Beginning today, the Yachting Club will host the annual What the Hell Convention (Con). First appearing 10 years ago, the Con has become a Guilford tradition. The Con is a free convention and open to anyone who wants to attend. The Yachting Club funds the convention with its own budget and donates all profits to charity.

Sophomore Tess Crocker who is running the Con said that the proceeds would be going towards the charity Child’s Play.

“(It’s) a charity that donates toys, books, and games to children’s hospitals around the world,” said Crocker.

“What the Hell Con is easily the single largest event that the Yachting Club holds every year,” said Mitchell Hamilton, member of the Yachting Club. “It brings together not just members of the Guilford community, but people across the country. We get a huge influx of people coming in, from artists to performers to Web comics to gamers.”

Hamilton is among many Yachting community members who are volunteering to personally run events for the convention. He will oversee the Bad Movie Room, assist in the Flaming Faeries fire dancing show, and dress up as a giant monster for the Daikaiju Battle.

The Daikaiju Battle is named after the giant monsters of Japanese films, such as Godzilla and Mothra. The staged show features monster caricatures in costumes fighting one another in a city of cardboard boxes and it is one of the many events that draws in Con-goers annually.

Hamilton described the Daikaiju Battle as his favorite of the events at What the Hell Con, and describes it as “side-splittly-gut-rattling event of a good time.”

The guest of honor for 2010 is musician Tom Smith, the artist behind the song “A Boy and His Frog” about Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog.

According to the Yachting Club’s Web site, Smith’s music ranges across all genres – except dull.

To prepare for running the Con this year, Crocker has contacted the artists, vendors, and performers who will attend. Among them are the Flaming Faeries fire dancing troop and a number of Web comic artists including Jenny Breeden of The Devils Panties.

“Everyone can come, everyone has something to bring to the community,” said Hamilton of What the Hell Con’s diversity. He recalled last year how he saw “Goths hugging preps, (and) jocks laughing with math majors.”

Hamilton addressed the unifying power of the Con, saying, “It’s where you can forget about who you are any other day of the week. Here you’re just another convention-goer.”

In spring 2008, Tyler Warburg made his third visit to Guilford, while deciding whether or not to transfer to the school, and happened to visit during the weekend of What the Hell Con.

An academic visit soon turned into a fun-filled weekend with movies, games, and live performances.

Looking back, Warburg, now a junior, says that the Con was a defining factor in his decision to come to Guilford.

He said that his fondest memories are of the Con’s Crapathon, which he described as “the singularly most disturbing yet entertaining event I’d ever seen.