phxcc day 4
May. 27th, 2013 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naushikaPhoenix Comicon days 1-3 here.
Panels
John Barrowman
John Barrowman's panel was the first of the day and kind of set the tone for the whole day. I think I enjoyed the last day most of all. (But that's also partially due to me being confused/lost/awkward/unsure at first because CON VIRGIN and all that, I eventually started loosening up (right when it ended ofc); hopefully next con I will have 100% fun right out of the gate.) I mean if you know of John Barrowman you know how this went. It was funny and thoughtful and over the top and delightful.
He sang for us and the whole room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. SUCH A LOVELY VOICE! Such clear high notes. <3
This was a marine who he'd already met in a signing or photo op or something, the marine came through the q&a line and John brought him up on stage and made him take his shirt off and flirted with him so outrageously, ahaha. He got the marine's phone number and said later he and Scott would be having a marine sandwich. Bless.
He also flashed us his underwear-clad butt & junk. He was wearing Batman undies. :D Also someone asked him to twerk so he attempted that, LOL. He did his Scottish accent for us. Someone asked about the Doctor Who 50th special and ever coming back to Who and he said that he would always always ALWAYS make time for Who, and if the Who PTB ever said that his schedule prevented an appearance they are lying. He talked about how he thinks people of size/shape/age/gender/orientation/whatever should love who they are. And how he's so positive all the time. But he didn't really answer how he stayed positive, he said when bad things happen to him he doesn't talk about it publicly, and just to keep fighting. IMHO his positivity is just his personality. Some people are that way, and some aren't. Regardless.
Someone asked him about LBGTQ representation on tv. He said it's great there are so many gay people on tv now (he also said there are more gay characters on American tv than Brit tv), but they are all the same type of gay character (a male flamboyant/campy gay character), which isn't good enough. And I do agree with that, there should always be more diversity. But a part of me wanted to stand up and shout EXCUSE U, OBVS YOU HAVE NEVER WATCHED WAREHOUSE 13 OR ELEMENTARY. lol. But no, he is right, esp when it comes to network shows. Also when the person asked their question, he asked what the Q meant and when explained it was for "queer" he was like what? We don't use that word in Britain. Which surprised me? O_o Or maybe he's just never really heard it. Later on he made a joke about sticking his finger in a dyke's hole, and the crowd sort of half-laughed at that and he was like, "is that a bad word here? You say queer but not dyke?" Ahaha. I don't actually know what are ok words anymore and what aren't so I just avoid saying any of it. But my experience with the word dyke is that it isn't a good word. But I don't know if there is a take-back effect of that word? In any case the difference between Britain and America is always interesting.
Last but not least, he talked about wanting to do more work in America, and that's what he's focusing on right now. (Someone had asked about doing more theater in Britain, or something.) He said he has a pretty great image in Britain already and he wants to build up his career/image in America. Hence, doing stuff like Arrow. Color me exciteddddddddddd. John Barrowman on all the tv, thanks.
Also this was his first time ever coming to Phoenix, which I didn't realize, so yayy. The crowds for him were huge ALL THE TIME. He did two or three EXTRA photo ops on top of all the scheduled ones, an extra signing on top of the others, etc etc etc. He was fucking crazy but every time the lines for him were HUGE. Apparently his panel had more people in it than the Babylon 5 reunion did.
We got in line for his panel 45 minutes early, and we weren't even close to the front of the line. Apparently people had started lining up 1.5 hours before it started. Even though I wasn't close to the front I wasn't near the end either, the lines got longer and longer and looped out of the room. Here's a short video I took of the lines:
<3<3<3<3 John Barrowman.
Amanda Tapping
AMANDA TAPPINGGGGGgggggggggggggg!
Ugh she's still so gorgeous and lovely, such a sweet person, and my heart was all a pitter-patter just from sitting in the audience, LOL. Her panel was pretty laid-back, she talked some about her charity Sanctuary for Kids, someone in the audience gave her an idea to write a book (everyone cheered), and she did some of her English accent for us. She shared a funny story about how during the first season of SG-1 she had to take "American accent" classes cause she was always pronouncing things too Canadian/British, which is funny but also considering how much I have always pointed out her cute Canadian way of saying things I can see why they did it. (Eg, whenever she says "towards" on SG-1 it's always "to-WARDS" rather than "toards".)
