Gwangju International Center

GIC Talk Review

SPEAKER: Jordan VanHartingsveldt

CO-WRITERS: Kim Eunho, Lee Soyoung, and Ashlyn Winter

GIC TALK DATE: July 18, 2015

GIC TALK TITLE: Alleycon: A Waygeek Event

Today’s speaker, Jordan VanHartingsveldt, one of the main organizers of Alleycon, presented about this year’s activities at Alleycon.

He shared with us first about Alleycon, with multiple organizers and sponsors from the community. At this convention, people can dress up as fantasy characters, play video games and entertain themselves with board/P2PRPG games. There are also artists and performers from the Gwangju Performance Project which the attendees can watch and enjoy throughout the convention.

Alleycon was created at a table tops day at the First Alleyway (borrowing their name from this popular restaurant). Alleycon is an “upgrade version” of the table tops day; therefore many more people can attend and can enjoy a different and wider variety of activities.

Jordan compared the 2013 and 2014 Alleycon event during his talk. 2013 was the first time that Alleycon was held and 30 people attended. In 2014, more people attended and it was the first time that vendors opened their stores during the event. In 2014, Alleycon cost 3,000,000 won to fund and they made a profit of 3,500,000 won. The profits were shared with different orphanages and the community of Gwangju.

This year’s Alleycon event will be held on September 19th and 20th at the Gwangju Design Center in Cheomdan. The supporters are Corana, Pedro’s House, the First Alleyway, Korea Mac PC, the GPP, and Tequilaz. They expect to host up to 500 people for this year’s two-day convention.

Jordan has high hopes for Alleycon’s future. He hopes Alleycon will continue to grow and be an event that many foreigners and native Koreans want to attend in Korea. He hopes that by 2020, there will be between 5,000 and 10,000 participants attending this convention.

Alleycon is the first event in Asia which celebrates “geeks.” We thank Jordan for helping create and manage this event and for following this passion.