CONvergence 2019 Thrives in Downtown Minneapolis

The semiofficial motto of CONvergence the past couple years has been “CONvergence is not a hotel, it is a people.” It emerged over the course of the tumultuous months leading up to the 2018 convention, which featured unexpected delicate negotiations with the hotel that had been its long tenured home. Large bodies aren’t necessarily known for their ability to pivot quickly, and with a warm body count—the number of people who actually show up—that has averaged around 6,000 for the past five years, CONvergence certainly qualifies as one.

A sign outside the CoF₂E₂ Free Coffee Shop. After seeing its hours restricted in previous years, there was much rejoicing at being able to have free caffeine in the morning again! Rae Black

But while the announcement that CONvergence would be migrating to the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis was not unexpected for anyone who had been watching as convention after convention (Minicon, Anime Detour, 2D Con) departed the Bloomington DoubleTree for other venues, it wasn’t greeted with universal acclaim. The worries were varied, but most seemed to fall into two categories: the logistics of the downtown location and the loss of key features unique to the DoubleTree. (Interestingly, for people excited about the move, their reasons reflected the flipside of those same elements: excitement about the convention being downtown, and excitement for the new features the Hyatt would provide). Either way, with the official theme of the 2019 event being “The Next Celebration,” eyes and brains were on this new evolution of the con.

So, how did CONvergence 2019 fare?

With any convention of this size, it would be natural to expect some opportunities for improvement as theoretical plans are placed into the wild and subjected to the will of reality. In other words, to quote Robert Burns, “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” But while there certainly were some rough spots in the convention, the experience was generally smooth considering it was the first year in the space.

The main lobby lounge area at the Hyatt. Madeleine Vasaly

Room to Spread Out

According to announcements made at closing ceremonies, the warm body count for 2019 was approximately 5,800, putting it on par with recent years. The large amount of space the convention occupied at the hotel allowed for a lesser density of people, helping traffic move more efficiently. I really dislike being packed into very crowded locations—especially small, crowded locations with few exits—and previous years had occasionally required some mental preparation before entering some places, but I rarely encountered that in the new space. At the DoubleTree, numerous hallways and passageways would be marked as one-ways (a practice that did lead to the occasional fun puzzle in the form of “What’s the most efficient way to get from point A to point B?”). At the Hyatt, I saw this done only rarely, such as when it was required to streamline badging.

More room allowed for larger programming rooms and a larger CONvergence MainStage, meaning more people were able to attend panels and performances. There were a few problems with room layouts, such as the stairs to the stage in one panel room hindering access to the emergency exit and another having odd stage placement relative to a column, making the functional size of the room much smaller than the capacity determined by square footage. But those problems were minuscule in relation to the positives.

Gernsback Continuum rocked it out in Harmonic CONvergence: from left, Dennis Maddix on bass, Justin Hartley on drums, and Dave Stagner on guitar and vocals. Rae Black

The larger space also allowed for all convention areas to be in the same hotel instead of spread across multiple locations as well as on floors relatively close to one another. Harmonic CONvergence greatly benefited from its new location—the music performance venue was finally close to the rest of the convention while still not sharing any walls with other programming spaces, allow it to run a series of excellent concerts without disturbing any panels. My gamer spouse, who is often found playing Magic: The Gathering during CONvergence, was especially excited about the gaming space being on the fourth floor instead of in a series of rooms on the 22nd floor. As with the panel rooms, the gaming setup wasn’t without its issues; part of the fourth floor was partially unfinished and lacked carpet, resulting in an occasionally noisy space, and gamers had to hike to the other end of the floor convention space for bathrooms. But these were, at least for my partner, worth having fresh air, an easier-to-access payment system for scheduled gaming events, and a shorter commute to the space.

The gaming end of the fourth floor was also home to Connie’s Quantum Sandbox, the hands-on creative area of CONvergence, which was able to expand to two separate rooms. This allowed for more unstructured creative activities in addition to various scheduled workshops and events, including a kid-centered section to allow for some creative downtime and play for smaller geeks. In my opinion, this type of space is necessary for a convention to be truly kid friendly, and I am thrilled to see CONvergence offer it. One criticism I heard was that there was a lack of diaper changing spaces—hopefully something the con can address for 2020 and beyond.

A decorative sign in the Sandbox. Rae Black

Space Lounge, which took advantage of its larger space at night to be an even larger and more fantastic black-light, sparkly, space-themed chill extravaganza, hosted a series of performance-based panels and contests throughout the weekend. Among them was the “Chair Rikering” competition, which involved a series of contestants paying homage to the USS Enterprise-D First Officer William T. Riker’s unique approach to sitting on a chair. This, like many things at CONvergence, was wonderfully silly and entertaining in the best way.

New this year was Wordslingers Way, a dedicated venue for spoken-word performance, which featured storytelling, book readings, poetry slams, and comedy throughout the four days of the convention. The only problem was that the assigned space wasn’t always adequate to house all attendees—too many people showing up is a good problem to have, but it will make logistics difficult when it comes to determining which department gets which space next year.