Other than that tho she talked a fuckton about Supernatural which was a surprise cause I didn't even know she was in it????? lol. (It's weird actually the SPN fans were out in SPADES for this con, those guys are everywhere, ahaha. Like, someone asked John Barrowman if he would guest star on SPN. CALM DOWN SPN FANS. XD) Also people asked a few questions which were repetitive as fuck if you are a fan of Amanda Tapping AT ALL and I have a hard time believing the question-askers didn't already know the answers. Like, someone asked her if she ever researched the stuff she said on SG-1. IS THIS NOT COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT SHE RESEARCHED THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING? I don't know, tell me honestly. Is my rage misplaced? LOL. Also someone asked about pranks so the Solitudes-MacGyver story came out. Again.. I thought we all knew that, ahaha. And someone asked who the biggest prankster was and duh Christopher Judge? I don't know maybe I am just too huge of an SG-1 fan, except for the bit about the accent training, every other thing she said about SG-1 I already knew, LOL.
One cool thing I didn't know about her that she talked about was her foray into directing. She said she directed an upcoming episode of Continuum!! (I looked it up; it'll be the 12th episode of season 2.) She said they are a great group on that show and she got into the show after directing an episode and it's a really great show. LOL. AGREED. :D She said her hopefully-one-day directing fantasy would be an epic like Game of Thrones, but she doesn't feel ready yet & needs more experience. She hopes she will get to work on Continuum again tho. Which, I do too! :D
Bless her face. At the end of the panel, they started playing the song Locked out of Heaven, and she said whenever she hears this song it reminds her of Cas. I don't know what that means but maybe you SPN fans will get something out of it. :D
Smaller panels
The smaller panels on the last day were better than the ones I went to on other days. Maybe I picked right this time. :D
I went to one panel called Business the Ferengi Way and it was really quite entertaining, and this guy:
Never broke character once, even before and after the panel, haha. Good times.
I also went to a panel where a local improv group did their own audio over two episodes of Star Trek the Animated Series, and it was fucking hilarious.
Photo Ops
Nichelle Nichols & Walter Koenig
Blonde girl is my boyfriend's sister Jenny; she joined us for this day. She had no idea who John Barrowman or Amanda Tapping were, ahaha. But she enjoyed the other panels and such, and also said she might try out Doctor Who. :D
No you are not imagining things. My boyfriend is wearing my brand new t-shirt. That jerk. XD
Just this one photo; we were actually supposed to do it on Saturday but we missed it due to being in Wil Wheaton's signing line 1.5 hours. *shakes fist* Wheaton.
Merch/signed stuff
I stumbled across someone selling this amazing poster for a measly FIVE BUCKS and I had to have it. When I bought it he asked if I wanted him to sign it and I said sure, I'd love it. I HAD NO IDEA WHO HE WAS? LOL. Anyway he's someone named Ryan Cody. It's a really cool design and I thought it would be a nice memento of my first connnnn.
But then after he signed it I was struck at what a great idea it would have been to have gotten all the people I got to sign stuff to sign the same con-themed poster. Next year I'm totally gonna have to do that!
Boyfriend bought this Minecraft shirt but if he's gonna wear my shirts I'mma wear his too so I count this.
I also got the official PHXCC shirt. I should have hit that booth first day instead of last, cause they were clear out of my size at that point, so I had to go a size bigger.
I also got this Captain Marvel button!! Spend $3 on a button? Don't mind if I do! lol. Also, this is the pass I had. :3
The Great PHXCC Fire Drill of 2013
Near the end of the day, about 4pm, an alarm went off. The alarm just said "emergency", it didn't say what it was. Rumors flew around, and we still don't even know the OFFICIAL story (I've heard many different reports of what it was). But it was a fire alarm that went off.. somehow. (Not actual fire.) But tl;dr we were evacuated from the convention center for about 30mins.
