The Featured Convention of the month for August is Dragon*Con. Held over the Labor Day Weekend in Atlanta, Georgia, this gargantuan multi-genre convention now encompasses four of the largest hotels in downtown Atlanta - Hyatt Regency, Marriott Marquis, Hilton & Towers, and the Sheraton. While attendance figures vary wildly depending on whom you ask, the "official" count is around 30,000... making Dragon*Con the only convention I am aware of that actually downplays their attendance.

Currently, they have announced 318 guests which include (and I'm only skimming the highlights) authors Laurell K. Hamilton, Anne McCaffrey, Harry Turtledove, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, actors Sean Astin, Edward James Olmos, Avery Brooks, Robert Englund, Lance Henriksen, Dominic Keating, James Marsters, Hayden Panettiere, Adam West, artists and illustrators Larry Elmore, Cully Hamner, Stephen Hickman, Joseph Michael Linsner, Don Maitz, Rowena, Bernie Wrightson plus performances from the Crüxshadows and Voltaire.

But there's a lot more to Dragon*Con that just an incredible guest list.  They also have over 30 different tracks of programming, a huge amount of gaming, two of the largest dealers rooms in the world, a world-class art show, an enormous parade (over 2,000 participants last year), several costume contests including the largest Masquerade in the region, and the event that is near and dear to my heart: the 18th Annual Robot Battles competition (with events on Sunday and Monday of the convention). To attempt to explain Dragon*Con to those that have never been is next to impossible, but I've you've ever wondered what it was like to visit an intergalactic cocktail party, circus and freak show all rolled into one, do what I've been doing for the past twenty years - come to Atlanta for the biggest, craziest, wildest, wackiest and more enjoyable convention of them all: Dragon*Con.