Sci-fi fans are gathering at the 12th annual ConCarolinas at the University City Hilton Hotel on Friday. Author George R.R. Martin is headlining as the weekend’s special guest.
Participants began checking in at the three-day convention early yesterday afternoon. Many attendees roam the hotel hallways in costume. You can run into everyone from Luke Skywalker to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to even Captain Crunch, visiting from Cereal Land, here to – his words – share his crunchberries with all the ladies.
But the biggest celebrity this weekend is George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Fire and Ice, the series which inspired the TV show Games of Thrones.
One woman dressed as the Ellaria Sand character from the series says she and her friend drove all the way from Connecticut to see the author.
“Like everything else is awesome," says the beloved paramour of Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, "but we’ll wait in a line for like 10 hours to see George. We drove 13 yesterday to come see him.”
Event organizers expect about 2,000 attendees. It’s the first year the convention has sold out. Tig Pollum, who spells her name "T – I – single 'guh,' no 'er'" is a volunteer at ConCarolinas. She says she's a regular on the convention circuit. It’s the celebration of geek culture that keeps her coming back.
“We’re the kids that got teased in high school and middle school because we were bookworms or were weird," she says, " Now we get to have a safe space where we actually get to come and celebrate our geekiness and get to be around like-minded people.”
The convention runs through Sunday. Other guests include Star Trek: Enterprise actor Anthony Montgomery, comic book artist Tommy Lee Edwards, and electronic music group Valentine Wolfe.