Just imagine it tho. I mean, it was near the end of the last day of the con so it wasn't peak attendance, but I would estimate at least 10k people swarmed the streets of Phoenix. IT WAS A MADHOUSE. lol. But the evacuation was so orderly and calm and absolutely nobody flipped, nobody got trampled, there wasn't even shoving or anything. We all hung out in the streets until we got the all-clear to go back in. (Except for all the people that just left.)
This was a shot of the emergency exit staircase we had to go up. Omg so many stairs. The exhibitor hall is deep underground. There were two stairways intertwined in some sort of double helix style, it was actually kind of amazing.
Forgive me for all the pics and vids. I was bored for the 30mins we were outside, ahaha. It was a brief news story for the time we were out there, then we all got let back in and it was all good. We then went to one of the last panels of the day that hadn't cancelled, which was the comedy TOS Animated Series voiceover, and it was wonderful. Then the exhibitor hall hours were extended to 6:30pm so we went there until most everyone was packed up & til we had just about spent the last of our cash (I HAVE $6 LEFT WOO), then we left. (We actually wandered around the city for a bit looking for a good place to eat, then we had dinner & Chris and I finally got home around 9:30 or so. Then I basically could barely move because 4 straight days of standing and walking and MY LEGS OH GOD MY LEGS, and I was so exhausted I passed out around midnight.)
Other
After the fire drill thingamabob, later on we were in the exhibitor hall, and a little boy ran past us. Maybe 4? I noticed he seemed to be alone, just running past, so I stopped him and asked him where his parents were. He grew shy, but he pointed in a direction, but we didn't see anyone. We stood there for a couple minutes looking around. Nobody ran up to claim him or seemed to be looking for a kid. So, we took ownership of the kid and found a nearby staff member, who fired up a "code Adam." The little boy was wearing a shirt that said "here comes trouble" and we joked about how accurate it was. He didn't cry or anything. He was a cute kid. It took ten minutes to find the kid's father, but the staff did locate him and they were reunited and all was well.
SUNDAY WAS SO EXCITING! ahaha.
I didn't get a picture but we stumbled across a table for the guy who played Denny in The Room. If you haven't seen The Room.. RUN, DON'T WALK. Anyway the actor who played Denny lives in here in the Valley & I know he goes to all these sorts of things, and has stuff he does at some local theaters. He was a pretty nice guy. He mostly just wanted to pimp out his stuff to us though. He's writing a comic book, tangentially related to The Room. He cashes in on his shitty movie cult status 38402% and good for him for doing it, lol.
A few other random photos:
I found a new boyfrand.
Amazing Lego display. :D See something on top of one of those buildings...?
ehehehe
The only cosplayers I took a photo of. Bless that adorable lady!Thor and also I loooooooooved the dude on the far left's cosplay. Ahaha. Lazy? Or ingenious in exactly the way Tony Stark would be? A+ for mirroring the dude's pose next to him.
Final Thoughts
My first con ever: SUCCESS! :D
I had a really good time. There were a couple disappointments, namely how some of the fan-run panels were kinda.. lame.. but I think that's just chance. Some people are more entertaining and better prepared than others. All of the larger panels were run well and entertaining and great. Meeting celebs was awesome. I'm awkward as fuck around them apparently but you know what that's okay. I wish there had been more comics-related people I was a fan of (I had emailed the PHXCC people with a list of comics authors & artists I wanted to see but who knows if they invited them or if they couldn't come or what), but I got to talk to Kieron Gillen and that was amazeballs.
There was a ton of people; this con apparently gets larger every year, and I have heard an estimate of about 45k people attending this year (there was 30k last year) so that's awesome. Although frankly I think that's hit the limit of how many people can attend at this location. Saturday by far was the busiest day. It was almost impossible to walk the exhibitor hall, just people EVERYWHERE. PACKED. Sometimes you just couldn't move. The escalators broke constantly that day b/c of the use. They kept having to close the exhibitor hall to people coming in because they were exceeding capacity, so they'd have to wait for people to clear out before letting more in. There was absolutely no clear spots to sit or stand out of the way. It was nuts. They didn't seem to have any sort of upper limit on passes they would sell, but if they don't limit it next year there might be a problem. Saturday was just far too busy. All the other days were good though. More "appropriate" level of busy-ness I guess? Heh.
