Pictured L-R: Courtney Curry, manager, convention services, ACVB; Mandy Collier, senior director, Dragon Con; Ben Collier, senior director, Dragon Con; Rachel Reeves, senior director and co-chairman, Dragon Con; Sherry Henry, Dragon Con; Pat Henry, president and founder, Dragon Con; William Pate, president and CEO, ACVB; Jamey Reeves, web master, Dragon Con; Mark Vaughan, executive vice president and chief sales officer, ACVB; Monica Green, sales manager, national accounts, ACVB.
Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau and Dragon Con gathered in late August to celebrate the convention’s 32nd iteration by showcasing this year’s street banners. The pop culture event took place in downtown Atlanta, Aug. 30-Sept. 3 and attracted an estimated 80,000 people, approximately the same as last year’s record gathering with an estimated economic impact of approximately $79 million.
Dragon Con is the internationally known pop culture convention held each Labor Day in Atlanta. Organized for fans, Dragon Con features more than about 3,000 hours of comics, film, television programming, costuming, art, music, and gaming over four days. Fans could speak with creators from Smite, one of the most popular video games to come out of Georgia and hang out with this year’s guests: Jennifer Morrison, “Once Upon a Time”; Evangeline Lilly, “Ant Man & The Wasp”; Mike Colter, “Luke Cage“; and Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin, “Stranger Things.” “Artemis,” the latest book from Andy Weir, collected a Dragon Award as the best Science Fiction Novel of the past year.
Dragon Con raised at least $85,000, including the convention match, for its 2018 official charity, Literacy Action Inc., which helps teach under-educated adults in the Atlanta area literacy, life skills and work skills. The convention picked the American Heart Association’s Georgia Chapter as its 2019 official charity, in honor of Thom Trainor, the long-time director of the convention’s Comics and Pop Artist division, who passed away this summer.
Established in 1913, Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau is the official destination marketing organization for the city and serves to favorably impact Atlanta’s economy through conventions and tourism. A private, not-for-profit organization, ACVB bolsters Atlanta’s $15 billion hospitality industry which generated 53 million visitors in 2017. For more info, visit atlanta.net.
