Ok, slightly overdue thanks to one or more complications, but…

**Caption:** a DinoCon 2025 montage, showing our venue, and dinosaur images by Natalia Jagielska.

As I write [UPDATE: I wrote this article in August but couldn’t publish it until October], I’m recovering from the intense but hugely enjoyable, massive event that was DinoCon UK 2025, held over the weekend of August 16th and 17th at the University of Exeter in England’s south-west.

As regular readers will know, DinoCon follows the 11-year run of TetZooCon, the now extinct Tetrapod Zoology Convention. TetZooCon was run by myself and London-based palaeoartist John Conway (with help from others, most notably Chris Manias at King’s College); DinoCon is an altogether different beast, co-organised by Annie and Nathan Barling, myself, and an incredible team of assistants, staff and volunteers. It follows the TetZooCon tradition of being based around a series of talks, discussion panels and workshops that bring cutting-edge reviews, scientific discussions and views from professionals to a mostly non-scientific audience, and of very much combining our science-themed interests in the natural world with a more artistic one. Natural history art and palaeoart were a huge part of TetZooCon, and so it is with DinoCon too.

**Caption:** at left, one of so many palaeoart superstars in attendance at DinoCon 2025 - Andy Frazer - with this blog’s author. At right, DinoCon 2025 even took over the campus bar, and how witty we were with the cocktail names we devised :)

**Caption:** having mentioned Andy Frazer, here’s a Frazer / Dragons of Wales-themed section of our palaeoart exhibition. Image: Darren Naish.

But while TetZooCon maxed out at somewhere around 330 people for the final, 2024 event, DinoCon was vastly larger, with an attendance in the 860s. Yes, over 860 people for our first ever meeting. I think it’s fair to say that the gamble paid off, that our venue proved not to be the obstacle that some implied or feared, and that… yes, we will be doing this again! On that note, if you want to know what’s going on with plans for DinoCon 2026 be sure to sign up to our newsletter.

**Caption:** Alan the Dinomania *Allosaurus* declares his feelings about the University of Exeter’s Northcott Theatre, accompanied by DinoCon attendees. Alan was one of several Dinomania stars that spent time exploring the ground and interacting with DinoCon guests. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

The Vendor Hall. If you ever attended TetZooCon, you’ll know that we started off in 2014 with three, maybe four, stalls. This grew and grew and grew over the years… and the 2025 result is a DinoCon Vendor Hall hosting over 30 stalls, dedicated variously to palaeoart, merch, apparel, models and figures, skeletal replicas, books, and basically anything else sellable you can think of that’s relevant to popular interest in dinosaurs.

**Caption:** it should be obvious that the quality and number of our stalls were both something to behold. And many photos were taken, so it’s difficult to know what and who to showcase. Here’s the amazing Katrina van Grouw with a selection of art prints and other products, many featuring birds but others showing other kinds of dinosaur, and other animals too. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** Alex and Katy Pritchard at their incredible Dinosaur Skeletons stand at DinoCon 2025. As is obvious from this photo, they had a phenomenal range of skeletal replicas on sale, ranging from the full-sized skulls and skeletons of big animals all the way to pocket-sized items like small skulls, teeth and more. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** Lee Brown – of Lee Brown Palaeoart – at his stall, and specifically with a giant, watercolour painting of the tyrannosaurid *Albertosaurus*. Lee has now done several giant paintings at this scale. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Yes, the Vendor Hall was in equal measure both spectacular and absolutely lethal, and I can report that all vendors did well. I didn’t have much chance to hang out in the vendor area but even I obtained numerous animal models, stickers and pieces of art. We’re confident that things here will expand in time and we look forward to hosting an even more impressive selection of stalls in future.

**Caption:** palaeoartist Jim Robins was in attendance and selling art from his case. Now I own TWO original pieces of Robins palaeoart. Image: Darren Naish.