After the final round of the Chair Rikering contest, the judges confer in secret while the host displays the impressive trophy for the winner. Rae Black

The new hotel was also a boon for the dealers room and artists alley. While previous years had required the dealers room to be squished into a series of three rooms, with the artists outside like kids who had been temporarily kicked out of class, both groups were able to spread out in the Hyatt’s large exhibit hall. This allowed for almost twice as many vendors as 2018 and a wider space for vending, which made browsing a significantly more pleasant experience, especially for those with mobility devices. Additionally, having the dealers room in the same hotel as everything else made visits much easier, though I do wish the room had had slightly longer hours.

The different room configuration similarly made for a more accessible experience at the CONvergence Art Show, with wider spaces between displays. Cinema Rex also received a much larger space, making it easier to hop in and grab a comfy seat on a couch even if you didn’t arrive before the start of the movie. The movie space was able to show an impressive lineup of movies, among them Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Bumblebee.

Falco takes on Kirby in a match up during live-action Super Smash Brothers. Look out for that Up+B move, Falco! Rae Black

All Are Welcome Here

CONvergence, in general, is always working to be a more inclusive space. This year continued the feature of many of the restrooms being labeled as “all inclusive,” allowing each con-goer to pick the location that fit best for them. All restrooms also featured stashes of emergency supplies, such as menstrual products and condoms, which were a brilliant addition appreciated by many on social media.

This year’s Guest of Honor lineup was wonderfully diverse. It included a variety of experts from a plethora of fields, encompassing literature, space exploration, game design, and music. Of particular note was CONvergence favorite Chuck Tingle—a legendary anonymous author of all-encompassing erotica who advocates that Love Is Real (and who also has one of the most positive Twitter feeds out there, in my own humble opinion).

Twin Cities Geek‘s Briana Lawrence joined Guest of Honor Chuck Tingle on the panel “Writing outside Your Experience.” Madeleine Vasaly

In addition to the robust list of honored guests, CONvergence also features a number of Invited Participants each year—various professionals with specialized and/or relevant knowledge who are willing to share that expertise with the attending convention members, usually through sitting on a number of panels. This year, this group included scientists, writers, game designers, educators,  critics, cosplayers, comedians, and a park ranger, all from varied backgrounds. (Note: In addition to Twin Cities Geek contributor Bryan Thao Worra being among the 2019 Guests of Honor, a number of this year’s Invited Participants were also people involved with our site as contributors, community managers, and, in one case, our senior editor.)

The slate of panels was as diverse or more so than the Guests of Honor and Invited Participants. Besides general sci-fi, fantasy, and pop-culture topics such as Star Wars, role-playing, comics, and video games, panels included Costuming and Cultural Appropriation, Representation vs. Tokenism, and Exploring Difficult Concepts through Fiction. The selection of panelists on each panel was wonderfully varied, which generally meant better discussion. The downside of this step toward more inclusive paneling is that it led to some panelists doing a bit more heavy lifting than others. The best solution in my eyes is that CONvergence puts a little more effort into recruiting varied panelists in future years to prevent burnout on the part of the current wonderful ones.

Growing Pains

While the general post-con consensus among my personal group of fellow CONvergence members and comments on various social media sites seemed to be that this was a great year for the convention, there were a few creaks to be expected as the convention settled into the new space. To the credit of the various volunteers in the numerous departments, problems that could quickly be solved were. For example, the flow of traffic from the escalator area into the fourth-floor convention space was tweaked slightly midway through the convention to reflect the actual use patterns of attendees.

Even the functions of spaces changed to meet the demand of participants. A fairly large open space in front of the con suite (the Northstar Prefunction area, to be exact) started as registration and badge pickup on Wednesday, then became an open hang-out space once registration demand waned, and finally became a hotel-run (and very useful) bag check on Sunday. (Hint for attendees: while the convention doesn’t start until Thursday, you can pick up your badge or register in person on Wednesday.)

The luggage storage area on Sunday morning. Earlier in the weekend, the same space had been used for registration and a general hang-out space. Rae Black

During and after the convention, most of the criticism I saw voiced on various CONvergence-related discussion platforms was related to four subjects: lack of general “hangout” spaces, party-room traffic, the con suite, and the police presence at the convention.

The criticism over hangout spaces, at least in my opinion, reflects an unfamiliarity with the Hyatt. The disconnect comes from moving from a hotel with one large communal area (the Garden Court and party area of the DoubleTree) to one with lots of smaller communal areas throughout the convention space. While there was some effort put in to create small interactive areas throughout the con (such as the amazing Minecraft box-building area that was especially popular with geeklings), I do agree with the attendees who felt there should be more seating in those community areas. While I’m perfectly happy plopping on the floor—and sometimes, like when you’re in a cosplay that features a big squirrel tail, it’s the preferable option—there are plenty of people who aren’t physically able to use that as a solution. My understanding is that the hotel had to find additional chairs to handle the CONvergence crowd in panels, so perhaps additional common seating will be an option next year.

