Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Iannantuono
Hi Janet, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a convention runner, Star Wars collector, and all-around fan. As a child in 1977, Star Wars combined my interests of mythology, science fiction, fantasy, and the adventure stories of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Forty plus years later, my Star Wars collection is big enough to take up an entire room, and my fandom has grown beyond a galaxy far, far away. Over the years, I adopted the fandoms of Doctor Who, Farscape, Marvel, Stargate, Star Trek, and anything with kaiju fighting. Her favorite authors include Heinlein, Asimov, McCaffery, Donaldson, Brooks, and of course many of the Star Wars authors like Timothy Zahn.
For the last twenty plus years, I’ve been an active participant in the fan community by volunteering at and running conventions. I spent four years as the Assistant Director of Star Wars Programming at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA, worked in the Lucasfilm Pavilion at San Diego ComicCon, and as a Hall Manager, part of Lucasfilm’s “Elite Squad” at ten previous Star Wars Celebrations. I was also the founding Board Member and staffer for ConCarolinas in Charlotte, NC for over 12 years.
In 2012, along with my daughter Michelle, formed All Types of Media Arts Convention (AtomaCon) in North Charleston, SC (http://atomacon.org. AtomaCon is a nonprofit multi-genre, family friendly convention celebrating its 11th year May 3-4, 2025 at the Conference Center at Trident Technical College, North Charleston, SC. The convention features discussion panels on sci-fi, fantasy, and horror literary topics, paranormal, fandom and a few STEM topics. It also features a Film Festival, and a variety of performance groups including a Princess Bride Shadowcast by Charleston’s Absent Friends. The convention also features a vendor room, cosplay contest, crafts and a charity auction that has raised over $11,000 in the past years.
Even though running AtomaCon takes a good bit of time, I continue to volunteer at other local conventions such as IncredibleCon and Spooky Empire. I also love supporting Captain’s Comic Expo and SC Horror Conventions. The Geek community is great and meeting all the wonderful people who volunteer and support our SC Conventions brings me great joy. I’ve met lifelong friends and am always meeting new ones!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not always been a smooth road. We had a great venue and were continuing to grow as a convention when our hotel became a big name brand and our facilities costs went up 100%! This forced us to find somewhere else in the area that would meet the specific needs of our event and within our small budget. I had to put up about $2K of my own money to start the convention so we had to work with what ever money we earn through vendor fees and memberships. We found a hotel that was not ideal, but we thought we could make it work. It suffered major damage from hurricane Mathew 3 weeks before our event which caused us to cancel. We were told the hotel would be repaired before the next year’s event. 6 months go by and we are told that it would not be open (it is still closed today). We had to scramble to find another venue and the only thing we could find was the North Charleston Convention Center. Great venue but it took all the money we had saved and what we made that year. We moved to the Hilton Garden Inn which was a wonderful venue but small. this caused us to have to downsize our offerings. We were starting to gain momentum again and COVID-19 hit and we were again forced to cancel. At that point we decided to move from a Fall to a Spring convention. We spent two more years at the HGI but costs keep going up and it became difficult to gain momentum again and we lost money both years. This had to come out of my pocket. So, we needed to make a change again in hopes of saving the event–and my bank account! We changed our event from a 3 day to 2 day convention and moved away from a hotel to the Aeronautical Training Center at Trident Technical College. The venue was not only affordable but much larger and allowed us to expand our Film Festival, bring back some of our previous offerings like gaming and STEM panels. We also partnered with Charleston’s Absent Friends to perform the Princess Bride Shadowcast. Our attendance triples from previous years and it allowed up to move to the even larger Conference Center at Trident Technical College and continue to expand our offerings without a change in membership (pass) costs. We are a convention for fans by fans so it can always be a challenge to balance what everyone wants with the costs to provide them!
We’ve been impressed with All Types of Media Art Convention (AtomaCon), but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
ATOMACON, Inc. (http://atomacon.org) is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for science fiction, fantasy, and science through related literary and other popular art forms. This is accomplished primarily through a convention to celebrate the history of and on-going contribution of science fiction, fantasy, science and related genres to art and popular culture.
AtomaCon is a multi-genre, panel driven convention. What does that mean? It means we are not just a Horror Con, Anime Con, Gaming Con or ComicCon. We have elements of all. Our Con is for fans by fans. Any member may participate as a panelist and even suggest panels. Our Film Festival is dedicated to showcasing voices that are not traditionally lifted on the film circuit. We pride ourselves for being a safe place for all Geeks to express their fandom.
We are a family friendly convention and are always looking for unique artist and makers for our vendor room, film makers for our film festival and volunteers to help us before and during the event, and fans to participate in all the events we offer!
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the weather and friendliness of everyone here.
I hate the traffic and because we are a tourist destination, the cost of lodging. It’s tough on our guests, vendors, and participants visiting from out of town.
Pricing:
- Weekend-$30
- Single Day-$20
- Kids under 12 -Free
- Vendor Spaces-$150/$250
Contact Info:
- Website: http://atomacon.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alltypesofmediaartscon/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATOMACON
- Twitter: https://x.com/Atomacon
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atomaconconvention7289
