David Stanfield has attended countless pop culture conventions over the past 30 years. When he decided to create a convention of his own, he knew he wanted to do something a bit different than what was typically seen at other events, such as Visioncon or Missouri Comic Con.
“There’s a million of them, and they all do them well,” he said. “I didn’t think I needed to reinvent that wheel.”
What he did notice was a disconnect in the creator community — a central location where creatives such as writers, artists, game designers, cosplayers and others could get together, discuss their respective crafts and inspire one another.
That’s the void that Tremendicon, a three-day convention celebrating the creative aspects of pop culture, has begun to fill — and it intends to build on what made it successful during its inaugural event in 2022.
“I feel like there’s a lack of resources to be creative in this community,” said Ida Doden, Tremendicon vice president. “I never would have known how to make a comic book or publish a novel. There aren’t really resources to figure that out. We have a need for that.”
“There’s a lot of conventions that don’t take on the grand scheme of creativity,” added Stanfield, who also serves as the con’s president. “That is kind of what I wanted to do. The way I figured to do that was, by our guests being creators, they need to give back into the convention by putting in content.”
Want to go?
- What: Tremendicon 2023
- When: Friday, July 7, noon to 10 p.m.; Saturday, July 8, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, July 9, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Registration closes at 7 p.m. on July 7-8, and at 2 p.m. on July 9
- Where: Oasis Hotel and Convention Center, 2550 North Glenstone
- Admission: $50 for all three days (80 percent of profit goes to Ozarks Food Harvest, the other 20 percent back into the creative community)
- More information: Official website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter
Creatives offer content tracks
While Tremendicon’s guests will still engage in typical convention guest activities — selling merchandise, signing autographs, taking photos and interacting with fans — they will have a fair amount more to offer here. Specifically, part of their time at Tremendicon is meant to inspire, educate and inform attendees with at least three hours of content pertaining to their careers that others can learn from.
At your typical convention, attendees openly traverse the show floor and interact with guests, vendors and each other, with optional panels spread throughout the event where guests discuss their careers in front of audiences.
Tremendicon tweaks that with what is known as the “track” method, in which conference sessions are separated into areas focusing on a specific theme. For example, an aspiring writer may want to follow the writer track, which includes various panels on self-publishing, writing compelling villains and building up your fantasy world, among others. Artists may learn the basic principles of animation in one panel before moving on to figure photography. Those on the maker track can play board games with the games’ original designers or even create their own board games over the weekend, which professional makers will then play and judge.
In pop culture terms, think of it as a sort of “choose your own adventure.”
“Not many conventions utilize that format,” Stanfield said. “It allows the attendee to focus on the topics they want to see.”
Attendees who may have a wider variety of interests are free to switch between tracks as they see fit.
“For a person like myself, I don't have any one thing that I'm interested in,” Doden said. “I want to see it all. I could go to a cosplay class and learn how to make armor, and then I could go to the leather class and see how that works. Then I could go to a writer class and see how that works. You can follow whatever your interests are.”
AI to kids — something for everyone
Since many creative career paths tend to have some crossover, it’s only logical to expect that several tracks at Tremendicon will also cross over with one another.
One panel Stanfield expects to be particularly “spicy” will discuss artificial intelligence, which has had a powerful impact on multiple creative communities over the past year. “There are some that think it's great and others that think it’s literally Armageddon,” he said. “These guys are going to tell you how they feel. I haven’t seen that kind of panel crop up at any other convention. Some are losing their jobs, losing money. AI is writing articles, drawing pictures for companies. That's just one of the many interesting topics.”
This overlap between different creative outlets also helps attendees appreciate the importance of other areas they may not have initially considered.
“There's a lot of people that are coming that may not realize how important these other tracks can be,” Stanfield said. “Game designers need writers and artists. You might be a good game designer, but you may not be a very good writer. So, if you're writing some kind of story to go along with your thing, you may need a writer to do it. Then, art for your game — if you're just drawing stick figures, it's probably not going to be terribly successful. You have to get an artist.”
One track in particular that is near and dear to Stanfield’s heart is the kids track.
“I feel like most kids don't get a very big exposure to creative outlets at school,” he said. “This is where they can come and get that. The kids track weaves through all the other tracks. Kids honestly get the best out of their money, because they're getting exposure to every single track, and we have so many things for them to be actively involved in. We want kids to go and feel like they're part of the convention, too.”
Collaborations, con buddies spark discoveries
Having a venue full to the brim with aspiring and professional writers, artists, game designers, cosplayers and makers brings with it an outpouring of creative energy. During his time running cons for other organizations, Stanfield was surprised to note how it sparked creative collaborations he wouldn’t have expected.
“I think it was 2010,” he recounted. “I invited horror authors — just a bunch of them, because they were inexpensive to get and are super fun. All these authors that had never really talked to each other before were put into a small space over a weekend. The next year, I found out that there were all these collaborative works that just happened that never would have if they hadn’t been. I didn't intend for that to happen, but that's awesome. Those are the kind of things that we’re trying to reproduce with this convention, not just between the professionals, but also the people coming in that are maybe not self-published yet or aren't what you call ‘big time.’”
Many creative types tend to keep to themselves or be a bit on the shy side, so Stanfield and crew hope to alleviate any potential trepidation with their “find a con buddy” service — sort of like speed dating, but for people to find other congoers who share their interests by using conversation prompts.
“It came out of this really weird idea,” Stanfield said, relating one of his con experiences. “I noticed every year I had what I call a ‘secret con buddy.’ You don't talk to them, but everywhere you go, they're there. And this is a convention of, like, 80,000 people. What are the odds? One year it was a guy dressed like Abraham Lincoln. And I'm like, ‘Oh, Abe’s here again. My con buddy.’ Everybody wants to find a buddy. We've kind of worked into that. It became a really popular event, and people are really looking forward to it this year, too.”
And if someone happens to discover their career path along the way, all the better.“If, years from now, we have Tremendicon number five and some young artist, game designer or creative comes to me and says, ‘Hey, I didn't know what I was trying to do, I didn't know how to do it, but I wanted to do something with my life that was creative. I came to Tremendicon. I met so-and-so, and now that's what I do for a living, and I'm happy,’ all the work has been worth it,” Stanfield said. “That’s making one person happy for the rest of their life. I find that to be very fulfilling.”
