One of our sister conventions, Fargo GameFest, happens this weekend from March 23rd to March 25th. You can check out information about their event here. But don’t think that you have to contain your convention gaming to just one weekend of the year!
Archives
All posts by admin
Artemis. Take control. Pilot the ship. Become the hero or villain you’ve always wanted to be.
With the change of hotel (the Holiday Inn) and dates (Memorial weekend), the policies have been updated for 2018. Here are a few things that you might want to know for your upcoming CoreCon X experience!
- The smoking tent will be located outside door 12.
- Operations will be open 24/7 in the atrium.
- Per the hotel’s policy, no crockpots or griddles are allowed in the hotel rooms.
- All conventions rooms, not including fansuites in the pool area, need to close at 3 AM but can reopen at 6 AM. Alcohol must be out of the convention rooms by 1:30 AM. The pool room will close at 1 AM, but fansuites are personal rooms and can remain open with their doors closed. Check the schedule for their actual hours.
- Service animals are allowed according to North Dakota law. Therapy animals will be allowed if they are registered. Attendees will need to bring appropriate paperwork, and a $100 fee can be charged to the sleeping room if needed. Contact the hotel if you have more questions regarding their service and therapy animal policies.
- The restaurant will have a special, cheaper menu for con attendees. We will get more information closer to the convention. The hours for the restaurant are:
- Thursday: 6 AM – 10 PM
- Friday: 6 AM – 11 PM
- Saturday: 7 AM – 11 PM
- The Holiday Inn security protocol is that they will give you one warning. If you break the rules a second time, you will be asked to leave. So follow the rules!
Feel free to check out our complete policies page on the website!
Since CoreCon accepts donations in order to be able to have an event each year, we make a huge effort to give back to the community in various ways. Some of our most recognized events include raising money through the annual Extra Life fundraiser and organizing blood drives. We also select a charity to benefit through a silent auction at each convention.
CoreCon isn’t just for adults! In fact, we try really hard to make sure people under eighteen feel like they get just as much out of CoreCon as their older peers do. This is a family event. Most of the people who organize and attend CoreCon have children that they want to make sure feel included as much as possible, even if they can’t attend every panel. So since we have some 18+ rooms and panels, we gave children and young adults their own rooms and events, too!
Jennifer Cihi & Stefanie DeLeo
Jennifer Cihi
Jennifer Cihi began her professional career at the age of 12 when she landed the role of Pepper in the Broadway production of Annie. She has sung professionally for over 40 years and has worked with some of the most prominent musicians and vocal artists. She is most known in the anime world for being the original English singing voice of Sailor Moon. She is the voice behind the iconic songs “My Only Love” and “Power of Love” to name a few. She is the singer of the famous Hot Pocket commercials and starred in the Nickelodeon show Roundhouse. Jennifer has been appearing at conventions most weekends over the past few years and loves the opportunity to connect with fans!
Stefanie DeLeo
Stefanie DeLeo is a published and produced playwright and author. Her published work, Worth a Thousand Words, was published by JACNEED back in 2010. She was also recently published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable where she chronicles her adventures of being friends with the voice of Sailor Moon and appearing at comic and anime conventions all over the world. She has her Master’s Degree in Theatre from NYU and has worked professionally onstage in New York, Boston, Connecticut and Tennessee. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa for three years where she wrote and directed socially conscious theatre pieces.
Both Jennifer Cihi and Stefanie DeLeo are passionate about mental health awareness and support. They co-founded a project called Mariposa, dedicated to providing support for kids and young adults affected by mental illness. They both spoke at the Mental Health America National Conference in Washington DC in 2016, where they used theatre as a tool to foster dialogue about mental health issues. Be sure ask them questions about this exciting new project!
Thank you, Jennifer and Stefanie, for joining us at CoreCon X! We’re excited to get to know more about you and Mariposa!
Paul St. Peter
Paul St. Peter
We loved Paul St. Peter so much when he was a guest at CoreCon VIII that we had to bring him back for another year! He’s accomplished a lot since we last saw him, including voicing Sorbet on Dragon Ball Super and Beast King and Subterranean 3 on One Punch Man. His IMDB page lists 179 credits! So of course, you can understand why we adore him so much.
Paul loves to encourage others to follow their dreams of voice acting and has taught classes on speech, accents, dialects, phonetics, vocal productions, and Shakespeare at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Cal State University Los Angeles, San Diego State University, Los Angeles Broadcasting School, and The Windward School. He is a speech and acting coach for Native Voices at The Autry, a Native American theatre company, and The Rogue Artists, a hyper-theatre company.
Paul is a versatile performer and has sang for four seasons with the San Diego Opera Company, three seasons with The San Diego Civic Light Opera, and appeared in several productions at The Old Globe Theatre. In Los Angeles, Paul acted onstage at The Globe Playhouse, Richard Basehart Theatre, Palos Verdes Shakespeare on The Meadow, and has “gone on the road” with Nevada Shakespeare in The Park for eleven seasons.
Paul’s TV appearances include work on NCIS, Last Man Standing, Ringer, Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Jessie, Legit, and the hilarious Key and Peele.
Thank you so much, Paul, for joining us again! You’re a great guest to have with us for the 10th anniversary of CoreCon!
