Ginger Oh Snap (at left) and Ms. Pepper Potts (at right) will talk about their experiences with Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee (center) at HyperiCon.
HyperiCon, Nashville’s premier speculative fiction and gaming convention, returns this year Friday, July 6 through Sunday, July 8, 2018. The thirteenth HyperiCon convention will be held at the Nashville Marriott Airport Hotel. HyperiCon 13 will feature three days of writing, gaming, fandom, art and costuming, panels, non-stop video programming, and a non-stop gaming room, fandom and tech panels.
Enjoy over 120 hours of programming, spectacular events, fascinating guests and speakers, children’s fandom activities, the region’s only convention Luau, the best cosplay experience in the region, and the exciting fun social scene of your fandom peers, round-the-clock for three days at a beautiful destination hotel and conference center.
The most iconic stories and tales in human culture start with a simple question: “WHAT IF…?” It is that creative spark – that fuel for the imagination – which is celebrated at HyperiCon. This year’s Guests of Honor include Sherrilyn Kenyon, Melissa Gay, Jamie Chambers, Nicholas Brendon, Ginger Oh Snap & Ms. Pepper Potts, Sara Neathery, The Bombshell Kittens, and the MC for Cosplay Big Daddy Cool.
Gaming Guest of Honor Jamie Chambers was born in Atlanta, the son of a Trekkie and an early D&D player, Jamie was doomed early to a life of geeky pursuits. Author Guest of Honor Sherrilyn Kenyon, New York Times and international bestselling author, is a regular at the #1 spot, with legions of fans known as Menyons, her books are always snatched up as soon as they appear. Cosplay Guests of Honor Ginger Oh Snap & Ms. Pepper Potts are costumers, models, cosplay entertainers, and burlesque performers. Melissa Gay is a critically-acclaimed, genre-spanning artist of the Imaginative Realism style. Master of Ceremonies Big Daddy Cool Johnny Delarocca is a walking talking reminder of a time long past, a tough as nails ex-gangster turned entertainer and Chicago nightclub impresario supreme.
2018 featured guests and panelists include author Glen Cook, drag entertainer Venus Ann Serena, Louise Herring-Jones, Aubrey Stephens, the Cosplay Collective, Lydia Sherrer, Matt Kelsey, and Nicholas Brendon. This year’s panels will include such things as this author’s panel, entitled ‘1968: The Year in Sci-Fi’ as it will explore what was going on 50 years ago in science fiction books, film, and TV. We’ll discuss important films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, and Planet of the Apes, television shows including the historic interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, along with other fascinating facets of the year that mankind first sent human beings into lunar orbit, and set the stage for the lunar landing the following year.
Probably the most remarkable thing about HyperiCon is their Signature Event lineup with some entertaining new programming as well as the return of some old favorites, including Opening Ceremonies, Hypericon Cosplay Showcase, Talkin’ Dead, Burlesque Cabaret, Luau Pool Party with the Luau Dinner in the ConSuite and the Luau Pool Party poolside, and Closing Ceremonies. There will be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Once More with Feeling” Shadowcast early Friday evening and a Rocky Horror Picture Show – Shadowcast later that night.
This is a family-friendly event, and they will have a kids track with activities for the kids. They will have some HyperiCon After Dark (7 pm and later) Events with age requirements of 18+ or 21+. You can purchase a Friday or Saturday Night After Dark Ticket to attend the Events after 7 pm. Feel free to come in costume especially for the Rocky Horror Picture Show Costume Contest Friday Night or the Time Traveler’s Masquerade Ball Saturday Night. For more information on these and other events at the HyperiCon website and/or Facebook Page.
Enjoy this alphabetically arranged sampling of the dozens of panels and events at HyperiCon 13:
HyperiCon 13 From A to Z: Adult Toys of the Future; Building the Future of Gaming with Diversity; Character Acting for Fun & Profit; DC & Marvel TV vs. Comics; Encounters to Scare Your PC’s; Fantasy Still Has Rules: Magic & Time Travel Done Right; Geek Trivia with A Tale of Two Geeks; Hanging at the Bronze: Buffyverse in Our Lives; Infinity Wars Group Therapy Session; I Touched Stan Lee! An Hour with Ginger Oh Snap! and Ms. Pepper Potts; HyperiCon Karaoke; Let’s Talk Conspiracy Theories; Military Sci-Fi for the Non-Military Trained Writer; Never Thought About If They Should Do the Thing: Ethics in Sci-Fi; Once More with Feeling: the Buffy Shadowcast; Podcasting Tips and Tricks; Quick Cosplay Repair Tips & Tricks; Rocky Horror Picture Show; Spam Slam, Best / Worst Opening Line Contest, & Autocorrect Poetry; The Sorting Hat; The Magical Unicorn: LGBTQA+ Roles Across Fandoms; Video gaming around the clock; Editor’s Tell All! What NOT To Do If You Want to Be Published; Surprise Q&A / XYZ.
Hypericon by the Numbers — 1968: The Year in Sci-Fi – 1968 was a banner year for the science fiction genre, going from 2001 and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? All the way to the evergreen tales of Night of the Living Dead and Planet of the Apes. Cass Teague (this article’s author) will expound on why this year was so important for the genre as a whole.
