DinoCon 2025

This past summer I had the pleasure of attending the first ever DinoCon, billed as “the UK’s largest paleontology themed convention”. Organized by paleontologist Darren Naish (of Tetrapod Zoology), this convention is in many ways the successor to TetZooCon, though of course aimed more directly at appealing specifically to dinosaur nerds.

Future DinoCons are expected to move about from year to year, but this year’s inaugural event was held at the University of Exeter. Like TetZooCon before it, DinoCon featured a full roster of lectures, a vendor hall, a paleoart workshop, a cosplay contest, book signings, a quiz, and an evening paleoart exhibition.

With so many things going on, attendees have to pick and choose between some of the events. I elected to focus more on the lectures, which meant I missed the paleoart workshop this time around. There were some really good speakers there this year, and each one was interesting in their own right. I particularly enjoyed the presentations by Mike Taylor and Mathew Wedel (of SV-POW fame), who both gave engaging talks on different aspects of the study of sauropod dinosaurs. David James Armsby was another highlight, discussing the creative process of his dinosaur short films (Sharp Teeth, Dinosauria, Sauria). I love his work, and it was great to hear about it straight from the creator in his first public appearance.

The packed vendor hall had far more participants than any previous TetZooCon. There were around forty stalls between the two halls in which the event took place, with many previous vendors returning, and some exciting new faces as well. Several artists, such as Clémence Dupont (see my review of her fantastic book A Brief History of Life on Earth), came all the way from France just for DinCon! My favorite dinosaur toy retailer, Everything Dinosaur, also had a stall there, and Mike Walley gave me a preview of their upcoming 1/32 scale Tyrannosaurus model.

Overall, I had a fantastic time, with my only regret being that I didn’t take better photos (I feel like the ones I have here don’t really do the event justice). I was happy to see the inaugural DinoCon get off to such a smashing start, and I hope I the chance to attend future DinoCon events!