Talks on prepping fossils, sauropods and more. Our talks were held in two venues: the aptly named Great Hall and the also large but less appropriately named Peter Chalk. Talks held in the former were basically pitched for everyone and anyone, while the Peter Chalk talks were a little more on the technical side. Kicking things off was Hillary McLean on the backstory to fossil prepping and the massive contribution made to palaeontology – at all levels – by preparators, a good chunk of which doesn’t get appropriately credited (sweats and tugs at own collar). This was a tremendously fun and engaging talk: Hillary’s pointed observations on the field scenes shown in the original Jurassic Park were hilarious.

**Caption:** Hillary McLean, our first speaker, talks fossil prep and the long history of work that goes into the repair, tidying and preservation of fantastic specimens like the skull of the ceratopsian *Diabloceratops*, shown on the screen. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Hillary was followed by Tess Gallagher’s ‘Skinning Diplodocus’, a cutting-edge overview of Tess’s research on the skin of Diplodocus and its hitherto unappreciated complexity. Indications are that what we can glean of the animal’s colour is highly complex too and that Diplodocus is by no means unique when it comes to skin complexity in these animals.

**Caption:** Tess Gallagher (with diplodocid sidekick held on her left) talks about the background to her personal research on diplodocid skin discoveries. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Another diplodocid-themed talk happened in the Peter Chalk: Mike Taylor’s ‘The untold story of the Carnegie Diplodocus’. I was unable to get to this, alas, but have only heard good things. This talk was unfortunately affected by computer problems of the sort that universities, by law, are required to afflict upon events but I understand that Mike got round those and that one of them – an emergency shut-down of the device happening as he uttered the last word of his last line – added considerable comedic value.

The other Peter Chalk talks were George Hancock’s ‘How to hide a T. rex’ and Jack Wilkin’s ‘Using fossils to decode ancient climates’, and I heard great things about both of those as well.

**Caption:** at left, George Hancock talking dinosaur camouflage theory; at right, Jack Wilkin on ancient climates. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

It’s David Krentz! The first ever DinoCon Guest of Honour was the amazing David Krentz, long-time contributor to Hollywood projects on prehistoric life, who gave us a potted history of his involvement in dinosaur-themed films and TV shows. Tons of never-before-seen concept art pieces and items of character design, and a great number of really amusing anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories. Hollywood has repeatedly promised to deliver a big-budget dinosaur-led project where the animals don’t talk and are just dinosaurs doing dinosaur things. Yet on every single occasion they’ve chickened out and either switched track or just bailed.

**Caption:** our Guest of Honour, David Krentz, talks about an aborted dinosaur-themed movie project, concept art depicting the main characters being shown on screen. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

The highlight (for me) was the audiovisual walk-through that David provided of a storyboarded sequence from a defunct movie project. There was no dialogue; David provided all the sounds to an enraptured audience. It was magical, an absolute masterclass in how storyboard artists use art and imaginative skills to bring a sequence of drawings to life.

**Caption:** David Krentz at centre stage. At right, a moment from the Q&A at the end, the people standing at right being part of the queue. I think we got through just about everyone. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

David was followed by Andre Rowe who reviewed ‘Tyrannosaur evolution and biomechanics’. It was great fun and very informative, Andre’s personal take on tyrannosaurs and what they were like being very much appreciated by our audience. I love Andre's cool, under-stated style of humour.

**Caption:** Andre Rowe on stage at DinoCon 2025, here introducing the primary themes of his excellent review talk. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Fossils of Dorset and more on sauropods. Sunday kicked off with Kieran Satchell of Lyme Regis Museum and his excellent and inspiring overview of the mostly (but not wholly) Jurassic fossils of the Dorset coast in southern England. Using cake as a way of explaining stratigraphy (it worked!), Kieran told us about marine reptiles, dinosaurs and more, focusing on the new Kimmeridge Bay pliosaurid, the armoured dinosaur Scelidosaurus, the theropod Metriacanthosaurus and much else. As every true Jurassic Park nerd knows, Metriacanthosaurus makes a guest appearance in the original movie, this because Greg Paul featured it as the cover-girl on his highly influential book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World*.

