Morning Edition; Art Con 2021

It's morning edition on K-R-P-S. There is still time to sign up for Archon 2021 hosted by the NewsHall Arts Council. Joining me this morning is Sarah Serio, Executive Director of the NewsHall Arts Council. Good morning, Sarah, and thank you for some of your time. Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And I do want to remind listeners that Archon 2021 is taking place February 11 through the 13th. So, Sarah, let's start off for some of the changes for Archon this year. What are some of the big changes and what can visitors expect? Visitors and air quotes this year. Right, so the big change is it is 100% virtual this year instead of an in-person event. And that's just for safety, of course. Since the last time we talked maybe a couple of weeks ago now, I think you have you finalized the guest list, the special guest, I think it's still the same, but have you finalized the guest list and the events and the times and all that? Yeah, we have full schedule up on our website, NeoShowArts.net. We're excited. Our big panel, we are going to be talking with Noah Aberbatcats, who is on Star Trek Discovery this past season.

We'll be doing a talk in Q&A with him and people can join in. It's live and interactive and free to take part in. But we also have some great comic book panels featuring Jeremy Hahn, who is a local artist as well as Andy Parks, who he just had one of his comics turned into a movie on Netflix. So Andy's comic has recently been adapted for the movie extraction. Well, that's cool. That must be feel real good to write something like that and have it go international maybe with Netflix. These panels are free. Anybody can join? Exactly. So you can talk to Andy, get a little information on how that entire process worked. But we also have a really great Star Wars comics panel coming up with three of the artist and writers behind that. So the force will be strong there and we've got a live drawing and inking demo with some of our artists as well as several great cosplay panels.

Oh, one of the things that I've on your website, Neoshoorts.net, if people want to learn more about Archon, and the Neosho Arts Council in general, is a real diverse lineup of guests and panelists from Star Trek Discovery, the Stranger Things, Star Wars, Superman comic and all the comic book creators, artists and writers. Is there anything in particular I know that you're at the center of it's virtually this show or in person. Is there anything in particular that you're interested in? Personally, I'm just a big nerd for any of this stuff. So I'm excited for all of them, but I think it'll be really great to see the inking and drawing demo with Megan Levins and Andy Parks. That'll be exciting. But we also have a cosplay makeup demo with a makeup artist who has worked professionally for places including Disney and she's going to transform into a princess. So I'm excited to see that as well. One of the benefits, at least for me having this

virtual instead of in person, is everybody having the same vantage point. There's not going to be for instance like somebody sitting up, you know, first row versus like the 20th row in one of the panels. Everybody's going to have a front row seats. I've mentioned most of the events are free. What are some of the experiences or or something that somebody can pay for? Because this is really the initial arts council largest fundraiser of the year. It is our largest fundraiser of the year and so things like getting an autograph from Noah. He's going to personally sign them so you can still get for friends or family or for yourself just like you would if you were setting up to the table. It'll just have to come in the mail. Then we also have cosplay contest which has been expanded this year to include builders exhibition as well as adults teams and kids. And we also have a smash brothers ultimate tournament that's going on for the video gamers out there. There's a lot of great events. Again, most of it is free but there's a few things to pay

for. We're also excited. Our merch this year is 100% of the profits are going to are our education funds. 100% of the profits that's huge. I'm looking at the merchandise page right now. It looks like great merchandise too. We're excited for it. One thing too that I peak my interest is you have trivia nights each night. It's $20 to join per night. Could you talk a little bit about that? Right. So this is going to be exciting. Everyone's missing getting to go to trivia nights. Specifically, we're going to have three nights. You can win up to $200 which is pretty good. It's a 50-50 fundraiser for New Sharks Council. We will be talking fandom, general fandom. We're going to have a specific Star Wars trivia night and then nerds on TV. We'll wrap this up and it'll all be live over zoom. It'll just be great to brush off your nerd knowledge. Definitely. In fact, I have a brother who loves this stuff. He lives in

downtown Los Angeles. I sent the link. I said Andy, if you're not doing anything on February 11th through the 13th, check this out. Are you hearing from more people both here in the US and internationally? Are you interested in this this year? Yeah, so what's really cool is this year we will have a virtual artist alley in Vendor's room and it's going to be a one-stop shopping experience, one-cart and we've got vendors from all over the United States and around the world taking part. So this will be a unique opportunity but we are getting feedback too from people who are going to be attending. So it'll be a great opportunity to connect during the panels with people from all over and not just maybe in our region. So that's exciting. Absolutely. I mean, it can be difficult for somebody to travel really to Southwest Missouri if they're not used to it. You know, either traveling to Japlin or Northwest Arkansas or in a Springfield maybe. So the future of Archon, do you see it being an in-person and virtual event in the years going forward if this

works out? Yeah, I really do think that a hybrid event is definitely going to be on the horizon because we've expanded from one day to three this year and so there's some opportunities we see of making a hybrid event in the years to come but we definitely want to get back to in-person but the safety of our volunteers, our guests and our community, you said virtual was the way to go this year. Absolutely. Yeah, maybe a five-day event have the first two days be virtual and the last three days be in-person. That's exciting to think about for the years to come about this event. Oh, yeah, as it grows, we definitely know every the past two years it's grown. In this year, we just had to roll with the punches. What are some of the other events that you know are Shoots Council is planning for when we have warmer weather than today in Southwest Missouri? It's near freezing. What are some of the other adventure guys you're planning for this spring or something that somebody can do right now in the area? Well, so our first thing that we have on the horizon coming up is our Spring Art Challenge and that's going to be a virtual event as well.

We did it last spring and had a really good response and then we are just hoping to get back on track with some of our other events. We will be, of course, working with Art Central Carthage over the summer for summer art camps for kids, which is exciting and, of course, the annual Thomas Hart been art competition and exhibition in the fall and our gallery, which is always open year-round displaying regional artists. Sarah, Sarah, you're executive director of the Neoshards Council. Good luck with our con and thank you for your time. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.