ConCarolinas 2011

2000-2001: The Genesis - From the ashes of a failed (but valiant) attempt to get WorldCon to come to Charlotte, a group of individuals headed up by Irv Koch, calling themselves the South East Convention Fandom, Inc. (SECFI), rallied support for a general sci-fi Con in Charlotte. SECFI called upon experience from Cons like StellarCon, MACE, Roc of Ages, Babtrek and many more. Most of these people would stick around and eventually become the first ConCom of ConCarolinas, with Fred Grimm as the Chairman and Ron McClung as Vice Chairman.

At this time, the winged-panther was chosen for our mascot.

ConCarolinas started humbly as a two day event. Our guest list was small and comprised of mostly local writers and artists like Jeanne Foguth, dgk goldberg, Keith Bailey, and Gary Griffin. Events at this Con were meant to be teasers for what was to come in 2003. Gaming was the largest of our events.

CC2002 was an amazing success. We had around 300 people turn out for our humble little mini-Con. This was quite a surprise to many and created an enthusiasm that would feed our first full 3-day Con.

At this point, we started our good relations with the 501st Stormtroopers, the SCA, and the local KAG group, the Executioner.

The First 3-day ConCarolinas was a struggle against real life. Real life took away several ConCom members, but those that remained fought to bring this Con together. We had David Weber as our first Writer Guest of Honor, plus we were able to bring in Karen Taylor as a Featured Writer Guest. Programming was expanded to have 3 rooms of panels all weekend. The Rocky Horror Picture Show group F5 joined us for the first time and put on a great show.

Several out-door SCA events were planned and wide range of literary and fandom panels.

All that can be said about ConCarolinas 2003 is WOW! The fans turned out and had a blast. The ConCom's hard work was rewarded ten-fold. We can only thank the fans for the great success. We had around 500 attendees. We had a small movie filmed at our Con, we had Klingon Karaoke, we had gaming out of our ears, we had a great consuite and we had an unbelievable dealers room.

Out of CC2003, we gained many good relationships and learned many good lessons. All of these helped us make 2004 an even bigger success.

CC 2004 was another amazing adventure again. We had a bigger and better guest list, a top-notch Guest of Honor in Alan Dean Foster, and a good group of con staff as well as supporting fan groups that made it awesome. We tried new things, expanded on what worked in the past and really had a good con for fans and gamers a like.

CC2005 was yet another major success. We had increased attendance, larger dealer room, expanded program and new great guests. We decided to take a risk this year and get a few media guests. We had Ken Foree (Day of the Dead, Devil's Rejects), David Franklin (Farscape), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th movies) and Bill Blair (Star Trek, Babylon 5) as our media guests. Writer Guest of Honor was Greg Keyes. David Weber returned and was joined by his friend and co-writer John Ringo. It was an amazing weekend, and thanks to all the fans that made it that way.

CC 2006 was phenominal. We tried new things again and expanded in many areas. Our Writer Guest of Honor were Spider and Jeanne Robinson, and our Media Guest of Honor was Tony Amendola (Master Bra'Tac of Stargate SG-1 fame.) Our Gaming Guest of Honor was Peter Schweighofer. We also included more filking with our music special guests Boogie Knights. Many of our usual events were back including Rocky Horror. We also added video games, expanded our video room, had more readings and a Stargate LARP. Stargate Altanta brought their stargate. That was AWESOME!! What a great weekend!

CC2007 marked a new age for ConCarolinas (new Con Chair) and was yet again another great success. Guests included Writer GoH Barbara Hambly, Writer Special Guest Robert Buettner, as well as Media Guest of Honor Bodie Olmos (Battlestar Galactica). We also had Kelly Lockhart as a fan guest of honor, the Geek Comedy Tour, the Pirate Ball hosted in the con space and a lot of attention from the local media. We feel like now that we have established ourselves as fixture within Carolina and South East fandom.

2008 was a surprising year for us. Despite the rising price of gas, we had once again record turn out. Guests included Gary Jones from Stargate SG-1 and Suzie Plakson as well as Mike Resnick as our Literary Guest of Honor. Faith Hunter and David B. Coe were our literary special guests. We tried many new things. This was the first year we tried a Paranormal Track, and included groups like CAPS and WSPS. We also had our first Zombie Walk and welcomed in Single Cell Productions.

Success, however, came at a price and this one was that we realized that we were outgrowing the con space at the Marriott. We knew eventually we had to move and one month after the 2008 con, an opportunity to move came up.

2008 was also the year we won the DeepSouthCon bid at StellarCon. ConCarolinas 2010 will be the host of the 48th annual DeepSouthCon.

A year's worth of hard work, moving ConCarolinas to a new location - the Charlotte Hilton University Place - paid off in spades. There was so much new to the con, it is hard to list - new con suite room (on the lobby level), larger programming rooms, new layout, much more room for fan tables and gaming, food vendors provided by the hotel, and an awesome location. This is one of the best places to run a con.

Our guests were Katherine Kurtz for Writer Guest of Honor, Kathy Mar for Music Guest of Honor, Alan Welch as our Artist Guest of Honor, Anthony Forrest, Charles Root and Brandon Stacy as our Media Special Guests and Doc Travis Taylor as our Writer Special Guest.

Quite unexpectedly, the preregistration numbers were through the roof. With the economy the way it is, we thought that we'd take a hit on attendance. This was followed by amazing numbers at the door. We increased our attendance by more than 30% and broke the covetted 1000 mark. This was an accomplishment on its own as no con of our nature in recent Carolina history has ever reached this point. The one time con in Charlotte callled ROC of Ages in 1996 had 1200 or so but that was a con with a 6 digit budget and only made back 5. No one remembers the numbers of Magnum Opus Con, but most are fairly sure they never reached 1000.

ConCarolinas 2009 brought us into a new era of success and challenges. With DeepSouthCon next year, the con com is gearing up for the challenge.