* The dinosaur that Paul featured is actually the Chinese Yangchuanosaurus, but in PDW Paul argued that this is a junior synonym of Metriacanthosaurus.

**Caption:** Kieran Satchell of Lyme Regis Museum talks fossils of the Dorset Jurassic coast. *Scelidosaurus* the thyreophoran dinosaur was one of the stars here, and the painting on the screen here is one of John Sibbick’s depictions of this famous animal. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Another standout talk was Mathew Wedel’s ‘The Sauropod Heresies’. A total tour-de-force, it basically tackled the issue of why sauropods were the way they were (no other group of animals has ever hit on the sauropod Bauplan), and why they didn’t ever really deviate from it. It had the trappings of a ‘late career’ overview combining decades of experience and consideration and was hugely entertaining as well. Another plus point was that Matt approached and ended the subject via the world of speculative zoology, and in fact the talk opened not just with mention of Robert Bakker’s The Dinosaur Heresies but a discussion of Dougal Dixon’s sauropods from The New Dinosaurs. Dougal himself was present at DinoCon, and present in the audience.

**Caption:** an early moment from Matt Wedel’s excellent sauropod heresies talk; here, Matt was explaining something of the backstory on how we got to where we are now, and how certain of Bakker’s proposals have stood the test of time. Feathered non-bird maniraptorans? Turns out that early ideas were substantially conservative relative to what we understand now. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

And then there was David James Armsby. If you’re at all aware of (a) YouTube and (b) modern representations of Mesozoic life, the chances are high that you’re aware of David Armsby’s amazingly good animated films. This was David’s first ever physical appearance in front of fans and, oh boy, it was outstanding.

**Caption:** David James Armsby takes the stage in front of a packed house. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** David gave us a guide to the works he’s released so far and also provided a point by point discussion of his creative process. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

We got shown a sequence from an entirely new film and given a good amount of personal backstory; David has what we might politely term a humble background. There were multiple rounds of applause, a standing ovation, and he was mobbed by a huge group of fans as he left the stage… something we didn’t plan for but which David was happy to accommodate. What an amazing man he is. My hope for future DinoCons is that we can host exclusive reveals of David’s material, but let’s see.

Palaeoart and WWD 2025. Following David’s talk, we held an on-stage palaeoart panel, led by myself and involving Gaëlle Seguillon, Emily Higgs, Bob Nicholls and Julianne Kiely. After discussing how our panelists got into palaeoart and what they might be working on in future, we tackled the six-legged, rhino-headed elephant in the room: AI palaeoart. Needless to say, our feelings were not positive and such topics as the creative process, ethical integrity and the environmental and social impact of AI in palaeoart were all touched on. I should mention that anti-AI sentiments were evident elsewhere at DinoCon, not least because Andy Frazer (of Dragons of Wales) was selling ‘KEEP PALAEOART HUMAN: NO TO AI DINOSAURS’ badges. I have two.

**Caption:** views of the palaeoart panel discussion, a well attended event that included a good amount of engagement from the audience. In the photo at left (taken from high up on the balcony at the left of the great hall), Julian Kiely is speaking; the photo at right was taken from the balcony at the back of the great hall. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** another scene from the palaeoart panel event, here showing Gaëlle Seguillon with the microphone. Emily Higgs and Bob Nicholls are to her left. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Our final talk was also on popular media: specifically, Jay Balamurugan on the making of Walking With Dinosaurs 2025. The creature design, decisions made in animation and storytelling, and use of specific landscapes all came together to make the animated sequences of WWD 2025 as spectacular and accurate as they could be, and Jay’s hard work in getting things right really paid off.

Workshops, costume competition, auction and more. What else happened? A lot. Palaeoart workshops, led by James Pascoe and Joschua Knüppe, respectively, occurred across the weekend. I, unfortunately, never got to see these but know that they were extremely successful. A costume competition happened, featuring a good number (around 15) of very excellent costume-wearers. A wholly dinosaur-themed quiz happened on Saturday evening – soooo many high-scoring dino-nerds! – as did a very excellent palaeoart exhibition.