The staff were a mixed bag. All of the volunteers were amazing, some of the staff were rude (probably stressed all to fuck) and some were just polite. The security staff, presumably employees or contractors working for the convention center, were mostly terrible. A) A lot of security theater. Bags were supposed to be checked - they didn't look at everybody's. Whenever they looked in mine, they glanced quickly then waved me through. One of them jokingly asked me if I had any plastic explosives in my bag. The security staff obviously thought us nerds posed 0 threat (I mean, probably true, but you should at least pretend to take it seriously). It caused traffic jams for such a pointless endeavor. B) Some of the security staff were idiots. One of them told my boyfriend to get his mash paddle peace bonded. When my boyfriend took it to the table, the peace-bonding guy was like "Wtf? Someone told you this needed peace-bonding?" I also saw an Eleven cosplay with a mop; the mop was peace-bonded. Really? lol. The peace bonding I saw in effect did not jive with the con's policy, which was to peace bond weapons or things that looked like weapons. How a mop looks like a weapon, I don't even know.
Cost-wise, I did pretty well.
Passes: $80 for two full-event passes (we bought them early & they were discounted)
Photos: Sam Witwer ($20), Nichelle Nichols & Walter Koenig ($30), Wil Wheaton ($20), John Barrowman ($40) (side story: John Barrowman's photos were actually $45, but they were put in the system wrong or something at first, they were only $40 when I bought them and later they were changed. Mwahaha $5 discount!)
Transporation: $32 (two full day public transportation tix each of the four days)
Other: $100 spending cash each, for me and Chris (used this cash for drinks, and paying for his sister to get in on Sunday, and autographs as well), $20 for two tix to Wil Wheaton's Awesome Hour
Total: $442
I knew the con would be expensive and it totally was. However I think I still did pretty good? Sharing this info b/c I was desperately curious what people were actually spending at cons but the most kind of answer I got was "a lot" ahaha. Major cost savings: transportation. Since I wasn't flying in from anywhere, I already saved tons. Another way of saving money: buying things piecemeal. We bough the two full passes in December 2012, while they were heavily discounted ($40 each instead of $60 each at the door). We bought the photo ops when we had the money, over the course of a couple months before the con. Then we saved up our spending cash, and didn't allow ourselves to go over. It helped that nearly all the booths were cash only (like 2 booths out of the thousand took credit cards), and I was completely sure the ATM fees at the convention center would be outrageous so there was no way we would take any cash out of them. Also, apart from the day I forgot to bring our water, we brought our own drinks & snacks so we didn't buy food there. Spreading out the costs over months meant that it hurt a lot less to spend almost $450 on this. And it was sort of a last minute thing, too. I told Chris about the con in December, we bought the tickets that day, and then we had ~5 months to plan and save which isn't a lot of time.
The exhibitor hall was fun. Lots of stuff and people to see. Plenty of places to spend money, ahaha. I liked how it was organized. They had an artist's alley separate from the regular booths.
Apart from the incompetent security staff, the convention center itself was great. Bright, clean, well organized, and although vaguely confusing (it took me 3 days to get the hang of the layout of the whole place) it was a really nice location. I loved the water in the halls. There were the occasional standard water fountains but it was mostly water dispensers, next to which were stacks of cups and trash cans. Also I often refilled my water bottles from them which was great. The cleaning staff were all over everything, cleaning tables as soon as people got up, and I saw cleaning staff in the bathrooms constantly (which were always clean and pleasant to use, I never had any issues).
And and andddddddd? ELECTRICAL OUTLETS EVERYWHERE! All the better to charge my boyfriend's constantly dying phone with.
We're both really excited to go to PHXCC again next year. Chris wants to cosplay! Yay! So we might do that. (I was thinking about it this year but money & time got away from me and also I got an attack of low self-esteem about it so I just didn't ahaha.) But since we now basically have a year of planning and saving, we might do it even bigger next year. We'll see. :D
Panels
John Barrowman
John Barrowman's panel was the first of the day and kind of set the tone for the whole day. I think I enjoyed the last day most of all. (But that's also partially due to me being confused/lost/awkward/unsure at first because CON VIRGIN and all that, I eventually started loosening up (right when it ended ofc); hopefully next con I will have 100% fun right out of the gate.) I mean if you know of John Barrowman you know how this went. It was funny and thoughtful and over the top and delightful.
