Last Saturday, creators from many different fields, ranging from traditional arts and crafts to knitting, comic drawings, lego buildings and video game design came to showcase their talents at GEEKcon 2017.

With both UW-Eau Claire students and community members displaying their work, Rob Mattison, the coordinator of GEEKcon, said the event was meant to bring the university and the community together.

“This is really for everybody,” Mattison said. “It’s a positive event for a connection with the community, with students, staff, faculty and community members.”

The event was free, unless attendees purchased work from the artists. Mattison said he didn’t want to charge an admission fee because the event was about the “connection,” not the money.

Noelle Himrich, a first-year communication sciences and disorders student, said she liked having this free event on campus for anyone to take part in.

“It’s super nice that it’s free to students because people that like stuff like this, we don’t want to pay because we are poor college students and we want to enjoy the things that we enjoy,” Himrich.

There were activities to take part in, such as making cards, trying to knit, watching a 3D printing process, live music and LEGO building.

Corrisa Andrashko, a junior organizational communications student, is an essential oils distributor who had a table at the event. She said the event was an opportunity to inform people about the benefits of essential oils.

“Being here, educating people is really nice,” Andrashko said. “Not a lot of people know about essential oils, or they know about them but they don’t know what they do.”

Artists from the community also took advantage of the event to show attendees the different kinds of art being produced in Eau Claire.

Danny Phillips, an artist from Eau Claire who has been drawing and creating comics for the past 25 years, said the event offered new things for people to experience in the art world in the Eau Claire community.

“It gets everybody to see what the art culture is all about,” Phillips said. “It gives them something to go out to, something else to see besides the usual stuff that they have here in Eau Claire.”

Bailey Roche, a first-year secondary education student, said she appreciated seeing more of what this event had to offer on campus.

“The nerd culture is a culture you don’t see a lot of,” Roche said. “So I liked seeing and being a part of that.”

Mattison said the idea for GEEKcon started when Learning and Technology Services (LTS) wanted something like this event for students and the community. He said it was a good way to get “geeky people” together and create a bridge for a tight-knit community.

Mattison said he wanted to show people they can make a career out of their passions and he hopes this event sparks the idea for people to continue what they love to do.

“I want students to see staff in a different light, so that we are more on the same level,” Mattison said. “I don’t want people to lose the love and the joy and the things that make you you.”