I recently got back from a transgender convention in the Northwestern U.S. By itself that’s an unusual convention, but what’s really interesting is it wasn’t held in a big city like Seattle but the small city (20, 000 or so) of Port Angeles. What unusual conventions have you been to? Define “unusual” any way you want: weirdness, obscurity, unlikely location, etc.
I have no real contribution to this; however, there’s a Doper who attended one a while back where a swinger’s club he was in reserved a whole hotel for a weekend to basically have orgies in each room. :o
Well, okay, maybe. When I was in college, the state pharmacy association had a convention at a resort community and two of my friends and I went because food and lodging were free for students. Great, right? Not so fast. We stayed in 8-person condos with only two keys per unit 
and even though it was in mid-summer in the Midwest, I don’t think the temperature rose above 60 degrees all weekend.
It was a miserable experience and a lot of people, myself included, left early.
Staying in hotels as often as I do I’ve encountered a lot of weird conventions that I wasn’t attending nor planning to encounter.
There was the BDSM convention in the Midwest titled, I’m not kidding, “Beat Me in St. Louis”. It was an annual affair for a couple decades. May still be for all I know.
There was an SF Con in Seattle where we got off the bus from the airport and were met by a Klingon honor guard.
I’ve seen so many MLM Cons (in more ways than one) it isn’t even funny. There’s a scary sameness to the crowd whether it’s insurance, cosmetics, or vitamins or …
Hairdresser / beautician conventions are a riot. Must be something in all those chemicals but a lot of these folks are mad as a hatter. And good at drinking. Where by “good” I mean falling down and starting screaming hair-pulling matches in the lobby. At breakfast.
Every year, my Dad and I would go to the state magician’s convention, which alternated between Kansas City and St. Louis. I was a ventriloquist, and we didn’t have our own convention so we just sort of piggybacked on the magician’s one.
The Dealer’s Room was interesting - most the dealers were showing off magic tricks, and what they sold was sealed envelopes with typewritten instructions on how to do it. The rest of them were selling equipment ranging from small stuff like coins or ropes to huge pieces of stage magic.
The hallways of the hotel were the best - hundreds of magicians desperate for an audience, so you could just wander around from one to the other, each wanting to show you a card trick. It was like being the most beautiful woman at the dance.
Probably a fountain pen convention. Mostly old nerdy fat white guys, with a sprinkling of Japanese and women (the Japanese have a whole fountain pen tradition of their own). Endless trays of old and news pens, and ink, and intense discussions of things like titanium nib tips and the repair of vintage celluloid. Surprising number of these people have really bad handwriting.
Not a convention, per se, but long long ago, for one weekend a year, the Adult Video Awards (I dunno what you call them? The Pornies?) after-party used to invade my local hangout in Vegas.
Met Weird Al there, and that SumBitch Ron Jeremy tried to horn-swaggle an ex-girlfriend I was trying to “re-engage”.
We both failed. 
Speaking of Vegas … While I lived there I’d occasionally wander into a hotel/casino hosting something unusual. Been to the Pornies once; not as interesting as it sounds.
I walked into the old Dunes one midweek afternoon and the casino was packed. This was not long before it closed and normally at that time of day it’d be eerily empty. This time it was just eerie.
People were everywhere, there were lots of table games being played, and the slot machines were ringing, beeping, and booping up a storm as always in a crowded casino, but there was zero hubbub of conversation. Just an occasional screechy noise over the bland muzak.
Then it hit me. The crowd were all deaf people there for a convention. They were conversing up a storm. Just using hands not voice. They seemed to be having a fine time, but it was definitely a strange thing to see and hear.
A few years ago, I went to a BDSM convention on the east coast. Interesting. We only went for the day and I still wish I’d stayed for the weekend.
The second to that was a steampunk convention. Also interesting. A lot less flesh than the BDSM con though.
I’ve been to several sci-fi cons, as I was married to an artist who sold art work there and was AGoH for several. That’s been a long time though and I wasn’t really into the cons themselves–we’d go to the con and I’d go sightseeing during the days.
