THE TRIBUTE SITE
SoulGeek at Conventions
2009
2010 - 2017
2018-2019
2009 Wondercon and SDCC From its very beginning SoulGeek.com has had a history with conventions. The debut of the site in July of 2007 was purposely planned to be just ahead of that year’s San Diego Comic-Con which typically draws some 120,000 attendees yearly making it the perfect place to promote the newly launched site. Dino, Casey and Casey’s daughter Jessica spent the entire convention walking the immense dealer’s hall passing out stacks of postcards announcing SoulGeek. It was truly exhausting, but it paid off by way of driving thousands of new members to the site. By the end of 2008 a booth would be purchased and banner art created in time for the beginning of the next year. By themselves Dino & Casey would premiere this new booth the weekend of February 27 2009 at Wondercon San Francisco to be followed by San Diego Comic-Con in July. In San Diego they would have Richard Hatch of “Battlestar Galactica” fame and “Jump Leads” webcomic creator Ben Paddon as signing guests. By the end of 2009 the “Batman: Arkham Asylum” video game would become a major hit making it possible for Dino to promote himself as an autograph draw for the booth thanks to his role in the game as the Scarecrow. Dino’s growing body of work (including most notably “World of Warcraft”) also helped.
2010 - 2017(ish) And of course any con Dino was invited to as an autograph guest, anywhere in the country, he would use as an opportunity to promote SoulGeek with flyers, postcards, and sometimes even hosting SoulGeek geek singles mixers as part of his appearances. Such mixers were particularly popular at DragonCon Atlanta. From 2008 thru 2019 Dino would run the SoulGeek booth as an official vendor at cons in California from San Francisco to Anaheim - usually with just Casey and then eventually with the aid of Taryn Allen, a SoulGeek volunteer who would became Dino’s Events Assistant. However, it was San Diego Comic-Con where the SoulGeek booth would make the biggest splash and the most appearances in a single run… 9 straight years from 2009 to 2018. Starting in 2011, two years into that San Diego run, Dino would start inviting many other celebs (mostly voice actors) to join him in the booth as signing guests. Over the years these guests would include: Phil Lamar, Gregg Berger, Richard Epcar, Ellyn Stern, Jennifer Hale, Phil Proctor, Katie Leigh, David Sobolov, Alexis Cruz, as well as Costumer Heather C. Harris, author MD Marie and webcomics creators JE Draft and of course Ben Paddon who would help Dino and Casey at any and all conventions whenever he could. By far and away though Dino and Casey’s most loyal booth guests would be Rikki Simons of “Invader Zim” fame and his wife comic-book creator Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons. Dino, Rikki and Tavi got along so well that for the better part of a decade they would become fixtures at not just SDCC but at conventions across the country. And anywhere the SoulGeek booth went, from 2011 to 2019, so did Rikki and Tavi.
2018: The Last SDCC & 2019 When it was decided that 2018 would be SoulGeek’s final year at San Diego Comic-Con Dino and Casey invited only Rikki, Tavi and Ben Paddon to join them. As Dino put it, “This is our last hurrah at SDCC so we’re keeping it in the family.” And a true family affair it turned out to be as Dino’s son Connor Andrade was achieving some fame of his own as a voice actor for his work on “Spider-Man Maximum Venom” and “We Baby Bears” so he too would join in the fun as a SoulGeek autograph guest. Eight months later in March of 2019 this same group of Dino, Casey, Connor, Rikki, Tavi, Taryn and Ben would gather with the booth one final time at Wondercon Anaheim for what would turn out to be SoulGeek.com's last appearance as an official convention vendor. From Dino & Casey, many thanks to ALL of you… …especially Rikki, Tavi, Ben and Taryn. It was great fun.
