Wow.
Only a couple of days after the show and I've already got a recap for you!
Shocking! I KNOW.
Anyway, let's get
this party started, shall we?
CHECK IN
We arrived on Thursday
afternoon after a relatively uneventful drive down. I learned the new uses for
my smartphone during the travel – I discovered my google maps app can tell me
the traffic density wherever I am at or traveling too. Okay, so I’m probably
the worst smart phone user ever (I can barely remember that the thing does
texting…), but hey! I was feeling pretty useful as we got into town with
little/no traffic jams.
Mainly, we took the
toll road around the west side of Chicago. Honestly, I don’t mind paying an
extra, what…9 dollars if it means I don’t have to deal with crazy drivers and
backups. Sitting in traffic jams and spending extra time in a car is damaging
to my knees right now, so the faster I can get somewhere, the better!
ANYWAY, we arrived at
the hotel and checked in, meeting up with Sil from PHD Cosplay, closely
followed by Samaru and Rajamitsu from Sanddiver Studios. Afterwards, we headed
to go find the Alley registration. I knew that this year it was going to be a
little different because we were on a different side and supposedly alley reg
would be in the actual registration hall instead of say... hidden behind the
Alley itself.
And they were right!
WOO! I walked into the spacious registration area, and was quickly directed to
a little kiosk in the back. (I didn’t have my camera at the time, so I don’t have
any awesome pictures on hand as is until I figure out how to get them off my
phone. Remember how bad I was at using my own phone?)
I was quickly checked
in, and as I headed out, I was accosted by the table of swagbags, programs and
lanyards! HOW WONDERFUL! No really! This is awesome! I usually have to hunt
down programs and lanyards provided, and this one just tossed em at me. So for
the first time ever I actually had a program the first day.
They had us drive
around the back to unload and set up. Which was weird, but very handy. We
really enjoyed having that back up camera in the car as we left, as we were
dodging other cars and pillars in the hall. (DRIVING INDOORS IS WEIRD).
THE CONVENTION ITSELF
A lot of the convention
was kind of a blur. I sat at my table with Aris from about 9:00 am to about
6:30 pm every day. I hardly left the booth if only to take a gander at the
other Alley artists, and I think I only glanced at the Dealer’s side maybe 2 or
3 times at most.
The alley itself had
changed its set up from previous years, and I have to say, I thought it was
GREAT. They switched it to a more linear fashion with long rows with a couple
of openings for artists to get through. They also removed any barriers between
the Alley and Dealer hall, which made for a seamless transition for attendees
to go from one to the other.
I got lucky, and was
placed dead center in the center row, so we had pretty good traffic all day.
The aisles were HUGE and that was great too as there were some big costumes and
groups coming through.
My only complaint about
the alley was there were rows on the very very end, and one of the sides faced
the signing area and a secondary snack counter, and honestly I don’t know how
much traffic some of those people got. I know I forgot it was there until I had
to attempt to forage for food to eat (I’ll gripe on this later). There were
also a few tables who were partially obscured by a huge concrete pillar. I felt
bad for those people. So, it was a good set up, and could be improved upon. But
it was a HUGE improvement from before.
Dealer’s hall finally
had hanging signs with numbers so when somebody pointed out a booth to me, I
could easily find it! Which was awesome because it got me a really amazing
artbook.
COSPLAY
I only donned a pink
wig, and went regular plainclothes for most of Friday, and met up with Samaru
and Rajamitsu later in the day as Alibaba and did a short set of pics of those
costumes. It was all well and good until some random drunk guy found us at the
end, started trying to take my camera away from us, then tripped up the stairs
and fell over. This was the only experience I actually had with any of the
drunken revelry that seems to go on at Anime Central. So either it was down, or
they REALLY hid it well.
On Saturday I debut my
Elizabeth costume, which I was afraid I wouldn’t fit into, but ended up getting
into it just fine. I was corseted all day, and had the wig on from 9
am-Midnight. :P I wore that thing for almost 13 hours that day. It held up really
well, and wasn’t too uncomfortable. The only problem is that when corseted I
can’t eat as much. But that didn’t seem to matter since my food options were
limited anyway (remember that gripe I told you I will talk about later?)
I also went to my first
Black Butler photogathering, and it was... interesting. But at least all the
Ciels thought I was pretty awesome.
Sunday was fun, as I
wanted to go in a comfortable outfit. So I debuted the start of my Ron Stoppable
costume. Sil went as Kim Possible, so we derped around about that day. It was a
lot of fun, and I look forward to tweaking up the costume and wig and getting this
thing working properly.
GOOD THINGS
Overall, this was a
spectacular convention. It had fixed so many problems from earlier, that it was
the friendliest and safest I’ve felt at this convention in a long time.
I loved the set up of
both the Dealer Hall and the Artist Alley. It felt so open, yet so huge at the
same time. It was great.
The bathrooms. I dunno
if it’s just this side, or they all got redone, but man! This side had
BEAUTIFUL restrooms. No more ghetto looking stalls and sinks! It’s the small
things, okay?
Pleasant Crowds! I had
very few complaints about the crowd. No running screaming yaoi fangirls. No
giant conga lines through the hall. No screaming hoards of Hetalia. Even
Homestuck was relatively subdued (no honking horns).
NOT SO GOOD THINGS
The food. Honestly,
this is really my whole complaint over this weekend. Normally, we feed off of
the Expoteria, and before anybody jumps in to tell me what a rip it is, it’s at
least relatively freshly made food, and can be taken in containers to anywhere
in the con center. This is important for me in the alley, as I can’t go and
spend a good hour or two trying to get food, and then have to sit and eat it elsewhere.
That’s work time I’m losing.
This year, the Expoteria
was open on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday it was closed. I have no idea why. Aris
went to go and check out the snack counters in hopes of finding something I
could eat, and even THOSE no longer had soft pretzels. Unfortunately for me, my
body doesn’t really handle con food as well anymore, and I couldn’t really have
the pizza or nachos they were offering. (it also doesn’t help with the slight
lactose intolerance I have either).
My choices were candy
bars, cookies, and pop or………. I could go over to the other hall, and there the
center had set up their own “food stand” with exceedingly overpriced foods. ($3
for a can of pop. I CAN’T EVEN HAVE
THAT AT MY BOOTH FOR FEAR OF SPILLING IT UGHHHH)
All the food they had
available was not easily portable, and was terrible according to my cohorts who
tried it.
So ACEN. Your next step
is to fix this. Otherwise, tell me ahead of time, and I’ll pack a cooler full
of food, and just deal that way. (I'm flexible! I just need to know)
Other side note on “bad”
things – the program. I could not decipher what order they had the panel
descriptions in. Guys. Sort A-Z or something.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I had a great time, and
I cannot WAIT to come back again. I feel good things for this convention. This
was definitely a step in the right direction (I can’t even find any cataclysmic
events on the forums).
SWAG
Here’s the amazing
things I bought this weekend. Which is almost entirely from the Alley, except
for the Valkyria Chronicles book, and an Arda color ring (not pictured here).
COMING UP NEXT
I dunno, I think I have
some “rants” about artwork, alleys or conventions coming up. Any requests or
questions people want me to cover? I’d be glad to chat about most anything, Alleys,
Cosplay, Conventions, and whatever else geeky I seem to absorb. :P