The "Zoo"
The Zoo is a customary area of the Anthrocon convention space in which attendees may lounge freely, eat and drink, rest, draw, chat, and generally "decompress" from the bustle and crowding of the rest of the convention events going on around them.
The Zoo has existed as such in Anthrocon programming since 2000, except in 2005 as there were no rooms available to dedicate for the space, and because the hotel lobby bar was available for essentially the same purpose. There were also an open hotel restaurant and adjacent sitting areas throughout the lobby, ballroom, and mezzanine floor balconies which served as de facto Zoo space during the 2005 convention. It is currently held in a ballroom in the Westin Hotel.
As a large part of the 'experience' of Anthrocon is interpersonal socialization, the more customary convention programming is ultimately unable to suffice by itself. This, combined with the effects of jet lag (due to attendees traveling from across the country and even as far away as Japan), and sleep deprivation due to attempting to attend as many events as possible and meet as many people as possible within the general 4-day time frame of the convention, gives rise to a definite need to have space more or less devoted to small-group socialization, and relaxation without the need to return to a hotel room (an increasingly arduous and lengthy endeavor as the ratio of attendance to convention space goes up).
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Famous quotes containing the word zoo:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)