though last time was with help from a friend.
When we stayed at the hotel last time, they had a DJ pumping party tunes through the night. We were on a lower floor but were able to block out the music at night with towels under the door. There was a DJ this year as well, but the music was at a much higher volume. No amount of towels blocked out the bass that shook the walls so hard that the bathroom mirror was vibrating and the sound echoed in the shower.
I understand the Marriott is in the heart of the action at Dragon Con, but our previous experience shows that fun can still be had at a much lower music volume. The Marriott knew this was an issue, by the way, since they were distributing earplugs at check-in.
This section won’t be as long this year because I mixed a lot of the moments and memories into the highlights section, but these bits demand their own part of the spotlight.
Part One: Geek Family. This was a big year for spending time with our circle of friends. 2026 has been a rough year for many of us, and it comes on the heels of bad hits in 2025 and 2024. Spending time in person with this group bonding over our shared love of what the con has to offer was a balm on the soul that was sorely needed.
On Wednesday night, we had our annual gathering. We supplemented it with a Sunday night gather where we swapped jokes and stories and even made plans for next year’s shenanigans. It was lovely hanging out with Gary, Sue, Kevin and Felicity, Rachel and James, Kevin, Michael and Rachel, Shaun and Laura, and Keith and Wrenn. I got a hug and quick hello from ToniAnn and Kyle, and more hugs with happy hijinks from Lindy, Dan, Kevin, Wendy, and Karin.
I caught up with Bethany ever so briefly and got to meet her mother, a Dragon Con newbie who had a blast. We also spent a lot of time this weekend with Mike and Judy (back from a short Dragon Con break) and Barbara and Mary.
We spent a lot of time with these folks this year, though it never seems like enough. It’s important to catch up, celebrate our victories, and commiserate over our defeats. When I say that I’m tired, part of it is the walking and the talking, but the other part is letting this sense of belonging and camaraderie wash across me. Just living in it and enjoying it while it lasts.
Our larger group didn’t get a picture together this year. We need to remember that for next time.
Part Two: The Dragon Con Exercise Program. I routinely rack up 30-35 miles each year, which is an easy way to meet the Dragon Con Hustle 5k. It’s a great donation to charity in exchange for a unique medal, which was video game themed this time around. This year gained me another 29 miles in walking the streets of Atlanta.
My feet are pretty tired. I think it’s time to break in my new shoes.
353 days until Dragon Con 2027.
If you want to attend next year, Dragon Con 2027 will be held from September 2 to September 6, 2026. Badges and on sale now and hotel rooms will be coming soon. If you’re new to Dragon Con, I recommend joining Dragon Con Newbies for additional tips and tricks to enhance your experience.
I recommend it at least once. It can be immense and overwhelming, but there’s nothing quite like Dragon Con.
315 days until Dragon Con 2027.
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