BOROUGHCON TO BRING ‘NERD’ CULTURE TO NEW YORK’S NEIGHBORHOODS
New Convention to Attract Fantasy Fans Throughout the Four Boroughs
Superheroes, animation and gaming fans will soon converge on Utopia Parkway for a three-day gathering in a park-like setting.
St. John’s University will host BoroughCon, a new pop culture convention, over Memorial Day weekend, May 27-29, 2017. The event, which is expected to draw more than 30,000 attendees, will appeal to enthusiasts of heroic stories in film, television, gaming and graphic formats, as well as to those who enjoy anime and manga –animation and comics, respectively, in the Japanese tradition.
BoroughCon programming will include panels and autograph sessions with celebrities, gaming tournaments, screenings of both classic and as-yet unreleased films and TV shows, a vendors’ room and an artists’ alley. In addition to special programming for youth and children as well as their parents and grandparents, there will also be a cosplay competition.
“Cosplay is the performance art of creating costumes based on your favorite media characters, then embodying those characters for the audience. It has become a staple of these conventions, and cosplay is always one of the most popular draws.
Media guests have not yet been announced but, BoroughCon will be able to deliver at least a couple household names, as well as several actors well-known to everyone from all walks of life within the nerd community.”
– Matthew Goodison-Orr, BoroughCon CEO
Former promoter of the legendary KnightroCon in Orlando, Florida, will be bringing all his knowledge and expertise to create a unique convention experience.
The nerd community, he said, includes fans of comic books, manga, gaming, and science fiction/fantasy movies and television shows—and a great many self-professed geeks live in underserved neighborhoods of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. He continues that the three he served as CEO of Orlando’s KnightroKon, they catered to up to 40,000 fans a year.
“Surprisingly, New York City and the surrounding area runs short of adequate event space despite the world-class sports and concert venues. None of the hotels have anywhere enough meeting space for a convention of BoroughCon’s size, and the Javits Center is already home to New York Comic Con, with which we have no desire to invite comparison. So my partners and I chose to focus on the Four Boroughs, and St. John’s became the clear choice.”
– Matthew Goodison-Orr, BoroughCon CEO
The decision to embrace the outer boroughs required very little persuasion.
“Queens has roughly the same population as Houston, and Brooklyn is almost the size of Chicago. Both those middle-American cities host multiple ‘cons’ annually. So why would we want to be the second-biggest-by-a-mile in Manhattan when we can build something new and different here?”
– Matthew Goodison-Orr, BoroughCon CEO
What will set BoroughCon apart, according to Goodison-Orr, is direct access to the well-known guests.
“We won’t have diamond-level VIPs blocking regular attendees’ ability to meet their favorite celebrities. If you come to BoroughCon, you’ll get a chance to meet, shake hands with or get an autograph from someone whose work you admire. We like to think that BoroughCon will be for regular fans, it will be the Con for the rest of us.”
– Matthew Goodison-Orr, BoroughCon CEO
BoroughCon tickets will go on sale in November, and announcements of media guests will start within the next few weeks. For up-to-date information, please visit boroughcon.com.
Tune into Comic Frontline Monday September 26, 2016 at 10:00 PM ET for a special interview with Kat Comic Uno & myself Comic Book Theater!
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