During my brief weekend spent habitating the halls and rooms of WonderCon 2010, I had a chance to see something I’ve never noticed before… but makes perfect sense. Someone had a seat for me in the big ballroom and I was able to relax in the front row with plenty of leg-room, ample opportunity for pics (Which I didn’t take full advantage of), pure exposure to the bass speaker for the entire auditorium and from the front row, I got to experience how they handle content pirates.
The attendants that are walking around, looking like they’re there for crowd control, are there for a different kind of control. The moment the lights go out, I was watching a few of them immediately pull out a hand-held instrument that looked like a thick, mini-telescope and they would scan the crowd with them.
I was a bit surprised they had tech decent enough to tackle this job, but not surprised at the fact that the tech exists that can detect whatever it was they were looking for.
I have frightening night vision, so I could pretty much see plain as day as they scoped out the audience. They scanned me a few times while I was Twittering away and I could see them focusing on me a little longer than the rest of the crowd… but once they determined I was a Twit-head, they continued panning.
As the weekend wore on, I wasn’t sure if it was as effective as it could be, but sure enough, during one event, the lights wend down, the hand-held came out and the scanning began. Within about 30 seconds, the guy I was descrying focused on someone in the middle of the audience. He pulled out a radio and called out the suspected coordinates and within moments, he had received a confirmation over the radio and swoosh, off he went. I watched 3 attendants swarm a section, but I didn’t pay much attention after that.
Hopefully they took the video pirate to a sequestered back room, microwaved his electronics, ran a giant magnetometer over his equipment that did survive and then had one of their bigger guys have a “chat” with the fellow for a minute or two. Can ya tell where I stand on piracy?
Other than that, WonderCon 2010 was yet one more wonderful experience where they really take care of the “press” folks and swooshed me past the lines so I could come and go in the big hall as I pleased. I think they run a pretty good show! Sure, it’s a little more subdues than the San Diego Comic Con, but still, there are many ways to tackle an event like this and they’re able to handle it rather well. Thanks WonderCon!
Anyhow, thought you’d all be interested!
