Atlanta Fantasy Fair 1984

Ah, yes, 1984. The year George Orwell picked for his dystopian novel of global brutalist authoritarianism, the year Apple Computers really broke through to the national consciousness with an ad referencing the 1984 novel, and the year Michael Radford made a film version of that selfsame novel that was chiefly noted for its Eurythmics soundtrack. 

1984 was also the year of the tenth annual Atlanta Fantasy Fair! So come on down to downtown Atlanta the first weekend of August to get your Fantasy Fair on!

signed by the model

The tenth annual... or the tenth anniversary... if the con started in 1975 then the 1984 show would be nine years after their first, but you don't start conventions with 'zero' so it's their tenth... aw, who knows. It was the tenth AFF. Guests included Robert "The Deadly Bees" Bloch, Larry "adviser to Ronald Reagan on the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative" Niven, Forrest "dammit quit calling me we're trying to shoot Destination Moon here" Ackerman, and Howard Weinstein, whom Wikipedia tells us was a Star Trek author.

I attended AFF 1984 as a young teenager in the company of my older brother and a gang of friends, who, in those pre-helicopter-parenting days, were allowed to roam freely the Omni Hotel and the World Congress Center back in the days before Centennial Olympic Park, back when the area was a steel and concrete vision of a dystopian Orwellian future, only with Chic-Fil-A.

poster courtesy "Timelord Cardiff"

I can vouch for the panels, the costume contest, the huge dealers room, the amateur film festival, and it being a terrific show for a 13 year old nerd to spend all his hard-earned lawn-mowing money at.