The 31st annual I-CON festival took place at Stony Brook University last weekend and, as always, it was a blast for fans of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and all things nerdy. With over 6,000 visitors each year, this three-day convention is the largest of its kind in the Northeast. Guests and speakers from all walks of fiction—including horror, comic books, anime, television, and much more—come to the delight of fans, offering presentations, shows, and more interactive forms of entertainment keep the excitement at a constant high while convention goers walk the campus in everything from normal clothing to the most elaborate costumes.
Amongst this year’s guests were actors from Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Superman, as well as a number of voice actors, artists, authors, and game designers. Several musicians, including Celtic Folk singer Marc Gunn, and the convention’s Gothic mainstay for the past decade, Voltaire, arrived to put on several concerts throughout the weekend. Though stylistically distant from one another, this particular pair of artists enraptured their audiences with unique brands of bawdy, irreverent, often dark humor, even offering up some impromptu banter on the one stage they shared, the I-CON Cabaret.
With poker and video gaming events throughout the day and vendors such as The Brothers Grimm present in a dedicated dealer’s room, hours of entertainment could be had simply playing with new friends or wandering the many makeshift boutiques and sifting through their unusual array of trinkets, clothing, costumes and games.