Once Upon a Con

Immersive fantasy book convention being held at the Ga***rd National Harbor, MD, August 14-17, 2025✨

11/21/2024

✨💜It’s here!
Enjoy our main events schedule so you can start to plan what you’ll wear, what you’ll enjoy and what you can look forward to!
💜Thursday night content
💜 2 Starfall Masquerade Balls
💜Marketplace & Author Alley
💜Frostfire Symphony

And more!

11/21/2024

💜✨Stay tuned!

Tomorrow at 9:00am est we drop the Main Events Schedule!✨💜

11/13/2024

ATTN: Cadets

We have intercepted a message from HQ, and our team has been working diligently to declassify as much of the message that we can. So far, we believe that this message contains insight into potential objectives that you will be partaking in during the War Room exercise when on-site at the Ga***rd National Harbor.

Think that you can crack more of the code?
Have a member of your squad comment CODE CRACKED in the comments below and DM us your declassified message.

All squads that crack the code get a 5 minute head start at the beginning of War Room day 1 of the con!

In service,
Lt Holmstead

11/11/2024

We keep the door open for everyone looking for a safe space to enjoy fantasy with us.

10/28/2024

✨We are thrilled to announce a lovely late night yoga class with the wonderful .capezio!✨

Amanda has hundreds of hours of experience and a special, hero’s journey themed yoga class ready just for you.

Grab your bestie, don your pjs and enjoy an all levels friendly yoga class in the city of starlight at the House of Wind. 🌌

10/27/2024

Get Ready to Throw Down!

🔥Join us for OUAC’s first Iron Cosplay Competition!

This is your opportunity for you and your friends to get creative, work together, construct a cosplay and strut your stuff to fire up the audience!

This cosplay competition is 90 minutes of fast paced cosplay crafting with high energy and a trophy for the winning team.

Want to join the audience to cheer and shout for your favorite team? Seats are first come first serve and in Iron Cosplay, YOU become the judge! The team with loudest applause and cheers wins!
🔥🔥🔥

10/26/2024

Are you ready? ✨

The Ga***rd hotel block information is finally here! We have confirmed and locked in a large hotel block for those looking to find accommodations at the Ga***rd for the con.

✨ Stay on-site and be a short elevator ride to your room

💜 Enjoy multiple bars and restaurants at different price
points inside and outside the hotel

✨ ADA rooms available upon request with a quick call to the
Ga***rd when the block drops

💜 All regular room bookings done easily through an
electronic link you’ll receive via email

✨ Mark your calendars, let’s fall into fantasy together!

10/22/2024

10/18/2024

Did you know that this weekend is Stuff Your Kindle: FANTASY? You can grab some of our amazing attending indie authors, as well as over 400 covering two dozen of your favorite tropes!

Grab your free books on Kindle from Oct 18th - 20th!

10/01/2024

Happy Threshing Day 🐉 🔥 We couldn’t think of a better opportunity to announce our next panelist!

Join Painting Dragon Feathers for one, or both, of their panels that will be available at Once Upon A Con!

Panel: Dragons, Cryptids, and Dinos, OH MY!
In this lecture we will analyze creatures from How to Train Your Dragon, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Wings of Fire, Trollhunters, Dinotopia, Pokémon, A Monster Calls, The Leviathan Trilogy, Ancient Magus Bride, Wolf Children, and many others, on top of broader folklore, mythology, and literature to study how they were crafted and what makes them so compelling in the media they appear in. A Q&A will follow.
Panel Rating: G - All ages admitted

