AnchorCon gets its hooks into north country culture scene

Aug. 10—CLAYTON — At first glance, it may seem that a local chapter of a venerated international service organization and a convention featuring comic book culture would make strange bedfellows. But three years ago, the two forces teamed up to form a partnership that has now hit its stride.

Clayton Rotary's largest fundraiser for the year and the north country's largest comic culture convention, AnchorCon, is Aug. 17 and 18 at Cerow Recreation Park Arena. Clayton Rotary has lined up over 35 area sponsors "vital" in helping it to meet its fundraising goals and to help make the event a success.

"Clayton Rotary took a chance when they decided this would be their new fundraising event," said Tanya M. Roy, an AnchorCon consultant who is part of the festival's team who volunteer their knowledge and expertise to bring it to life as a fundraiser.

"We knew we needed a couple of years to see if it was going to work," Roy said. "But it was very evident after year one that this was something that the north country sorely needed. The growing pains came and went, but this year it has definitely all leveled out and we're very happy with the way it's going."

Rotary International is no stranger to the work of super heroes. Its global network of 1.4 million "neighbors, friends and leaders" volunteer their skills and resources and leap into action to solve issues and to address needs in their communities.

Roy, an intermediate and middle school literacy coach at Indian River Central School District, is one of eight members on the AnchorCon committee — a mix of Rotary members and non-members.

"That's something that sets us apart," Roy said. "Most conventions are a business in and of themselves. We are not. We are a fundraising event for Clayton Rotary."

Each committee member, Roy said, has a specific responsibility.

Roy, co-founder of interactive theater group The Butler Did It Players, is in charge of entertainment and talent at AnchorCon. The committee has other non-Rotarians: Cindy Tyler, in charge of cosplay and Kiki Leech, who co-chairs the event with Rotarian Dee Henry.

"Agents and celebrities talk to each other and we now have agents and celebrities reaching out to us to say they've heard really good things about the convention," Roy said. "And the talent that has been here previously speaks very highly of us, saying they'd love to come if we would have them."

That reputation, Roy said, may have something to do with the board putting into practice the four avenues/questions of service in Rotary's guiding principles: "Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship?" and "Will it be beneficial to all concerned?"

'We think of the things we do within those four tenants," said Clayton Rotary Club member Deanna A. Henry, a librarian at the LaFargeville Central School District.

"That's what our club is all about. AnchorCon is open to everyone and all ages and every area of interest, whether they have a fandom, are comic book people or if they're into cosplay or if they have an old sitcom that they love."

Henry said that attendees range from children to senior citizens who develop goodwill and friendship.

"The profit we glean from this go to a multitude of projects, both locally and internationally."

And for a village Rotary Club, the Clayton chapter, at 18 members, is very busy.

A recent project installed a storybook trail with exercise machines at Cerow Recreation Park.

Other local projects range from school scholarships, food pantries, supporting local arts at Clayton Opera House to Easter egg hunts. Internationally, programs supported include ShelterBox emergency disaster relief.

"We are also involved in the MELT project in Africa," Henry said. "We just sent some people over with books, goodies and training for teachers and kids over there."

The Malawi Early Literacy Team is comprised of education and business professionals tasked with equipping children in the northern region of Malawi, Africa with culturally appropriate early literacy materials and readers.

"Those are some of the things we use our money for and some of the reasons why we think AnchorCon is a good fit for our club," Henry said. "It's very expensive and it's grown every year. To me, the talent cost is extraordinary, but that's what draws people in."

"We want to do what's best for the community, but we also want to do what's best for the people participating in the event," Roy said. "Everyone who volunteers for us wants to make sure that people who are coming — the talent, entertainers and the vendors — are having the best experience possible."

Roy also believes a "trifecta" has also led to AnchorCon gaining traction.

"It's a fundraising event, it's a community event and it's also a comicon convention. Sometimes you get two out of the three, but it's pretty rare to get three of the three. We have a community that is invested in us, but we also have the larger comicon and cosplay community, which is also invested in us doing well and seeing us return. We try to honor that when we know that we have all these people out there rooting for us."

Building upon success

Each year, the AnchorCon committee members study how to build on the convention's success. "One of the things that Rotary did this year is to increase substantially the cash prizes they give out for the cosplay contests," Roy said.

Cosplay is the activity of dressing up as a character from a work of fiction, especially from the comic book world. The first place prize for "master builder" is now $500 and first place in the novice category is $300.

The contests are Aug. 17 and on the following day, there will be a children's cosplay parade and children's cosplay contest.

For this year's convention, AnchorCon is bringing in award-winning international cosplayer Michael "Knightmage" Wilson, one of the most influential and diverse male cosplayers in the world. The Ohio native is also a decorated deputy sheriff at the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office and has been cosplaying since 2012.

"This is the first time that we've had this kind of celebrity cosplay guest," Roy said. "We made him a cosplay judge, which is kind of every cosplayer's dream — to be judged in a contest by one of their cosplay idols."