He sang for us and the whole room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. SUCH A LOVELY VOICE! Such clear high notes. <3
This was a marine who he'd already met in a signing or photo op or something, the marine came through the q&a line and John brought him up on stage and made him take his shirt off and flirted with him so outrageously, ahaha. He got the marine's phone number and said later he and Scott would be having a marine sandwich. Bless.
He also flashed us his underwear-clad butt & junk. He was wearing Batman undies. :D Also someone asked him to twerk so he attempted that, LOL. He did his Scottish accent for us. Someone asked about the Doctor Who 50th special and ever coming back to Who and he said that he would always always ALWAYS make time for Who, and if the Who PTB ever said that his schedule prevented an appearance they are lying. He talked about how he thinks people of size/shape/age/gender/orientation/whatever should love who they are. And how he's so positive all the time. But he didn't really answer how he stayed positive, he said when bad things happen to him he doesn't talk about it publicly, and just to keep fighting. IMHO his positivity is just his personality. Some people are that way, and some aren't. Regardless.
Someone asked him about LBGTQ representation on tv. He said it's great there are so many gay people on tv now (he also said there are more gay characters on American tv than Brit tv), but they are all the same type of gay character (a male flamboyant/campy gay character), which isn't good enough. And I do agree with that, there should always be more diversity. But a part of me wanted to stand up and shout EXCUSE U, OBVS YOU HAVE NEVER WATCHED WAREHOUSE 13 OR ELEMENTARY. lol. But no, he is right, esp when it comes to network shows. Also when the person asked their question, he asked what the Q meant and when explained it was for "queer" he was like what? We don't use that word in Britain. Which surprised me? O_o Or maybe he's just never really heard it. Later on he made a joke about sticking his finger in a dyke's hole, and the crowd sort of half-laughed at that and he was like, "is that a bad word here? You say queer but not dyke?" Ahaha. I don't actually know what are ok words anymore and what aren't so I just avoid saying any of it. But my experience with the word dyke is that it isn't a good word. But I don't know if there is a take-back effect of that word? In any case the difference between Britain and America is always interesting.
Last but not least, he talked about wanting to do more work in America, and that's what he's focusing on right now. (Someone had asked about doing more theater in Britain, or something.) He said he has a pretty great image in Britain already and he wants to build up his career/image in America. Hence, doing stuff like Arrow. Color me exciteddddddddddd. John Barrowman on all the tv, thanks.
Also this was his first time ever coming to Phoenix, which I didn't realize, so yayy. The crowds for him were huge ALL THE TIME. He did two or three EXTRA photo ops on top of all the scheduled ones, an extra signing on top of the others, etc etc etc. He was fucking crazy but every time the lines for him were HUGE. Apparently his panel had more people in it than the Babylon 5 reunion did.
We got in line for his panel 45 minutes early, and we weren't even close to the front of the line. Apparently people had started lining up 1.5 hours before it started. Even though I wasn't close to the front I wasn't near the end either, the lines got longer and longer and looped out of the room. Here's a short video I took of the lines:
<3<3<3<3 John Barrowman.
Amanda Tapping
AMANDA TAPPINGGGGGgggggggggggggg!
Ugh she's still so gorgeous and lovely, such a sweet person, and my heart was all a pitter-patter just from sitting in the audience, LOL. Her panel was pretty laid-back, she talked some about her charity Sanctuary for Kids, someone in the audience gave her an idea to write a book (everyone cheered), and she did some of her English accent for us. She shared a funny story about how during the first season of SG-1 she had to take "American accent" classes cause she was always pronouncing things too Canadian/British, which is funny but also considering how much I have always pointed out her cute Canadian way of saying things I can see why they did it. (Eg, whenever she says "towards" on SG-1 it's always "to-WARDS" rather than "toards".)
