Way back in 1990, at the Starsky & Hutch 15th anniversary convention, Charlotte C. Hill and Megan Kent decided to start their own multi-media slash con, in part to fix issues that they saw with other cons. In the first years, there were pairs of male strippers for Friday night entertainment.
Convention panels were consciously chosen to skewer the fannish sacred cows of the day. Panels are still chosen to encourage a range of opinions, but there are fewer sacred cows now, plus, most fans have vastly more opportunity to talk about fannish issues than we did in 1990. As Escapade built on the shoulders of past cons (like IDICon), many of Escapade’s innovations have, over the years, been incorporated into other conventions.
Above text excerpted (and abridged) from the Escapade history page at fanlore.org
