By Brooks Schaefer

Sick of being excluded from all the cool kid’s parties? Want somewhere to let loose and meet fellow geeks? Nerds Rejoice – a party is being organized, and this time YOU are actually invited!

Just mask up, don your nerd glasses and head over to Kent’s historic downtown on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. The festivities will take place from 4–8 p.m.on West Meeker street, including many local businesses such as Retro Emporium, Page Turner Books, Sweet Themes Bakery, a special nerd trivia night at Pied Piper Pub and more.

This is a party focused on all things nerdy, including cosplay, Legos, Transformers and local authors and artists.

“It’s just a celebration of nerd culture,” said Wayne Curran, owner of Page Turner Books. “It’s to promote small businesses and celebrate their culture at the same time.”

This event may be the first of its kind on Meeker street, but that doesn’t mean that organizers have no experience. In fact, Curran is armed with a plethora of past learnings, having organized several events like this previously. But from the sound of it, this event is destined to surpass some of the humble beginnings.

“We did them at my first store, but it was really just like we’d have a raffle and a sale,” Curran said. “But when we started doing them here we started inviting local artists and authors from Sci-fi, fantasy, horror related and other genres. And then you got a lot of real positive responses to this that I never saw in my first store.”

One of the things both organizers are excited about are the cosplayers, including a well-known group – Cyberfest Northwest – which will most definitely be there to transform the event…literally. Cyberfest Northwest is aptly named after Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, of toy, cartoon and movie fame. As you can guess, they are a Transformer cosplaying convention group. Other exciting guests are going to be there as well, including a few people from TSR, the original creators of the Dungeons and Dragons manuals, and one of the sketch card artists from the Garbage Pail Kids cards, who will appear at Retro Emporium.

If you are a fan of cosplay and need even more incentive to come, you’ll be interested to know that a cosplay original is rumored to be in attendance. I won’t spoil anything but, it’s a mix between a PNW mythological icon and a famous wrestler. Starts with ‘S’ ends in ‘O.’ Can you guess?

With such a large nerd focused event, we wanted to know what makes the organizers nerds themselves? Because after all, can a jock throw a nerd party? We say “possibly,” but it might lack some necessary provenance.

Anne Smith of Retro Emporium.

Both Anne Smith and Curran are endowed with enough nerd street cred to make this event stand out like the white tape on your horn-rimmed glasses. Smith admits that she was a “band nerd” in high school.

“I mean, I would just play in whatever bands I could, and that’s like bands with trombones,” she said. “Not like cool guitar bands, but like marching bands.”

A band kid that plays trombone? Smith’s nerd cred is clearly undeniable.

Curran, on the other hand, deadpans:

“I wake up in the morning and go to work. I own a bookstore. Doesn’t get much nerdier than that.”

These cool nerds are looking forward to nerding out with YOU at this fun event on Saturday, Feb. 26!

For more information, visit:

https://www.downtownkentwa.com/event/meeker-street-nerd-party/.

Brooks Schaefer is a young writer whose credits include Highline College’s Thunderword and South King Media’s publications and videos. He is enthusiastic about the future of online journalism. Send story ideas and good thoughts to him at brooksvschaefer@gmail.com.