Other than that tho she talked a fuckton about Supernatural which was a surprise cause I didn't even know she was in it????? lol. (It's weird actually the SPN fans were out in SPADES for this con, those guys are everywhere, ahaha. Like, someone asked John Barrowman if he would guest star on SPN. CALM DOWN SPN FANS. XD) Also people asked a few questions which were repetitive as fuck if you are a fan of Amanda Tapping AT ALL and I have a hard time believing the question-askers didn't already know the answers. Like, someone asked her if she ever researched the stuff she said on SG-1. IS THIS NOT COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT SHE RESEARCHED THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING? I don't know, tell me honestly. Is my rage misplaced? LOL. Also someone asked about pranks so the Solitudes-MacGyver story came out. Again.. I thought we all knew that, ahaha. And someone asked who the biggest prankster was and duh Christopher Judge? I don't know maybe I am just too huge of an SG-1 fan, except for the bit about the accent training, every other thing she said about SG-1 I already knew, LOL.
One cool thing I didn't know about her that she talked about was her foray into directing. She said she directed an upcoming episode of Continuum!! (I looked it up; it'll be the 12th episode of season 2.) She said they are a great group on that show and she got into the show after directing an episode and it's a really great show. LOL. AGREED. :D She said her hopefully-one-day directing fantasy would be an epic like Game of Thrones, but she doesn't feel ready yet & needs more experience. She hopes she will get to work on Continuum again tho. Which, I do too! :D
Bless her face. At the end of the panel, they started playing the song Locked out of Heaven, and she said whenever she hears this song it reminds her of Cas. I don't know what that means but maybe you SPN fans will get something out of it. :D
Smaller panels
The smaller panels on the last day were better than the ones I went to on other days. Maybe I picked right this time. :D
I went to one panel called Business the Ferengi Way and it was really quite entertaining, and this guy:
Never broke character once, even before and after the panel, haha. Good times.
I also went to a panel where a local improv group did their own audio over two episodes of Star Trek the Animated Series, and it was fucking hilarious.
Photo Ops
Nichelle Nichols & Walter Koenig
Blonde girl is my boyfriend's sister Jenny; she joined us for this day. She had no idea who John Barrowman or Amanda Tapping were, ahaha. But she enjoyed the other panels and such, and also said she might try out Doctor Who. :D
No you are not imagining things. My boyfriend is wearing my brand new t-shirt. That jerk. XD
Just this one photo; we were actually supposed to do it on Saturday but we missed it due to being in Wil Wheaton's signing line 1.5 hours. *shakes fist* Wheaton.
Merch/signed stuff
I stumbled across someone selling this amazing poster for a measly FIVE BUCKS and I had to have it. When I bought it he asked if I wanted him to sign it and I said sure, I'd love it. I HAD NO IDEA WHO HE WAS? LOL. Anyway he's someone named Ryan Cody. It's a really cool design and I thought it would be a nice memento of my first connnnn.
But then after he signed it I was struck at what a great idea it would have been to have gotten all the people I got to sign stuff to sign the same con-themed poster. Next year I'm totally gonna have to do that!
Boyfriend bought this Minecraft shirt but if he's gonna wear my shirts I'mma wear his too so I count this.
I also got the official PHXCC shirt. I should have hit that booth first day instead of last, cause they were clear out of my size at that point, so I had to go a size bigger.
I also got this Captain Marvel button!! Spend $3 on a button? Don't mind if I do! lol. Also, this is the pass I had. :3
The Great PHXCC Fire Drill of 2013
Near the end of the day, about 4pm, an alarm went off. The alarm just said "emergency", it didn't say what it was. Rumors flew around, and we still don't even know the OFFICIAL story (I've heard many different reports of what it was). But it was a fire alarm that went off.. somehow. (Not actual fire.) But tl;dr we were evacuated from the convention center for about 30mins.
Just imagine it tho. I mean, it was near the end of the last day of the con so it wasn't peak attendance, but I would estimate at least 10k people swarmed the streets of Phoenix. IT WAS A MADHOUSE. lol. But the evacuation was so orderly and calm and absolutely nobody flipped, nobody got trampled, there wasn't even shoving or anything. We all hung out in the streets until we got the all-clear to go back in. (Except for all the people that just left.)
This was a shot of the emergency exit staircase we had to go up. Omg so many stairs. The exhibitor hall is deep underground. There were two stairways intertwined in some sort of double helix style, it was actually kind of amazing.
