CONvergence is even more famous than MarsCon for its room parties, probably because there are more of them. MarsCon is home to about a dozen; CONvergence boasts three times as many. The CONvergence hotel (the Radisson South in Bloomington, MN) has about 10 first-floor cabana rooms on each side of the pool/Garden Court area, and another 10 second-floor cabana rooms on each side. That's a total of 40 cabana rooms, and nearly all of them host room parties for at least two nights during the con. Informal room parties, like the "Lexx" gathering that sprang up in the room I shared with some friends, proliferate all over the hotel.
The variety of party themes is impressive. There were the Klingon and Starfleet parties I remembered from MarsCon, as well as those devoted to the "Farscape" and "Dr. Who" TV series. There was Talon's Portal, a medieval tavern (complete with ye olde crock pot and microwave), and the Gravediggers' Union, which provided fairly credible werewolf and vampire-type full-face makeup. There was a Mardi Gras room (connection to science fiction/fantasy: none, but who cares when they're serving free samples of New Orleans' signature cocktail, the hurricane?) and Theatre Apocalypse, which showed end-of-the-world movies for hours on end. There was Cthullu Coffee, home to decent coffee, plastic monsters and a table full of Play Doh for guests' sculpting enjoyment. There was a double suite devoted to video games, including the super-popular Japanese game Dance Dance Revolution. You play DDR by hopping around on a pressure-sensitive pad on the floor, trying to imitate the moves of the animated dancer on the screen. You haven't lived until you've seen a grey-haired Jedi dancing her heart out while a fully armored Borg waits in line.
Then there was the Twin Cities Polyamory Discussion Group. "Amory" refers to loving, and "poly" means many: the sign might as well have read Orgies R Us. I never saw much of a crowd around this room. Apparently there are still a few concepts that play better in imagination than in reality. But no one denied them a right to be there. (To be fair, I visited the group's web page, and it says polyamory isn't about orgies, it's about having an open relationship with your established partner or partners that allows for the inclusion of others.)
My favorite room party was the House of Toast (HOT). The walls of HOT were lined with silver foil and red strip lights in vertical lines so that the room resembled the inside of a toaster. The specialty of the house was, of course, toast. White or wheat, topped with a selection of condiments ranging from traditional peanut butter and jelly to butter and honey to smoked gouda cheese and mustard. I had a couple pieces of wheat toast with smoked gouda and a dab of grape jelly: out of this world!
Terrific as the toast was, the best part of HOT was the sushi bar. That's right, sushi bar. Beyond the toasters, a table had been set aside for the rolling of fresh sushi. Seaweed, special rice, krab "meat" (I think they stayed away from actual raw fish for health code-type reasons), soy sauce, wasabi, the whole bit. The chefs explained the sushification process and the traditions behind it as they worked — and every time anyone said the word "wasabi," the whole room shouted a toast (sorry): "WASABI!!"
Connection between toast, sushi, science fiction and fantasy: none. Patrons who cared: none. Due to the hands-on nature of their menu, the HOT crowd were the only food servers I saw wearing rubber gloves. Best room party theme ever! WASABI!!