If you can make it to Rockville, in Maryland’s suburbs of Washington, D.C., this weekend, there’s some seriously geeky fun to be had. An excellent convention, dubbed “Intervention” by making a portmanteau of “internet” and “convention,” starts tonight, and unlike so many cons it’s a great place to take kids because the staff has gone to great lengths to make it fun for them, too.
Intervention, now in its fourth year, is run by its founders Onezumi “Oni” Hartstein and James Harknell, and it’s all about people who use the internet as their primary means of delivering content to their audience. Consequently, you’ll find many webcomics creators there, as well as bloggers and makers of online videos. In fact, I will be a guest at Intervention myself, talking about blogging for GeekDad and how to balance blogging with family life, among other things.
This year, they’ve also snagged some higher-list guests, whose names you’re more likely to have heard of than, say, mine. Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing and MAKE Magazine, will be there. Also present will be the awesomely funny and talented Paul Sabourin, best known as half of geeky musical comedy duo Paul and Storm (which half he is is left as an exercise for the reader).
The children’s programming is, as I referred to above, excellent and extensive. This year it centers around monsters — creating model ones, making videos with them, fighting them against each other, that sort of thing. Interspersed with this will be other fun activities like paper airplane races and egg drop protection competitions. My kids have had a lot of fun participating in the activities in years past, and I’ve no doubt this year will be the same.
The full programming schedule is available on the official Intervention website, along with copious other information. The con runs from today at noon until Sunday at 4:00pm, and is being held at the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville. I should point out, for those who like good authentic Chinese food, that Rockville has more of it available than any other part of the DC area — one of the reasons I enjoy having an excuse to go there.
My panels are at 8:00pm tonight (“Juggling Geek Life and Parenting”), 11:00am tomorrow (“Real World vs. Geek World: Balancing Your Commitments”), and 12:00pm Sunday (“Blogging For Fun and Profit,” with Mark Frauenfelder and Oni Hartstein). Come say hello if you see me — tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be wearing a GeekDad shirt, and I look pretty much like my photo below, only with a beard.