Forgive me for all the pics and vids. I was bored for the 30mins we were outside, ahaha. It was a brief news story for the time we were out there, then we all got let back in and it was all good. We then went to one of the last panels of the day that hadn't cancelled, which was the comedy TOS Animated Series voiceover, and it was wonderful. Then the exhibitor hall hours were extended to 6:30pm so we went there until most everyone was packed up & til we had just about spent the last of our cash (I HAVE $6 LEFT WOO), then we left. (We actually wandered around the city for a bit looking for a good place to eat, then we had dinner & Chris and I finally got home around 9:30 or so. Then I basically could barely move because 4 straight days of standing and walking and MY LEGS OH GOD MY LEGS, and I was so exhausted I passed out around midnight.)
Other
After the fire drill thingamabob, later on we were in the exhibitor hall, and a little boy ran past us. Maybe 4? I noticed he seemed to be alone, just running past, so I stopped him and asked him where his parents were. He grew shy, but he pointed in a direction, but we didn't see anyone. We stood there for a couple minutes looking around. Nobody ran up to claim him or seemed to be looking for a kid. So, we took ownership of the kid and found a nearby staff member, who fired up a "code Adam." The little boy was wearing a shirt that said "here comes trouble" and we joked about how accurate it was. He didn't cry or anything. He was a cute kid. It took ten minutes to find the kid's father, but the staff did locate him and they were reunited and all was well.
SUNDAY WAS SO EXCITING! ahaha.
I didn't get a picture but we stumbled across a table for the guy who played Denny in The Room. If you haven't seen The Room.. RUN, DON'T WALK. Anyway the actor who played Denny lives in here in the Valley & I know he goes to all these sorts of things, and has stuff he does at some local theaters. He was a pretty nice guy. He mostly just wanted to pimp out his stuff to us though. He's writing a comic book, tangentially related to The Room. He cashes in on his shitty movie cult status 38402% and good for him for doing it, lol.
A few other random photos:
I found a new boyfrand.
Amazing Lego display. :D See something on top of one of those buildings...?
ehehehe
The only cosplayers I took a photo of. Bless that adorable lady!Thor and also I loooooooooved the dude on the far left's cosplay. Ahaha. Lazy? Or ingenious in exactly the way Tony Stark would be? A+ for mirroring the dude's pose next to him.
Final Thoughts
My first con ever: SUCCESS! :D
I had a really good time. There were a couple disappointments, namely how some of the fan-run panels were kinda.. lame.. but I think that's just chance. Some people are more entertaining and better prepared than others. All of the larger panels were run well and entertaining and great. Meeting celebs was awesome. I'm awkward as fuck around them apparently but you know what that's okay. I wish there had been more comics-related people I was a fan of (I had emailed the PHXCC people with a list of comics authors & artists I wanted to see but who knows if they invited them or if they couldn't come or what), but I got to talk to Kieron Gillen and that was amazeballs.
There was a ton of people; this con apparently gets larger every year, and I have heard an estimate of about 45k people attending this year (there was 30k last year) so that's awesome. Although frankly I think that's hit the limit of how many people can attend at this location. Saturday by far was the busiest day. It was almost impossible to walk the exhibitor hall, just people EVERYWHERE. PACKED. Sometimes you just couldn't move. The escalators broke constantly that day b/c of the use. They kept having to close the exhibitor hall to people coming in because they were exceeding capacity, so they'd have to wait for people to clear out before letting more in. There was absolutely no clear spots to sit or stand out of the way. It was nuts. They didn't seem to have any sort of upper limit on passes they would sell, but if they don't limit it next year there might be a problem. Saturday was just far too busy. All the other days were good though. More "appropriate" level of busy-ness I guess? Heh.
