Con Safety 101: Taking Care of Yourself, Your Assets, and Your Sanity
Picture by Adam Howell
Whether a seasoned veteran or fandom newbie, navigating the convention jungle can be a tough task. Fortunately, with a little planning, you can make it from hotel check-in to check-out alive and intact.
Taking care of yourself at the event should be your first priority. Consider the 5-2-1 rule. Five hours of sleep, two meals, and one shower. Daily. Please, be well-rested, fed, and deodorized. Everybody will thank you.
Every attendee should also consider coming armed with the following:
– Band-aids
– A water bottle to stay hydrated.
– Advil or other over-the-counter pain medications.
– Any prescription medications you might need. The con will be infinitely less fun if you miss your meds.
– Extra shoes, if your cosplay has uncomfortable shoes.
– Emergency money…for emergencies. Not con swag. Think “It’s 1AM and I got lost going from the convention center to my hotel. I need a taxi!” or “I haven’t eaten in 32 hours and have no snacks! I’d better buy a muffin before I faint and miss the rest of the con!”
– The phone numbers of your friends, family, or anyone else you might need to contact in an emergency. In case you misplace, forget, or are otherwise separated from your cell phone, these should be written on paper.
– A con guide. It’ll have the map of the con, as well as tell you where you can go if you need security, medical help, or the closest bathroom.
Taking care of the stuff you bring is important, and although conventions have security and lost-and-founds, you need to be responsible for your own property. Bring a backpack/messenger bag/pack mule to carry your gear. Any swag you may buy from dealers should go to your hotel room or car. It’s easy to forget an extra bag under your seat in the panel room. And the best rule to follow is if you don’t need it, don’t bring it. An all-night Counterstrike tournament SOUNDS awesome, but are you really going to want to stay up all night considering there’s so much awesome stuff going on the next day? Don’t bring laptops, iPads, etc unless necessary.
Leaving with your sanity is a joint effort between you and the convention staff. Accidents happen, things get lost, or you may find yourself in uncomfortable situations. If you lose something, get hurt, see something bad happen or ever feel fearful of your safety, please ask for help. Convention staff is here to help you. And if the person you talk to can’t help you, they can get you someone who can. A lot of times people report problems after the convention is over, when it’s too late to help. The sooner you let us know, the sooner we can help fix what went wrong.
If this hasn’t scared you away from conventions, congratulations! We’ll see you there!
“Operation Hammond is a group of like minded individuals within the anime, scifi, fantasy and pop culture convention scene dedicated to bringing awareness of first aid, emergency preparedness and training to people who attend, help and staff anime, scifi, fantasy and pop culture conventions. The diversity and social aspects of people in this social scene are unique. We aim to bring them all together into a cohesive group that can serve the anime, scifi, fantasy and pop culture community.” For any questions or advice, please visit www.operationhammond.com.
