BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) \u2014 Thousands of people gathered at Coast Con, now in its 48th year as the largest and longest-running science fiction, fantasy and gaming convention in Mississippi. <\/p>\n
Toys, books and games lined the walls of the convention center, with vendors offering both top-brand collectibles and handmade products.<\/p>\n
Tony Saracino, a manager at a Gulfport gaming store and Coast Con vendor, said the event draws creators who sell items unavailable anywhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s all sorts of things that you can only get because the people that come here are making these things themselves,\u201d Saracino said. \u201cIt\u2019s the only place you can get those kinds of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachael Smith, another vendor, has been crafting pottery for years and spent the last year making the items she brought to the convention. For Smith, Coast Con is an opportunity to bring passionate people together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t a place where people can come that isn\u2019t a digital space as much,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis gives a space for all of us to get together no matter what your nerdy interest is, there is someone you can talk to about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vendors said the social experience of the convention holds as much value as sales.<\/p>\n
Debrah Kumenacker, a Coast Con vendor, said the connections made on the convention floor keep her coming back.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if people don\u2019t buy stuff, they stop and swap stories, and we have a lot of fun,\u201d Kumenacker said. \u201cMostly for me, it is about getting out here, being social and being with people who are my people.\u201d<\/p>\n
See a spelling or grammar error in this story? Report it to our team <\/i>HERE<\/i>.<\/i> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) \u2014 Thousands of people gathered at Coast Con, now in its 48th year as the largest and longest-running science fiction, fantasy and gaming convention in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}