The staff were a mixed bag. All of the volunteers were amazing, some of the staff were rude (probably stressed all to fuck) and some were just polite. The security staff, presumably employees or contractors working for the convention center, were mostly terrible. A) A lot of security theater. Bags were supposed to be checked - they didn't look at everybody's. Whenever they looked in mine, they glanced quickly then waved me through. One of them jokingly asked me if I had any plastic explosives in my bag. The security staff obviously thought us nerds posed 0 threat (I mean, probably true, but you should at least pretend to take it seriously). It caused traffic jams for such a pointless endeavor. B) Some of the security staff were idiots. One of them told my boyfriend to get his mash paddle peace bonded. When my boyfriend took it to the table, the peace-bonding guy was like "Wtf? Someone told you this needed peace-bonding?" I also saw an Eleven cosplay with a mop; the mop was peace-bonded. Really? lol. The peace bonding I saw in effect did not jive with the con's policy, which was to peace bond weapons or things that looked like weapons. How a mop looks like a weapon, I don't even know.
Cost-wise, I did pretty well.
Passes: $80 for two full-event passes (we bought them early & they were discounted)
Photos: Sam Witwer ($20), Nichelle Nichols & Walter Koenig ($30), Wil Wheaton ($20), John Barrowman ($40) (side story: John Barrowman's photos were actually $45, but they were put in the system wrong or something at first, they were only $40 when I bought them and later they were changed. Mwahaha $5 discount!)
Transporation: $32 (two full day public transportation tix each of the four days)
Other: $100 spending cash each, for me and Chris (used this cash for drinks, and paying for his sister to get in on Sunday, and autographs as well), $20 for two tix to Wil Wheaton's Awesome Hour
Total: $442
I knew the con would be expensive and it totally was. However I think I still did pretty good? Sharing this info b/c I was desperately curious what people were actually spending at cons but the most kind of answer I got was "a lot" ahaha. Major cost savings: transportation. Since I wasn't flying in from anywhere, I already saved tons. Another way of saving money: buying things piecemeal. We bough the two full passes in December 2012, while they were heavily discounted ($40 each instead of $60 each at the door). We bought the photo ops when we had the money, over the course of a couple months before the con. Then we saved up our spending cash, and didn't allow ourselves to go over. It helped that nearly all the booths were cash only (like 2 booths out of the thousand took credit cards), and I was completely sure the ATM fees at the convention center would be outrageous so there was no way we would take any cash out of them. Also, apart from the day I forgot to bring our water, we brought our own drinks & snacks so we didn't buy food there. Spreading out the costs over months meant that it hurt a lot less to spend almost $450 on this. And it was sort of a last minute thing, too. I told Chris about the con in December, we bought the tickets that day, and then we had ~5 months to plan and save which isn't a lot of time.
The exhibitor hall was fun. Lots of stuff and people to see. Plenty of places to spend money, ahaha. I liked how it was organized. They had an artist's alley separate from the regular booths.
Apart from the incompetent security staff, the convention center itself was great. Bright, clean, well organized, and although vaguely confusing (it took me 3 days to get the hang of the layout of the whole place) it was a really nice location. I loved the water in the halls. There were the occasional standard water fountains but it was mostly water dispensers, next to which were stacks of cups and trash cans. Also I often refilled my water bottles from them which was great. The cleaning staff were all over everything, cleaning tables as soon as people got up, and I saw cleaning staff in the bathrooms constantly (which were always clean and pleasant to use, I never had any issues).
And and andddddddd? ELECTRICAL OUTLETS EVERYWHERE! All the better to charge my boyfriend's constantly dying phone with.
We're both really excited to go to PHXCC again next year. Chris wants to cosplay! Yay! So we might do that. (I was thinking about it this year but money & time got away from me and also I got an attack of low self-esteem about it so I just didn't ahaha.) But since we now basically have a year of planning and saving, we might do it even bigger next year. We'll see. :D
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Date: 2013-05-28 12:55 am (UTC)I am a complete con virgin myself. My 13 year old was alll over me to buy tickets for PAX Prime in Seattle in August but I got on to buy them the site crashed and then I got back on and they were sold out. No gamer con for us. We'll try emerald city cc instead then, it's easier to get into.
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Date: 2013-05-28 04:10 am (UTC)Aww man, that sucks! That's sort of why I've written off San Diego Comicon from ever happening. Those tickets always sell out so fast. I hope you can get to a con! They're so fun!
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Date: 2013-05-28 01:24 am (UTC)i'm so jealoussssssss
it looked like SUCH FUN
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Date: 2013-05-28 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 04:11 am (UTC)