Getting Back in the Research Saddle

Fantastic Four Costumes at the Marvel Booth for San Diego Comic Con 2025 - photo by Darlynne Overbaugh

During the pandemic I focused my efforts on earning a Master's Degree in Creative Event Management from Falmouth University. The culmination of this degree was a research thesis titled - The Fan Family that Conventions Together Stays Together: A Grounded Theory Study of Family Fan Convention Experiences in the United States

Here's the Abstract:

While the history and impacts of fan conventions have been studied within the context of tourism and financial value, the social value of fan conventions and the fan families that attend conventions have been dismissed from the research sphere. This mixed methods interpretivist / social constructivist phenomenological study uses a grounded theory approach to identify what fan families experience pre, during and post fan culture conventions. Motivations, social connection(s) and behaviors are captured through a picture elicitation interview process from both the child and parent perspectives. As a result, this study finds that fan conventions both nurture fandom(s) and fan family social structures through the behaviors of cosplay and consumption and demonstrates that while ludic co-creative processes already exist, fan convention producers have the opportunity to establish formal co-creative processes with fan families to improve the event design and event experience for all stakeholders.

If you're interested in reading more, reach out and I can get you a full copy.

In the last 4 years, I've continued my observational research of this topic (families at fan culture events) but haven't really done much in the way of formalizing my work. There are also other research ideas that I've been pondering.

All this to say - stay tuned! There's active work being done and I'm going to share it with everyone!