On March 8th, 2008, Fear the Con was held in St. Charles, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. The gaming convention was attended by over 100 people and by all accounts was considered a rousing success for a first year convention.

This convention is notable for a few reasons, first, it was a gaming convention sponsored by a gaming podcast. Fear the Boot, a tabletop RPG podcast, sponsored the event as a way to build the community of gamers who listen to their show and give them a venue whereby people from all over the country could come together and celebrate gaming and the podcast that they enjoy on a weekly basis. Listeners to the show came from Arkansas, Oklahoma, New York, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Indiana, just to name a few states.

The convention is also notable because it was the first Fear the Froot. Fear the Froot I was the brainchild of Tony Mast, host of Tony’s Losing It. Tony collected donations in the months leading up to the event and with the support of his friends in the podcast community, listeners of his podcast, the Fear the Boot podcast and others through out the podcasting and gaming communities, he collected over $100 in donations.

Tony was able to make a purchase through a local Farmer’s Market and arrived at the convention with 6 cases of fruit. It’s estimated that there was between 150 and 200 pounds of apples, oranges and bananas on hand at the convention.

Through the course of the day, Tony visited every gaming table two to three times during each four hour gaming block to hand deliver a healthy alternative snack to the gamers and volunteers of the convention.

At the end of the day there were still three cases of fruit but many, many thanks to those who helped to support Fear the Froot I.

The following day, the remaining cases of fruit along with left over concessions from the convention were donated to the Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern Illinois, a shelter that supports women, children and the elderly who leave violent households.

Tony’s Losing It episode #34 details the events of Fear the Froot I from Tony’s perspective.

Fear the Froot will return in October 2008 at Archon, the St. Louis area gaming, science fiction, fantasy and media convention in Collinsville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Fear the Froot II will take place over the three-day convention and already has donations and volunteers enlisted to help out with the event.

Information about Fear the Con and Fear the Boot can be found at www.feartheboot.com.

Tony Mast hosts the Tony’s Losing It, Fanboy Smackdown and Sci-fi Smackdown podcasts. Information for these podcasts can be found at www.tonyslosingit.com, www.fanboysmackdown.com and www.scifismackdown.com respectively.

Information about the Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern Illinois can be found at www.vpcswi.org.