Minnesota has a huge geek community. As a writer for Twin Cities Geek, I have been fortunate to write about various conventions throughout the state. At the beginning of November, I attended Twin Cities Con at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Twin Cities Con is similar to C2E2 or Planet Comic Con except that I don’t have to travel far to attend. It’s been notoriously difficult for Minnesota to host a bigger convention and there are many reasons for that. If you’re interested in “the tea”, trust me, I have it.

The first bigger convention that I remember was Wizard World which apparently was rebranded to Fan Expo. Wizard World was held in the 2010s at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Wizard World struggled with attendance and part of that was due to the event coinciding with another local convention. This angered fans (including myself) because I would rather go to a local convention that’s run by volunteers who care for the community than an event that cares about profit. Wizard World died out after a few events.

After Wizard World was Fan Fest and/or Fan Fusion. This is a convention hosted in Phoenix, but the company wanted to host a convention in Minnesota. Fan Fest / Fan Fusion hosted two conventions, one in 2017 (branded as Fan Fest) and one in 2018 (branded as Fan Fusion). Both conventions did not do very well. There are many reasons for this. First of all, the conventions were held at the Saint Paul River Centre. For those who have never been to Minnesota, Saint Paul is a “sleepy city”. Don’t get me wrong, Saint Paul is a beautiful city, but there aren’t a whole lot of events going on whereas Minneapolis is a lot more busy. The second issue with Fan Fest / Fan Fusion was the cosplay policy. The cosplay policy was one of the strictest cosplay policies that I have ever seen. The way the cosplay policy was written was targeted towards women and went into detail about how women’s bodies needed to be covered up. Many thought that it was sexist because it focused so heavily on women specifically. Additionally, many props were banned. For example, I couldn’t bring the bright orange plastic toy guns that I use in my Lara Croft cosplay because they resemble guns even though they are very clearly a toy. To Fan Fusion’s credit, there was an incident at their Phoenix event where someone did bring a gun into the building to try and kill an actor. It’s completely valid to feel protective over your event and want to keep people safe, however, it wasn’t communicated that way in their cosplay policy. If it was, I don’t think it would have been an issue. Finally, if that wasn’t enough, the event was scheduled for August. No one in Minnesota will want to attend an indoor event in August. Our Summers are so pretty and everyone is outside, soaking up the sun or going to a cabin up north. It showed that the company putting on Fan Fest / Fan Fusion didn’t know anything about Minnesota.

After Fan Fest / Fan Fusion, Galaxy Con took a chance to plan a convention in Minnesota. However, they ended up getting the short end of the stick because of the Covid pandemic. There were battles with the city of Minneapolis and I don’t think they made their money back after they had to cancel their event. I could be wrong about that, but I know the reason Galaxy Con didn’t come back was due to the pandemic.

This brings us to Twin Cities Con. Twin Cities Con and the organizers were smart. They took feedback from the local community and figured out which local conventions were being held on what dates. This way, they could plan Twin Cities Con on a weekend without any other competing event happening. Twin Cities Con is held in November which is perfect! The weather is colder and more people are trying to find indoor events to get out of the cold. It’s before the holidays, but not too close to the holidays. I consider Twin Cities Con the con to end the year since there are no other conventions that I attend after it. Additionally, this gave Twin Cities Con time to market their event at local conventions earlier in the year.

I’m so glad that Twin Cities Con has found success in Minnesota. It’s nice to have a bigger convention here because traveling to cons out of state can be taxing. Twin Cities Con was a blast this year and I can’t wait for next year.