I can’t remember where or when it was, but I once attended a skeptics convention put on by CSICOP in a large convention hall. In the adjacent room was an astrology convention. Some of us had a laugh touring the crystal sales, biorhythm, white witchcraft, zero-point energy and self-help woo booths.
Late 70s, I went with a friend to a “Van-In” somewhere in southern Michigan. This was at the height of the customized van craze, with the murals, big tires, waterbeds, shag carpet, etc. He was really into that and had a big 4WD van with all the doo-dads.
Seemed really decadent to me at the time. Copious amounts of drinking and drug use and lots of female toplessness and some full nudity. I don’t recall anyone openly having sex but it wouldn’t have surprised me. Plenty of Nugent, ZZ Top and Journey, at high volume from state of the art eight track and cassette players.
That was some wise-ass scheduler!
I have been to lots of collectible conventions. Many national organizations for collecting something have a convention where the rooms are filled with people selling, trading, or just showing off their collection. Plus dedicated auctions, organized displays where prizes are won, etc. Lots of fun if you collect things.
I organized the Watt Pottery Collectors USA convention for 8 years and attended many others like McCoy, Red Wing and Purinton pottery, Depression Glass, Carnival Glass, and the KOOKS convention (Kollectors Of Old Kitchen stuff).
http://www.kooksonline.org/KO_Gallery.html
Probably fairly exotic to an outsider.
Dennis
*Sure *you did.
My wife and I have been to several Kate Bush fan conventions, traveling to England twice for them.
I was researching how to anodize aluminum, and the very best advice videos on YouTube were by folks into a hobby I had never even heard of - pen-turning. People who make their own pens, usually out of aluminum, making the parts on a really tiny lathe.
An assortment of zombie gatherings and walks with my favorites being ZombieFest (Pittsburgh) and the annual walk in Morgantown (WVa). Rollercoaster and Dark Ride conventions as well are a yearly thing for the Old Wench and me.
I’ve also been to the Pittsburgh Anthrocon. I am tied into the amusement park thing pretty heavy and have helped develop a couple mascots over the years. When it comes to living in a hot heavy suit those Furries have invented all the top tech. You almost must check in now and then just to stay current.
I read the wiki but I (or they) may have missed something.
So would this be “furries” as in people who enjoy seeing mascots in critter suits in art & dance; sorta live action Hanna Barbera cartoons? Or would this be “furries” as in animal costume sexual fetishists? Or is there no splitting the two groups apart?
Enquiring minds are morbidly curious. As in “can’t look; can’t look away.”
I go to conventions about co-occurring mental health and intellectual disability. That’s unusual in the sense that there are only a handful of these a year anywhere in the US.
When I was in high school I went to the Interplanetary Conclave of Light, put on by a group called “Unarius,” to “investigate.”
No, it isn’t cosplay. These people really think this stuff is true.
I thought they must be joking, but they actually believe that “space brothers” in flying saucers from 33 planets of “The Confederation” are soon going to land on a few acres of scrub brush outside of El Cajon, CA, and form some kind of mystical university of enlightenment.
Not terribly unusual, except for me. I was a sign language interpreter, and I attended a convention of the National Federation of the Blind. I was certified in Deaf-blind interpreting, and had lots of experience, so they contacted me-- I don’t know if someone had actually requested me, or just given them my name, but I went.
My roommate was someone who is a Spanish interpreter, and is certified in several S. American dialects, as well as Mexican Spanish, and she is the person you get at the statehouse when you press 2 for Espanol. She handles all calls, even if she has to track down your info and call you back (I think in the last few years, they have dedicated lines in a few places, like where people tend to call about EEOC complaints, or citizenship classes, because the calls are high volume). Anyway, the convention was in Dallas, and the hotel staff pretty much spoke only Spanish. People kept coming by our room to ask how to say this or that to their maid. We called our room “Interpreting central.”
Anyway, an NFB convention isn’t funny or unusual, except I liked watching people’s reactions when I said I was going there as a sign language interpreter. It crossed 0 people’s minds that Deaf-blind people might be there, and need interpreters. So I got a little bit of amusement value out of it.
