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TopatoCon organizer Holly Rowland.
Planning the three-day celebration of webcomics, podcasts, gaming and culture is not an easy job, but Holly Rowland is happy to do it. Rowland, who runs the online digital media retailer Topatoco with her husband Jeffrey, took a break from organizing the convention to speak to MassLive.com about her business and what to expect this September.
Q: Can you tell me a little about yourself and the history of TopatoCo?
A: It started about nine years ago. I had spent all my 20s working in kitchens around the Valley. I met Jeffrey, my now-husband, around the time I was looking for something different to do. I was working for him, then we were sort of running the business together. As our personal relationship progressed, so did our working relationship. We just kind of built it from there.
How did the business change through the years?
It started as a shelf in Jeffrey's bedroom in Oklahoma. After he moved out here, he shared space with Rich [Stevens, creator of the webcomic "Diesel Sweeties,"] so it was just Jeffrey and Rich, then it was Jeffrey and Rich and the people you could call clients. Then it became a more purposeful growth. We started at one space, then we moved into two spaces, then we had two spaces and a storage space, and then we bought our own building but we still had our storage space. It keeps kind of naturally growing out.
Q: There seems to be such a population of creative people, including webcomic creators, in the Pioneer Valley. Is it something about the area or a coincidence?
A: The people we've seen coming together has been a combination of the two: people who came out here because the Valley is cool and creative, then we met them, and people who came out specifically because we knew them. It was kind of a coming together of friends, because you want to be where your friends are and where your creative support group is.
Q: Can you tell me a little about deciding to host TopatoCon?
A: Five years ago, we had done two Webcomics Weekends, which were really great. That was a project that I helped out with. It went really well both times and people still talk about it fondly. They've been asking for years, "When are you going to do another Webcomics Weekend?" I was hesitant because while this was happening, Topatoco stopped being exclusively webcomics. We had moved on to taking on podcasts and musicians and game designers. I wanted to do something like Webcomics Weekend but I didn't want it to be exclusively webcomics anymore.
Q: What was the turning point?
I started talking about it during San Diego Comic Con last year. When we go out, we rent a house with a bunch of other people and it's just a conversation that started happening. The response was so enthusiastic that I started thinking "What if I did? What if I actually did this?" The more people I talked to that were really enthusiastic about it kind of just convinced me. My motto for 2015 is kind of "go hard or go home," so I figured this was the year to pull the trigger.
Q: Is there anything big happening at TopatoCon this year?
A: I think that people are going to be excited about certain live presentations that we're going to have. We've got a couple of podcasts coming out that are going to be really good. We've got such a high caliber of people coming in, we're really excited.
Q: What are some things you're planning right now?
We want to try to really make this not just our event but a series of interesting things to do throughout the whole weekend. We're reaching out to different events and organizations and seeing if they will collaborate with us in really planning a full weekend of activities for people to do. There's a lot of stuff to do around here but, if you aren't from here, you wouldn't know that. We really want to be able to put together a program of "If you come in on Friday night, this is what you'll be able to do on Friday night." Maybe there's a pub crawl, maybe there's a scavenger hunt, we want to make this so once the show floor closes, you're not just let loose on Northampton. Ideally, if we're bringing 2000 people into town, we want those people to then go and do something.
To learn more about TopatoCon, visit topatocon.com or follow the event on Twitter.