New conventions celebrating “Geek Culture” are sprouting up all over the place, and there’s a place for your library on the show floor whether your local geeky gathering is focused on comics, science fiction, video games, or all of the above.
Sarah Gallagher, the Outreach Librarian at the Whitehorse Public Library in Canada’s Yukon Territory, recently approached Programming Librarian with “Ten Reasons to Do a Pop-Up at Your Comic Convention,” and it’s not all about marketing:
Yukon Public Libraries is big on geek culture. We collect comics, graphic novels, role-playing game rule books, anime, medieval cookbooks and costuming manuals, and we host a popular weekly role-playing game (RPG) drop-in program for teens. So naturally we saw a place for ourselves at YukomiCon, the biannual celebration of geek culture organized by the Yukon Comic Culture Society.
OK, Gallagher does talk a bit about the marketing aspect of running a booth at your local “Geek Culture” convention. But she also looks at the benefits you’ll see by talking to your patrons in a new setting, gaining valuable feedback from congoers, and networking with folks from the community. Also… “It’s super fun!”
Interested in hosting your own convention? Our guide, “Running a Game Convention at Your Library,” can help.
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