The first annual DinoCon was at once both new and familiar. As Darren Naish put it, DinoCon is "the anagenetic descendant of TetZooCon". I'd been to quite a few TetZooCons, and like I mentioned in my report of the last one, I'd been anticipating its rebranding as DinoCon with both excitement and trepidation. Would DinoCon successfully preserve and build on what made TetZooCon such an enjoyable event? I'm happy to report that, for most part, it did!
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| Don't be surprised to spot an Allosaurus walking down the street at DinoCon. |
Whereas TetZooCon took place at various locations in London, this year's DinoCon was hosted by the University of Exeter (though it has been announced that it will change venues next year). I'd never properly visited Exeter before, but I was quite taken by the university campus. The grounds were beautiful, with large areas of green space that are apparently home to a good diversity of wildlife. In fact, the one experience I feel like I really missed out on was seeing a wild badger, which multiple other DinoCon attendees had reported doing after dark. All of the buildings in use for the convention were within easy access of one another (though I imagine that Exeter students get a pretty decent workout hiking up and down the hill that the university is built on).
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| It was a pleasure to spend my lunchtime on the first day of DinoCon with this dinosaur (Erithacus rubecula) on the university campus. |
I spent most of DinoCon attending the numerous oral presentations that were held throughout the event. Continuing the streak maintained by TetZooCon, every talk I attended was excellent, but if I had to pick a favorite it'd probably be the one delivered by David James Armsby on the making of his animated series Dinosauria. It was impossible (for me) to remain unmoved by Armsby's descriptions of his personal background and his experience at the convention. As it turns out, this was his first ever public appearance, and he'd never met a fan of his animated work in person prior to DinoCon. In the span of one weekend, he'd met hundreds. His presentation received a well-deserved standing ovation. A few other talks that I found especially memorable include the one on fossil preparation by Hillary McLean on fossil preparation and those on sauropods by Mike Taylor and Matt Wedel of SV-POW.
A tradition carried over from TetZooCon was the quiz. Befitting of its slightly different focus on paleontology (instead of tetrapod zoology), the questions at the DinoCon quiz were largely focused specifically on Mesozoic dinosaurs and popular culture related to them. I personally found it to be somewhat easier than the average TetZooCon quiz, which is perhaps backed up by the fact that though I was able to place second with a score of 27/30, I was tied with numerous other attendees!
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| Another tradition retained from TetZooCon was having a paleoart exhibition. Shown here is part of a series of works by Diane d'Erceville and Clémence Dupont depicting the history of life. |
Speaking of DinoCon's new focus, from an attendee's perspective I'd consider this to probably be its biggest loss in the transition from TetZooCon. Paleontology has always been a major part of the Tet Zoo "brand" (Darren is a paleontologist, after all), but the presentations on extant species at TetZooCon were frequently just as well represented and fascinating as those on extinct ones. That being said, there are plenty of ways to tie extant animals to topics in paleontology (as capably demonstrated this year by George Hancock's talk on visual ecology and how it can be applied to extinct species), so I have no doubt that there will be room for DinoCon to diversify its coverage as it grows and evolves.
In terms of providing a fun, unique, and welcoming experience for all those with a passion for paleontology (not solely academics), I think this first DinoCon was an amazing success. It was also very cool to learn that it had been put on the map (so to speak) on the collaborative pixel art website Wplace!
