WKCon was a simple idea that I stubbornly made into a somewhat grandiose idea, and even more stubbornly decided was going to be seen to the end. Which now is kind of like the beginning. Which is totally cool.

It started out as an idea on the old Party Central message board, which was to get a few fans together from across the country. It would happen in New York City - but wait, everything's cheaper in Philly. Let's just rent a VFW Hall and put on a show with all kinds of fan stuff and call it a convention! I knew some of the people who put on GatchaCon (at ComiCon) in San Diego. They still had their hair, and they always had amazing stories of getting together, and it seemed to make all the writers and animators and voice actors of Gatchaman so happy, that people would do that year after year. Of course this was the fall of 2002 - "I Get Wet" had only been released in the States a few months earlier. So, Cons were usually reserved for 30 year old TV shows and such, but that didn't seem to matter to me, as long as there were devoted fans who wanted to do it. I don't know if I really thought it would pan out, but I had no reason to think it couldn't be done. I'd put on shows before, knew that it was both easy and a constant crisis, but nothing I couldn't handle.

After a show in Lancaster, PA in December 2002, I found myself with the perfect opportunity to tell Andrew about the idea. I swallowed my reservations that this was the Stupidest Idea On The Planet and told him. He seemed to like the idea. A lot. He wanted to help fund it. I was too stunned to tell him he wasn't going to give us a penny. We were going to put it together and fund it ourselves. We never did accept any money from him, but the offer itself was amazing.

Armed with this brand new confidence in the Con idea - Andrew wanted to do it! - we moved forward, and rather quickly hit a brick wall. Talking about doing a convention was easy. Actually putting it together - and expecting that people would actually want to come in from out of town for it - was hard. Even harder, it turned out, was finding a date that wouldn't interfere with Andrew's schedule, since he wanted to be there. This, after all, wasn't any kind of official Island-sponsored event, it was a DIY party put on by a bunch of souped-up fans. Andrew's manager, Trevor, started working with me to nail down a date, and he even came up with some good ideas. But the date was elusive. We had originally hoped to do it in May '03 - May came and went. June came and went, but at that point we were completely unprepared anyway. October '03 sounded good, so did November '03. We had considered doing it in tandem with a regular club show, but that didn't work out. I still wanted to have our own live bands, and I called as many VFWs and Fire Halls in the tri-state area as I could, but I was nervous about finding someone with a sound system. Our budget was extremely tight, and I was not about to tell Trevor or Andrew that we needed money to rent a PA. It just wasn't going to happen. We'd figure it out.

By the beginning of 2004, people rarely even asked if we had a date yet any more. I started thinking about it "realistically" (note: if you ever want to try to do something, avoid this at all costs): The scene is too cliquish to have an event like this - what, was I trying to start a war or something? Who was going to show up? AWK wasn't going to play, and I couldn't promise anyone 100% that Andrew would be there. If we didn't find someone with a silkscreen, we'd never afford t-shirts - could we even afford blank ones? I never should have even brought up the fanzine - what was I thinking with that? Maybe enough people hadn't seen the video of rare TV and other AWK footage that people would enjoy that, at least. I talked up the screenings (ironically, the screenings - the one thing I thought would make the Con successful - was the one thing we didn't wind up having). None of it mattered, because we didn't have a date. without a date, people weren't convinced it was for real, and didn't contribute to it (with a few exceptions of course). Without people contributing to it by helping out or with funds, we'd be screwed when and if we ever actually got a date. It's not like we were going to have a confirmed date six months or a year in advance. We couldn't do all the real work within, say, two months.

Except that we did. I'm not exagerrating when I say that, the very day I'd accepted that the truth of the matter was it wasn't going happpen, not the way we'd wanted it to, anyway, and I'd have to start thinking about returning the funds that people had generously donated, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Andrew saying he was avaiable in late June, and would that work? I unilaterally picked the last Saturday of the month - the 26th, and said yes. This was the end of April, and I wasn't sure if it would be enough time, but this was the first concrete date we'd had yet, and I wasn't going to blow it now. I held my breath and waited for the roof to cave in. But it didn't. I announced the date rather caustiously, and informed people that this was really it. There was no turning back now, we had to pull everything together and do this.

And sure enough, we did. Suddenly, the heavens opened up and doused us with good fortune. A rather casual inquiry by e-mail to Doc Watson's Pub, after the place we thought we were going to use couldn't give us a straight answer about availablity, gave us both an incredibly affordable venue ($400 less than planned), and, for a few dollars more, a sound guy to run the equipment they had set up on their second floor. Beautiful. The t-shirts went way under budget, thanks to Roman, and the Jeff's t-shirt design was amazing. There was enough money to do posters, too, and stickers. The zine looked dead in the water, but it was a project I really wanted to have happen, if only to use Nick's awesome cover, so I did it myself. Again, under budget. The idea for simple, corny wrappers for Kit Kat bars became stupendous works of art thanks to Brian and Liz. Tracy and Kathy volunteered to make banners. Anne booked the most amazing bands, and in some cases, had to rebook new bands when things would fall though, and yet it went smoothly. People had their travel arrangements set. Everything was coming together. I waited for the roof to cave in. It didn't.

I remember standing near the giant platters of chicken wings and jalepeno poppers at Doc Watson's on the 26th; it was only about 2 in the afternoon, but in the windowless bar room it felt like midnight. Some of the people in the room were good friends I'd hung out with, some were good friends I'd only just met in person that day, some were people I vageuely remembered seeing at this show or that show but had never officially met before, and some I had never met until that day. Everyone was grinning, having a good time, making new friends, laughing. Andrew hadn't even gotten there yet, and people were coming up to me and thanking me for organizing it, saying what a great time they were having. It was amazing. I grabbed Nicole (one of the good friends I'd only just met in person that day, who from the time she had signed on as a planner had never wavered, not once). "Oh my God," I said, "We actually did it!" We jumped up and down like little kids. The bands were amazing. Andrew showed up, just like he said he would, and the electricity in the room went into overdrive. It was a great day, a really happy day, and in the end, it wasn't really a "convention" at all. It was more like a family reunion.

THANKS TO EVERYONE!

-Holly

Idea: Nikki James
Organization and stress: Holly Quinn
Band Booking/MC: Anne Coleman
T-shirt/poster Artwork: Jeff Rowe
Photography Show/Photography: Roman Meisenberg
Zine cover/Sticker Artwork: Nick Sheehan
Kit Kat Wrapper Design: Brian Compton
Kit Kat Wrapping: Liz Compton, Meredith Whidden
T-shirt printing: Roman
Bands: Crackjaw (Ian, Ryan, Dave, & Penguin), Into The Dementia (Mike, Anthony, Joe, & Jake)
Banners: Tracy DelJanovan & Kathy Pendleton
Food: Nicole Stiffler, Elaine Brutosky, Meredith
Video: Holly, Liz, Tracy, Meredith
Artwork specs technician: Brian Compton
Setup/Takedown: Nicole, Elaine, Liz, Anne, Holly
Travel and Accomodations: Elaine, Jenn Nabors
Fund Contributors: Nicole Stiffler, Elaine Brutosky, Lindy Hewitt, Meredith Whidden, Dot DeLuitzo, Becky Sadler, Brandy Soldan, Kristin Gullo, Kathy Pennington, Kim Stinger, Tracy DelJanovan, Kathy Pendleton, Jimmy Collins, Jill Iraki, Rob Sadler
Two years of Brainstorming: Dot, Kelly, Justin L, Nikki, Liz, Holly

Very Special Thanks to Andrew WK - see what Andrew said about WolfKultCon in his Q&A here!