Tomorrow, May 27, kicks off the 30th anniversary for Miscon, "Montana’s premier science fiction convention.” According to MisCon chair Justin Barba, this year’s event will feature a bevy of authors, scientists, artists, and lots and lots of Hollywood movie props.

"We have Dragon Dronet coming, he's a special effects artist that has worked on almost every movie," Barba said. "He is shipping a bunch of Batman parts, batarangs and things, and Star Trek stuff. He was actually the first character killed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Conan movie. He's going to be here doing combat demos, he's going to do some costume prop molding demos, he'll show things from the movies he's worked on. He's a real interesting guy... oh, and he does a bunch of Star Wars stuff."

For the past 15 years, Miscon has been held at Ruby’s Inn, but Barba says when Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin visited back in 2012, they realized they were running out of space.

"We outgrew it," Barba said. "We were lucky to make it work there for so long, but it was getting cramped. We made really good use of the space, but eventually, it just kind of worked out, the stars aligned and we realized that we could move downtown and make it more of a Missoula event by expanding into the Wilma, the Roxy and the Elks"

This year’s event will be held at the Holiday Inn near Caras Park. The batarangs, and other fantasy gear is expected to draw a crowd of up to 2,000 people, but Barba says George R.R. Martin has expressed a desire to return to Missoula and may very well reappear at Miscon soon. There were even talks in the works for a surprise visit this year, but Martin will be busy in at convention in Baltimore. If Martin does appear, he will likely do so with a record-breaking crowd.

 

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