Having had the experience earlier this year of manning our own artist table at the 2012 Philadelphia Wizard World, John and I were excited to now have an artist table at the “Infect Scranton” zombie convention in fabulous Scranton, PA. To say we overpacked for Wizard World would be something of an understatement. We had no idea what we were getting into at the time and given that it wouldn’t be easy to pick up stuff if we were missing anything, we came loaded to the gills.
This time around, though, John and I packed light. A couple of boxes, a stand for our banner and the bare minimum makeup were all we needed. Experience is always the best teacher.
Our friend Bob met us on Friday night. There was a zombie pub crawl scheduled for that night, but in an uncharacteristic display of sound judgement, we opted to have dinner and then call it a night since we had to get up in the morning and be productive.
The next morning, we piled into the car, found the location (a high school), grabbed some tables near the entrance and got ourselves set up.
The glamorous world of a zombie
Once the attendees began arriving, we got busy right away, pitching our insane ideas to any warm bodies with ears who were willing to give us a listen. People tended to be very receptive to us in general – it was a zombie convention after all. These were our people!
There’s been an accident
In the vendor room, there were tables manned by zombie authors, internet zombie radio show hosts, actors from The Walking Dead and a number of people who had played notable zombies in Dawn of the Dead.
Foot traffic started to die down in the late afternoon. There was a panel discussion with some cast members from The Walking Dead that was moderated by Matt Mogk from the Zombie Research Society. For reasons still unknown to us, people found the celebrities far more interesting that a couple of guys with a few silly ideas.
Following the panel, we took everything down and it was time for dinner. John, Bob and I took an unwilling tour of Scranton, PA as we found the restaurants we wanted to go to happened to be closed on Saturday night. Maybe they didn’t want to get overrun by zombies?
We made up for missing the pub crawl Friday night at the hotel bar. Just as we were wrapping up some of the celebrities from the convention entered the hotel lobby. Well, not ones to miss a good opportunity, we ended up meeting some, taking photos and having a few beers – all in all a wonderful finale to the evening.
With T-Dog from The Walking Dead
With Matt Mogk of the Zombie Research Society
The next morning, we crawled awake and shambled our separate ways – Bob heading home, and John and I attending a final brunch/fundraiser
This is the first time this event was held. For the most part it ran smoothly. Kudos to the organizer, Shannon Keith and we’re looking forward to taking part next year.