What Should a First Time Dragon Steel Attender Know

[Red Blue]

What Should a First Time Dragon Steel Attender Know, and do. I am planning to attend Dragon Steel 2024, but don't what do and what panels to attend. Any advice will much apricated. 

[JoyBlu she/her]

Are you buying a signed and numbered book and do you care about the book number?  If you want the lowest book numbers you’ll need to show up a day early and sleep outside in the snow. (Pros: you get a low book number and make some fantastic friends (I’ll be there!); Cons; you are exhausted and frozen the rest of the convention). You have to preorder the book with swag to get a numbered copy. 
 

Also, you need to decide now if you are going to try to read the book at the convention or will you wait and read it after you get home  - there will be many people who have read all of the preview chapters before they arrive and as soon as the book drops they will read and not sleep until they finished the book. By the next day 100’s of people will have finished the book and will be ready to talk about it. They will probably have a panel the last day where there will be spoilers for the entire book. There is also a reading room where people just go and read all day. Sanderfans are really good at not spoiling the book though so I wouldn’t worry about others spoiling it. Personally I’m in the camp that tries to enjoy the convention while I’m there and enjoy the book later when I’m not so exhausted. My oldest son will have the book read within 24 hours after it drops. He is a much faster reader than me and is younger and rebounds faster! So choose the way you want to enjoy the convention. 
 

There are certain panels and crafts and games that you have to preregister for. Pay attention to what those are and decide now which ones you want to try to attend. The MTG draft will sell out the first minute it becomes available. Those have opened up about 2 months before the convention in the past. So watch for announcements and check the schedule for those. 
 

You can bring your own food into the convention. Last year they ran out of food to buy. I had packed lunches and planned on buying dinner. You can leave and walk to a nearby restaurant but we didn’t want to leave so I just had pizza delivered and we ate that. I strongly recommend bringing a water bottle and some snacks. 
 

If you dress up in costume and if you are lucky you will get a special pin that you can only get at the convention and only get if you are in costume. It’s so fun to see all the costumes people come up with. 
 

There will be a random drawing to get one thing signed by Sanderson at a lightning signing. So if you want something special signed bring it. 1 out of 3 attendees will get this chance. Maybe 1 out of 2 since it’s 3 days now. 
 

There will be lots of secret quests and scavenger hunts going on. These are mostly to earn something fun. My kids absolutely love this part of the con. There will be raffle items for lots of items and you can spend the “earnings” from these quests on raffle tickets. Most of the stuff in the raffle is stuff you can buy from vendors or stores - but they usually have a few things that you just can’t buy. (Snugglebug — giant doomslug was last years). You’ll need to talk to people and run around a lot to solve all the puzzles. If this isn’t your thing then that’s ok. It takes a huge investment of time to figure it all out and it’s not for everyone. I’m usually in line for something (food, bookstore, etc) and this gives my kids something to do while I’m waiting. 
 

I’m sure there are things worth mentioning that I’m forgetting - but these are the things that are coming to mind right now  I hope you find it helpful. I really is a great convention with really great people. It will be interesting to see how they grow it this year  

 

[Little_Dagger she/her]

Thank you, @JoyBlu That was incredibly helpful