With Long Island’s famous Memorial Day air show going on at Jones Beach this weekend, we thought it would be a perfect chance to get to know one of our event sponsors- Wildplay Jones Beach. Featuring a 700 ft. long zipline along the Jones Beach Boardwalk, with breathtaking 360 degree views of Jones Beach, and the Jones Beach theater to the NYC skyline, Wildplay has rope courses for every age and ability level. Once you are secure in your safety harness, make your way from platform to platform by walking across tightropes, climbing up cargo nets, sliding down ziplines, flying through the air on rope swings, leaping onto swinging logs, balancing on wobbly bridges and jumping from 40 ft. heights. There’s even a kid’s course- ideal for kids between the ages of 5 and 12. Build your confidence, challenge your comfort zone, get active and enjoy the fresh air and summer fun at the beach. Bring your friends or family and make a day of it at Wild Play Jones Beach. https://www.wildplay.com/jones-beach
WHO’s coming to our picnic? Our friends over at Long Island TARDIS will be joining us on June 24th! We’ll have our very own TARDIS on site- perfect for photos! You can’t miss it! Come join us! Don’t for get to register for our event! It’s FREE ( but registering helps us out!) Register now: http://registration.iconsf.org/
Let’s hang out and bring back some of those good ol’ I-CON vibes of a bygone era! We’re about to embark on a new journey, not just a regeneration of the old, but something new; and little different. We’re excited to talk with our friends and fans about it. We even changed our logo from a dragon to a phoenix, symbolic to say the least! But we’re still I-CON at heart, and this is our re-launch party… so we gotta have some guests (barring any last minute cancellations of course)! Come chat with authors Patrick Thomas and Keith R.A. DeCandido, along with local artist David O. Miller. Of course, costumes are welcome! We’ll also have gaming, food, and raffles, and fun for the kids. We’ll have some other surprises, too… Hope to see you all there! We’ve missed ya!
I-CON has been dormant for a while, and thanks to a certain world-wide pandemic, we had to wait a little bit more than we would have liked. But even during those times we were talking, taking notes and watching. We’ve seen the landscape for conventions has changed these days. We applaud many of the other conventions that have since emerged. Fandom should be supportive of each other. Now we’re back; but small steps at first, and those steps might be in a slightly different direction.
The legacy I-CON conventions of SUNY Stony Brook had been going strong with over 30 events across as many years, if not more. Kids grew up going to our conventions, some even met their future spouses there, and then they would bring their children to I-CON. How many of you have a story you still tell that happened “that time” during an I-CON? Do you remember your first I-CON? Those were fun conventions and hard work went in to make them happen. We loved those times… and it’s a legacy we’ll honor.
It’s 2023, and we are re-launching, but we’re not going to try to reclaim those “glory days”. Realistically, we feel a lot has changed and as such, things have a way of moving on. Those changes have given us an opportunity to pivot and reimagine, reinvent, and to explore trying something different. We might get back to some of the familiar aspects, but for right now, we’ve other things in mind that could be kind of fun to try, and hopefully it will be fun for you all as well.
Chances are, you’ve probably been to at least one I-CON. This time around, we’d like to bring some I-CON to YOU!
Instead of ONE 3-day convention, we’ll bring a little bit of I-CON around the island on several different date throughout the year. Bigger events, or small more intimate gatherings. Maybe it’s a science-themed event, or anime related? We host a picnic in the summer! Or a pop-up gaming event in the fall, maybe a movie night at a local theater or a… well, we don’t want to spoil anything, but you get the idea. It also gives us an opportunity to help support some of the local businesses that supported us and who have had to struggle during the pandemic, like the local game shops, or book stores and comic shops across the island. By partnering up with them for an event, maybe we can help shine a light on them; support local business, local authors and artists, local theater, and other local groups. After all, the I in I-CON stands for Island.
That’s kind of where we are headed. And as we mentioned.. small steps at first. This is a rebirth for us, and in a way uncharted territory, but with exciting opportunities! We are open to any ideas and suggestions! We’ll listen and if it has potential we’ll see if we can put something together. We couldn’t do I-CON with out the support of our friends and fans, and we still can’t. We hope you’ll join us!
As part of of our rebranding, we’ve refreshed our logo, from our dragon logo (now associated with the legacy conventions) opting to embrace our rebirth and rebuilding with that of a phoenix. Driving this next generation of I-CON is a talented team of passionate professionals, who care deeply about our convention’s past and future– affectionally known as “Team Phoenix”. You can read about some of them now and we’ll have more for you in the coming week and months. Stay tuned! And Thanks for supporting us!