Adam Quesnell
Adam Quesnell
Adam is a comedy-pit filled with laugh-snakes and has been entertaining audiences since before you even knew that this bio existed. Bouncing from witty social observation, to commentary on language, to biting introspection, his act walks that fine line that people often write about in bios. He started performing comedy in Fargo-Moorhead, and he recently re-located to Minneapolis, MN where he quickly became a comedian that lives in Minneapolis, MN. Aside from any club/bar/museum opening that will have him in the Midwest, Adam has performed at the Akumal Comedy Festival, Hell-Yes Fest in New Orleans, and the Comedy Exposition in Chicago. He is a Stand Up! Records Recording Artist who will be releasing a 7” EP this Easter inspired by his love of Cadbury Creme Eggs. In December 2017, Adam returned to Fargo to record a full length LP at the Red Raven. “Despair II: Social Justice Warlord” will be released in late 2018 via Stand Up! Records.
Beyond stand up comedy, Adam is also a screenwriter who recently wrote an adaptation of comic book characters created by Eliot Rahal and John Bivens for Cult Classic, a public access spooktacular. An avid art toy collector, Quesnell released a 3” keshi style rubber mini-figure as the special edition of his first album “Can We Afford This Much Despair?”. This figure, “Despair”, was a collaboration featuring the talents of some of the top names in the hand cast custom mini figure scene. Oh yeah, and he’s half of the acoustic guitar electric bass duo, Let There Be Tight, who are based out of Minneapolis.
Basically, Adam Quesnell is a creative weirdo who is going to make you feel good about feeling bad about feeling good when things are bad.
Adam Quesnell originally joined us for CoreCon in 2014, and he made such a lasting impression that we wanted him to be a part of our anniversary year! Thank you, Adam, for clearing out your schedule to come make us laugh again!
Body Consul blog recording start
Loading composition/writing programs
Running blog subroutine
Accessing mimicry setups
Starting TylerS.exe
Greetings, user. I am Tyler Schara, Body Consul for CoreCon. I am not some AI. There is no reason to think that.
One of the costumes people couldn’t stop talking about at CoreCon IX was Hagrid. He was massive and even had a magical pink umbrella! Kevin Ruddy won Fan Favorite and Best in Show during the costume contest, so we asked him to tell us about what it was like to become Hagrid.
Guest Writer: BBDesign Cosplay
Imagine a world in which you can express your passions and hobbies without being criticized or belittled but rather praised in a welcoming environment that encourages you just to be, well, you! Imagine spending hours upon hours on creating a character that you look up to or share similar personality traits with and showcasing that to a community that you can be comfortable demonstrating that confidence.
Wait a minute. Comfortable showing confidence? Isn’t that kind of backwards?
Not for me, Brittney of BBDesign Cosplay, in the cosplay world and in the Fargo-Moorhead community. Cosplay has given me so much confidence to express who I am in and out of character. Over the years, I have figured out a couple of reasons why.
There are three Consuls, or heads, of CoreCon: Mind, Body, and Soul. They make all of the tough decisions that no one else wants to and oversee every department. Mind Consul Kim Odegaard has been a part of CoreCon since the very beginning. Alongside Body Consul Tyler Schara and Soul Consul Sarah “Kitten” Danielson-Ruddy, she does her best to ensure each year is better than the last!
Have you ever considered being a host and running a Fansuite? Or maybe you’re just curious to know what they’re all about? Here’s everything you need to know about what makes these fan-run con experiences so magical! Continue Reading
A picture is worth a thousand words, so it might seem a little pointless to write a blog when we could just show you a slideshow. But pictures won’t capture how much effort our volunteer photographers put in each year to make sure that every great moment is captured on film forever.
There are a lot of things that happen at CoreCon each year, and we are blessed to have so many talented photographers who want to make sure that you can remember it all through images. You’ll be able to spot most of them at panels, tournaments, and just walking around, talking to people and snapping photos. In case you can’t find one of them, they also have a designated photography room called The Save Point.
Panels are one of the biggest parts of any convention. These are scheduled slots of time in which a group of people can reserve a room and do… well, pretty much anything they want (within reason). The panel is advertised in the program guide and heralded throughout the convention, so other attendees can join the fun. They’re the best way for people with common interests to come together and discuss them. Continue Reading
If you’ve ever attended CoreCon before, you’re at least somewhat familiar with the Registration team. They’re the ones who greet you at the front desk to take your payment in exchange for your badge and a welcome packet. You probably don’t see them for the rest of the convention. So it’s got to be an easy job, right? WRONG!
To
all of the volunteers and people who made this years convention happen THANK YOU! CoreCon has always been a “for fans by fans” run convention. It took unbelievable hours and effort for a four-day celebration. Some people worked on bits and pieces all year-long so THANK YOU. The volunteers in the Inner Core (3 Consuls head the con, Inner Core are the Department Heads and Assistants) did a tremendous job this year and all while working regular jobs and home lives. Continue Reading
CoreCon is a non-profit fan based convention entirely run by volunteers. As if getting ready for CoreCon wasn’t enough work, some of the volunteers do more volunteering within our own group called CoreCon Cares. This year we are collecting toys and donating money to help out The Village Family Service Center and hope you will too. Continue Reading