Panel: Worldbuilding: How to Make a Story Bible
Whether you’re writing a story set in a galaxy far, far away, an enchanted forest, Brooklyn NYC, an ancient dojo, or a far future dystopia, how do you keep track of your characters and worldbuilding? You can make a Story Bible! A Story Bible is a tool to help any author organize the aspects of their world-building—the cultures, rules of magic and/or science, weather, politics, ecology, economy, and all other kinds of nitty gritty details, timelines of important plot points and histories, character interviews and designs, and more—in a handy physical or digital body of reference for when you’re fleshing out your later drafts. In this lecture we will talk about how to make or acquire the right kind of book, what kind of materials to use (no drawing skills required—and if you are an artist, GO NUTS), what kind of information to include and how to organize it depending on the kind of story you are writing, and how to use your bible to add layers of depth to your characters and stories. A Q&A will follow.
Panel rating: G - All ages admitted

09/25/2024

Calling all merfolk 🧜 ✨

Learn from about Ocean, Lake, and River conservations along with what it’s like as a mermaid entertainer, the training that goes into being a mermaid, the tips and tricks to getting gigs, the different types of companies that make mermaids tails, and accessories, water safety for lake, oceans, and pools. Kenzie will talk about her journey of becoming a mermaid beginning in 2017 from a simple Amazon tail to a full-blown mertailor tail doing photoshoots with Fins magazine. She will also help answer questions for those who want to start but don’t know where to begin or how.

Panel Rating: G - All ages admitted

This panel is perfect whether you are new to the merfolk world, or if you are more experienced. If you have a tail, there will be a merfolk meetup at the pool at Once Upon a Con 😏 🌊 More details to come!

-EVENT INFO-
✨ Once Upon a Con: Fantasy Book Convention
📆 August 14-17, 2025
📍 Ga***rd National Harbor, MD
🎟️ Tickets available on Eventbrite

09/21/2024

Ever wanted to learn how shields are made?🛡️Now’s your chance! Join professional shield-maker Matt DiGirolamo for The Art of Shieldmaking panel at Once Upon a Con for a rundown of common build patterns and what materials they’re made from. Finished pieces will be available to view up close after the panel!

Panel Rating: G - all ages admitted

-EVENT INFO-
✨Once Upon a Con: Fantasy Book Convention
📆August 14-17, 2025
📍Ga***rd National Harbor, MD
🎟️Tickets available on Eventbrite!

09/20/2024

Gather ‘round for magical storytime with Flyleaf the Book Fairy at Once Upon a Con 🧚🏻

All ages can join to listen to enchanting stories about fairies, royals, merfolk, trolls, and dragons! Flyleaf does the voices, brings props, has audience participation, and sometimes… there are bubbles! 🫧

Live Event Rating: G - all ages admitted.

-EVENT INFO-

✨Once Upon a Con: Fantasy Book Convention
📆 August 14-17, 2025
📍Ga***rd National Harbor, MD
🎟️ Tickets available on Eventbrite!

Address

National Harbor, MD

Website

https://www.onceuponaconvention.com/

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Videos

✨💜It’s here! Enjoy our main events schedule so you can start to plan what you’ll wear, what you’ll enjoy and what you can look forward to! 💜Thursday night content 💜 2 Starfall Masquerade Balls 💜Marketplace & Author Alley 💜Frostfire Symphony And more!

ONE YEAR from Once Upon a Con 🎉

We’re officially ONE YEAR away from Once Upon a Con! 🎉Over 3,500 of you are already coming, and we can’t wait to see how many more fantasy book lovers will be joining us for the most magical fantasy weekend ever! Think of all the new bookish friends 🥹 We’ve got so many exciting announcements and behind-the-scenes plans to share, and we can’t wait to reveal it all 🤭 We’re beyond excited to Fall into Fantasy with you in 2025!✨

