CaperCon on the move
‘Geek’ convention to take place at Centre 200
Cape Breton’s only anime, sci-fi, fantasy, gaming and comic convention will have a new home for its 2017 event.
The third annual CaperCon event will take place on Oct. 20-22 at Centre 200 in Sydney, this after the event was previously held at Cape Breton University for the first two years of the festival.
Alex Morrison, chair for CaperCon, is extremely excited to see where the partnership with Centre 200 takes the event.
“During our time at CBU, it became clear that the university wasn’t as prepared or knowledgeable about this type of event as would be best for its growth and continuation,” she said. “The new location will provide us with many more opportunities that we did not have previously.”
Moving the event to a downtown Sydney facility was also a factor in the new venue decision.
“Unfortunately, with Cape Breton University so far away from both restaurants and hotels, it was a struggle for us to draw people to the event from away,” said Morrison.
“Having the convention downtown means that attendees will only have to walk a short distance through downtown
to get to the convention and the dinning options are wonderfully diverse.
Paul MacDonald, facility manager at Centre 200, is looking forward to hosting this year’s event at the facility.
“I’m really excited about having this event at our facility,” said MacDonald. “I’ve been following the CaperCon activities over the last two years and have met with the organizers of the Halifax event and the CaperCon event. It’s something I hope becomes an annual thing at Centre 200.”
CaperCon is a three-day gathering for fans to celebrate shared interests through activities related to anime, comics, science fiction, fantasy, gaming and all other related genres.
The event includes vendors from across Nova Scotia, panels, guest signings, gaming rooms and tournaments, costume contests and more.
“If you’ve had an interest in anything remotely nerdy or geeky, there’s something at CaperCon for you,” said Morrison.
Since 2015 the event has taken place each year in September, however organizers have since changed the festival to October for this year.
“Hal-Con (Halifax’s festival) informed us early that there had been a booking conflict with their venue for this year and that they were forced to move to September — HalCon usually happens around Halloween,” said Morrison. “We agreed it would be best for both of us if we simple swap times this year, but the intention is for CaperCon to return to September in the future.”
Over the past two years, CaperCon has drawn roughly 1,000 people, not including volunteers.
“Based on estimations of hotel costs, meal costs and money spent at the event, there’s a potential for between $400,000 and $600,000 of revenue that goes straight into the local economy, purely from our attendees,” she said.
For more information on this year’s CaperCon, visit the website www.capercon.ca, or visit the events Facebook page by searching CaperCon.