The biggest all-around entertainment draw at this year's festival may be Kim Coates, Roy said. "Feedback has been that 'Sons of Anarchy' has a very large fandom in our area."

In that FX series, Coates plays Tig Trager, the motorcycle club's sergeant at arms. He has had numerous other film and Broadway roles. This year, he started filming episodes of "The Walking Dead: Dead City," a sequel to the original series.

Meanwhile, "Jeremy Palko came to us as a recommendation from some of our long-standing guests who worked on 'Walking Dead,'" Roy said.

Palko played Andy on "The Walking Dead."

"He's in that genre of 'Sleepy Hollow' and 'Walking Dead' — the supernatural kinds of things, which is another fandom that we know exists in our area," Roy said.

Other celebrities also new to AnchorCon scheduled to appear: — Orion Acaba, a popular actor and voiceover artist, best known for his vocal role as Tiberius in "Critical Role," a web series in which a group of professional voice actors play "Dungeons & Dragons." — Scott Harban: A photographer, director visual storyteller whose comic work includes "Punisher Max" for Marvel Comics along with "Sandman," "Jennifer Blood" and "Hellraiser." He started working with Lucasfilm in 2005 creating images to bolster the marketing, artistic efforts for the original trilogy, prequels and "The Clone Wars" animated series. He is a guest artist for Lucasfilm.

For children, a popular returning act will be Syracuse-based Jeff the Magic Man, whose expertise is balloon art.

"He leads a parade with a 10-foot puppet made out of balloons that he wears on a backpack and runs it like a marionette," Roy said. "He also builds this massive balloon installation over the course of the weekend. New this year, he's creating a scavenger hunt."

Also for children, AnchorCon has again partnered with Encompass Recreation out of Lewis County. "They're once again providing our Lego build area up in the mezzanine," Roy said. "They're also providing our sensory room. We're well aware that a lot of people who enjoy comicon conventions and cosplays often need someplace to lessen the sensory input. That's been a phenomenal thing for them to partner with us on that."

Watertown-based Knights of Thorn, an establishment that specializes in card-driven games, will also return to host a gaming table. "If you know Magic the Gathering, there will be times for people to do that," Roy said. "But Knights of Thorn goes out of their way to teach games to people of all ages. We've had original Dungeon and Dragon players in their 50s and 60s playing that game with kids who are just learning. That's a great thing to see."

Also in gaming, Syracuse-based Retro Gamecon, upstate New York's largest video game expo (Oct. 11-13), will have "consoles from across history," Roy said.

Saturday after-cruise

In its second year, AnchorCon organizers realized that many attendees wanted a chance to get off site and away from the Cerow Arena venue for a bit and to stretch their wings, capes, Batman ears, fins and various other costume (cosplay) accessories.

The third annual Cosplay Sunset Cruise for ages 21 and above departs at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 17 from the municipal dock in Clayton and returns at 9 p.m. Tickets, at $50, are separate from tickets to the convention.

"One of the things we like to do is to utilize the area where we are," Roy said. "When we communicate with celebrities and vendors, we tell them that Clayton is vacation land in the summer and we don't want the whole convention to take place inside on a beautiful summer weekend. So our after-party is the cruise provided by our sponsor, Clayton Island Tours."

The convention's major talent will be on board.

"You can mingle with them," Roy said. "We also provide food and karaoke, and this year we're doing music bingo, just one more form of interaction and giving away fun AnchorCon prizes."

Roy encouraged guests to purchase cruise tickets early. "It's one of the pieces of the convention that we are really proud of. It's a different aspect as to what you get at the convention, except it's amped up a little bit."

Through it all, the event will be a learning experience for festival organizers to build upon. The board will get some help in that area this year via a partnership with Theresa-based Snapshots Photo Booth.

"It allows us to craft questions to ask the attendees before they receive their photo from the photo booth," Roy said. "They will simply click a multiple choice answer to the questions on the screen. We'll be asking: how did you hear about AnchorCon, which county did you come from, and what's your favorite part of our comicon?"

"We're looking forward to meeting new people and hoping our numbers are going to increase this year, Henry said.

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The details

WHAT: Fourth annual AnchorCon benefitting Clayton Rotary.

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 17 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 18.

WHERE: Cerow Recreation Park, 615 E. Line Road.

DETAILS: Featuring over a dozen celebrities, artists and performers from TV, movies, gaming, streaming, comic books and anime. Floor displays include the Jurassic Park Jeep and Ghostbuster's ECTO 2. There will be about 80 vendors.

TICKETS: A single day pass is $26.50 for adults and $21.40 for members of the military and $16.30 for children age 6-17. A weekend pass is $41.80 for adults and $31.60 for children. A weekend pass for a family (2 adults, 2 children) is $108.10.

COSPLAY CRUISE: Tickets for the Saturday evening cosplay cruise are separate from convention admission. Cruise tickets are $50. Organizers say cruise tickets sell out fast.

Tickets can be purchased at the Anchorcon website at anchorcomicon.com.