Hey everyone! If you weren’t able to attend our live Q&A we wanted to post it here for you to have access to the information. The first 20 minutes we talk about why we had to change venues and what comes with that change. Information and Q&A from the rest of the live and things to note: •200 VIP tickets will be added. Pre-sale general admission ticket holders will have priority access to the tickets and will receive an email this Monday with the information about when and how to purchase the VIP add-on. If the VIP tickets don’t sell out after a week, we will open them up to general admission ticket holders. •Author Alley and the Marketplace will be increased. Authors and Vendors can apply on our website to be added to the waitlist and be considered. •We will be adding more panels, workshops, and meetups, applications are on our website. •Rita’s will still be happening and will be accessible within the Gaylord National Harbor. •Apparently we will now be hosting a penguin meetup and #penguincon is a thing. We want to say again how sorry we are to those who can no longer attend. Due to the construction happening at the Lancaster Marriott - this reduced our venue capacity by a ⅓ which resulted in us outgrowing the venue (and we didn’t want people to be falling into fantasy in the middle of construction happening). This unforeseen circumstance required us to move venues, and after researching other options that were closer to the original location, and all not being able to accomodate our needs, we found a silver lining at the Gaylord National Harbor which had one singular weekend open - which happened to be the exact same weekend we have been planning for. We’re so thankful that we still have the opportunity to Fall into Fantasy with you all, and are excited it will be at our new home - The Gaylord National Harbor!

Who’s ready to meet some of the attending cosplayers for our Starfall Masquerades? 👀 Beginning Monday of next week, we’ll announce a cosplayer every day until Saturday (for those of you doing the math: that’s right - a double feature! one day will feature two cosplayers in one post). As the Friday night cast differs from Saturday night, we’ll let you know who will be attending which masquerade in their announcement. We can’t wait to share our cast with you! Reminder: your ticket to Once Upon a Con only grants you access to one Starfall Masquerade - you will be able to select which night you would like to attend when purchasing your tickets on July 1, 2024 at 6pm est ✨

Get ready to live out your favorite fantasy worlds! At Once Upon a Con we will have over 20 fandom meetups for you to choose from. Meetups are a way to cosplay your favorite character and meet other people from the same fandom and take pictures together - bringing your favorite books to life! Starting Friday we will begin unveiling our different meetups along with their respective Cosplay Ambassadors who will ensure you get your group and character group pictures taken.Which fandom meetup do you hope to see at Once Upon a Con? Voice clip of Tairn: @michaeleok Voice clip of Rhysand: @cavernkingston

Are you ready to Fall into Fantasy? 📚✨Author Alley will be your portal to adventure, romance, magic and mystery! 📖 Author announcements begin May 13th, so stay tuned to our socials! 💜#fantasy #books #bookevent #fantasyevents #bookcon

HERE COME THE GENERALS 🫡⚔️We’re so proud to be showcasing The Goddess Armory and her world of Idria at our High Fantasy Fashion Show next August. Her talent and creativity are pure MAGIC ✨#onceuponacon #highfantasy #worldbuilding #armor #fashionshow

We’re so excited to present FaeDae Spring Picnic in collaboration with Amtgard 💐✨⚔️ Join together for an afternoon of feasting, friendship, and optional fighting! All picnics will be from 1:00-5:00pm. You’re invited to bring your own picnic with light refreshments provided by Amtgard. This is a FREE event! Tickets can be reserved on Eventbrite. FaeDae Spring Picnic Locations: 4/27 -Atlanta, GA - Swift-Cantrell Park 5/4 - Chesapeake, VA - Chesapeake City Park 5/5 - Boston, MA - Boston Common 5/5 - Lancaster, PA - Longs Park 5/5- Rochester, NY - Genesee Valley Park More details to come!

Introducing Darling Embers - romantasy inspired jewlery designer and one of our feautred vendors. Her designs capture your favorite stories and transport you into your fantasy dreams with just a glance ✨

Introducing macrame armor designer The Goddess Armory as the final addition of designers who will be featuring a collection to walk the runway of our High Fantasy Fashion Show event ✨

Introducing Collin The Necromaker - metalwork, leatherwork and detail extraordinaire designer. We look forward to seeing his collection on the runway of our High Fantasy Fashion Show event ✨

Introducing Verity Gordon - another talented designer to feature a fantasy inspired collection on the Once Upon a Con High Fantasy Fashion Show Runway✨