The much-loved Minecraft blocks held up despite nearly constant enthusiastic used by at least one or more younger con attendees throughout the weekend. Rae Black

The party rooms were something that, based on pre-CONvergence discussion on social media, many expected would be adversely affected by the move. The Hyatt has no real equivalent to the unique setup of the Garden Court and pool area at the DoubleTree that would give the same open space while also preventing noise bleeding into sleeping rooms or other convention areas. With that in mind, party rooms of similar noise level were grouped together: high-noise parties were on one floor, medium-noise parties on another, and low-noise parties were on a third.

Many party favorites were back: Mos Icee Cantina, Vault 131, and Vice City returned to serve up their Icees, Atomic Blasts, and awesome homebrew, respectively. Other groups took advantage of the change of space to try something new—the group that in previous years had run the charming Bag End room offered the Rivendell party, which shone as a calm and peaceful oasis. Mobile parties, something new in the past few years, took small mobile setups to various places around the convention outside of the party-room space, something that ended up being a little different in execution for each party. Bing Bong’s Party Rocket roamed various convention spaces, while House of Toast partnered with ConSuite to provide late-night toast magic. While I went into the convention worried about the traffic in the party-room areas, I didn’t have any problems with moving around on any of the three nights I was there, though I cleared out before midnight each time.

The greatest difficulty in navigating the party rooms was on the third and fifth floors, where access from the escalators involved a path that felt so circuitous that I half expected to come across a sign advertising vaguely Nordic-sounding pieces of furniture. According to the maps in the convention booklet, there was a set of stairs that would have made finding a path a little easier, but I don’t remembering seeing any wall or floor markings directing traffic in that direction.

An unnamed con-suite volunteer serves up rice to a hungry attendee. Rae Black

As for the con suite, pleasing everyone 100 percent is a near-impossible goal. When you have the constraints of a realistic budget set against the dietary restrictions and preferences of almost 6,000 people and are trying to accomplish all of this with a volunteer staff, the reality is that at least some people won’t be fully satisfied. The new space for the con suite allowed for better technical setup behind the scenes this year—the location is an actual food-service area instead of a series of hotel suites. Rice and soup, the two staples of the CONvergence ConSuite, each had their own room, helping the lines move a little faster, and visitors were able to pass directly between the two, which had not been possible previously. There was table seating in the back of both spaces, something occasionally overlooked by visitors. The biggest snag in operations was the lack of availability of ingredient and/or allergen lists for the soups, something that had been prominently displayed in the past (and will very likely be corrected for next 2020). Some people also voiced concern about peanut contamination—peanut butter was also present in the soup room, but the rice con did have cookies that had peanuts in them as well—but again, based on the willingness of this con to do right by its members, I am optimistic that this will be looked at for the future.

The final polarizing issue that particularly sparked conversation during and after the con among community members was the police presence. While having at least a few uniformed officers on hand had been the protocol at CONvergence for a while due to the size of the event and requirements of the venue, their visibility and the overall con community’s awareness of their presence greatly increased at CONvergence 2018 due to the DoubleTree’s requirement. The police presence in 2019 was significantly smaller than last year, but it was still noticeable. Fortunately, most activities on their part were limited to hanging around various areas, playing on their phones, and looking really bored, though I’m aware of one report of an officer making some not-great comments speculating on the gender of a con attendee (something that was reported and is being dealt with). Still, their presence made many attendees nervous; CONvergence’s attempts to create a truly inclusive event mean that many attendees belong to groups that haven’t historically been treated fairly by authoritative bodies such as police officers. For such groups, instead of police presence making them feel safer, it chips away at the safe environment the convention has tried to create. Going forward, this may be one of the greater challenges that the community faces: how can the CONvergence community work together to make all members feel comfortable while still meeting the requirement of a police presence?

One cosplayer came as the ghost of the DoubleTree to remind us of our past. Madeleine Vasaly

Looking Ahead

This generally positive first year at the Hyatt Regency doesn’t mean that the next few years of CONvergence won’t be without new problems. Unfortunately, while the convention was able to secure the traditional 4th of July weekend dates for 2019, there will be a period of a few years where the convention’s dates will likely move in to August before a return to tradition for 2023. The announcement of the 2020 dates being August 20‒23 caused a little bit of alarm among some of the community due to the overlap with Minnesota Renaissance Festival season and State Fair prep, but when you have a community of over 6,000, it’s pretty difficult to make everyone universally happy.

I have a feeling that attendance will stay fairly steady over the next few years, and when the convention returns to calendar normalcy, returning members who might have had to take a break will be welcomed back. After all, just as CONvergence isn’t a location, it also isn’t a date. It’s a people.

Ravenclaws at the Harry Potter photo meetup. Madeleine Vasaly