I just found this VIDEO series that was shot at an event I created and co-produced that still today is the largest spy related con ever produced!

I had been one of the Directors of DragonCon as Media Director for several years.

I had always loved James Bond and read all the Fleming novels.

I decided why not produce an event like DragonCon that would feature everything spy related.

I found Matt Sherman, who had been doing 007 related events and knew all the major players in the 007 world.

I had been an investigative reporter for Post Newsweek TV Group and owned a public relations consulting business in Atlanta. I was actually brought in by one of the founders of DragonCon to help get publicity for it. I grew DragonCon from an attendance of less than 10,000 to a SELL OUT crowd the first year I was hired and continued to grow it every year I was associated with it. Today over 100,000 attend the Labor Day extravaganza!

So Matt came on board and SpyFest 2003 became a reality. He got the fictional actors. I got Chase Brandon, a CIA legend, who brought his friend a spy fanatic owning the largest KBG memorabilia collection in the world and author of several books – Keith Melton. Keith brought his new friend Major General Oleg Kalugin, formerly the head of the USA based KGB. The CIA brought its private collection on the Queen Mary being only the second time it had been out of CIA HQ. The first time was for the opening of President Reagan’s Library.

Matt came through with George “007” Lazenby, Maud Adams, Lana Woods, Tanya Roberts, Robert “I Spy” Culp, Gloria Hendricks, etc. A guy by the name of David Carradine asked if he could have a booth for the show. He had been one of my long time heroes with his TV show Kung Fu. Of course he got a booth!

Hope you enjoy the VIDEOS as much as I did bringing back those great memories almost 19 years ago!

Video 1

Video 2

Hugh Simpson