As should be obvious from certain of the photos shared here, I should also add that we had actual (non-bird) dinosaurs wandering about the event, by which I mean the giant suit-models that are part of the Dinomania UK team. They were great fun, made for amazing photo opportunities, and I can’t recommend them enough.

**Caption:** a few moments from the 2025 costume competition, giving some idea of the quality of our entrants. The image on the far left is not connected to the two on the right, but the composition is quite effective. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** more highly impressive costume entrants at DinoCon 2025. Frip’s excellent *Sinosauropteryx* (at right) suit did well with the judges, winning first place in the adult category. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** Alan the Dinomania *Allosaurus* enters the building… though he didn’t make it very far. Despite appearances, Alan is tame and enjoys human company. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** James Pascoe (standing at centre) leads a packed and fully booked-out palaeoart workshop. Note the *Megalosaurus* images on screen. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** just a few of the great pieces of art created by participants in the James Pascoe palaeoart workshop, these showing a rhynchosaur, assorted theropods and an azhdarchoid. Images: photos by James Pascoe (but by multiple individual workshop participants).

We also held a charity auction (all proceeds were donated to the World Parrot Trust) and owe massive thanks to the many generous people who provided the most outstanding array of gifts. I’ve never worked as an auctioneer before and got a ridiculous number of things wrong (my intense dislike of numbers didn’t exactly help the event run smoothly). But it had to be considered a success in terms of how much we raised, all items selling for very respectable amounts.

**Caption:** a scene from the auction. Eventually, my inability to count became obvious and Nathan *finally* came to my assistance. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

**Caption:** just some of the many amazing charity auction items we obtained for DinoCon 2025. From left to right, you can see an acrocanthosaur-themed diorama donated by James Pascoe, Bob Nicholls art and a copy of Naish and Barrett’s *Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved*, Mark Witton’s *The Palaeoartist’s Handbook* (with a giant art print from Mark Witton in a tube as well), Don Lessem’s *Ultimate Dinopedia, 2nd edition*, a Crystal Palace *Iguanodon* made and donated by Karen Fawcett, a modern *Iguanodon* made and donated by David Krentz, and an advance copy of White and Naish’s *Mesozoic Art II*. Image: Darren Naish.

Several book signings happened throughout DinoCon, including from Mark Witton (King Tyrant), Sean Hennessy (Speed Thief) and Dougal Dixon (The New Dinosaurs, and others works too). I wasn’t able to get to any of these but did of course make it to my own (Dinopedia) on Sunday. I had a scarily long queue but am pleased to say that I got through everyone in time allowed.

**Caption:** Darren Naish (that would be me) at the *Dinopedia* signing event. I’m pleased to say that ALL stock of this book brought along to DinoCon sold, both at the Tet Zoo stall and the Princeton University Press stall. People gave me other books to sign, but I turned them away. Nah, kidding, I signed them too of course. Images: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

Goodbye DinoCon 2025! And that, essentially, is everything. DinoCon 2025 was a massive success; a highly positive event overall that mostly ran like clockwise and which was hosted by a venue that served us well. Needless to say, it was sufficiently successful that we’ll definitely be doing it again in 2026 and likely beyond, albeit it very likely at a different venue, elsewhere.

**Caption:** a scene from close to the very end of DinoCon 2025, in which I (at left), Annie and Nathan wrapped things up. We announced the charity amount we raised and emphasized the success of the whole endeavour. Image: (c) Alfred Barwick, used with permission.

On that note, pay attention to our website and please subscribe to our newsletter if you want to hear developments as they’re announced. My most heartfelt thanks to the many collaborators who made it all come together, most obviously Annie and Nathan Barling but also James Pascoe, Joschua Knüppe, our many excellent volunteers, the University of Exeter Events team and other staff, and our speakers and vendors. Thanks to too Alfred Barwick and Coco Ellenbogen for photography, and Tom Fishenden for videography.