|
In June, I had the chance to attend my first convention since
UncommonCon last November. This one was A-Kon XII and it was a convention
dedicated solely to anime. I went there along with Nate (the former Surly Gamer), my
youngest brother Dan and my sister Steph. It was the first convention for
them, and my first look into an anime convention. Overall a good time was
had by all, but there were some things that went wrong.
THURSDAY:
I get off of work at 5:30 pm and Nate and the others are going to meet me
halfway to the hotels (yes it was in two hotels instead of one) so we
could pick up our pre-registration packets. We get up to the hotel and
find the registration tables have only one short line of fifteen people.
Unfortunately that line was for the people with last names that begin
with the letters A-E. The people who had F-R were not busy so they open
that one to people A-E. We immediately duck into that line and get
immediate service. I feel bad usurping the people in the original line, but we got
our ID's and bags of goodies. We go over and look through the bags.
Nate wants to see a schedule of things for the weekend. We talk with one of
the people running the convention and he says they have not gotten the
schedules back from the printers yet and they will be available tomorrow.
We get back out to the car and it won't start. Through the fates, we had
our mom's cell phone and call home for her to pick us up. So far things
are not looking good for this weekend.
FRIDAY:
We leave home to go to the con at 9:00am and arrive by about 9:20am.
We go to registration and pick up the fliers that have the schedules for Friday and
Saturday, but no Sunday. After finding a corner for us to mill about in,
along with hundreds, if not thousands of people waiting around for the
dealers room to open. The main thing I want to do for the con is the
Biggs-Carter Experience and get their autographs so I can add to my
growing Babylon 5 autograph collection and see if I can get some Japanese
Pokemon cards to rebuild my Pokedex (more on this later). We all highlight on our
schedules what we want to do and see if anything overlaps. Nothing
does, and since the dealers room is not open, we go over to the other hotel and
go check out the anime viewing room.
They seem to have messed up the showing times for the rooms because
when we go in, they are showing some really funky one instead of Dragonball. I watch for a
while before I head off to find the ballroom that they are having the
Biggs-Carter Experience in. It's not too far from the anime rooms so I head
back to where Dragonball is showing and watch some more before I leave
again to see where the gaming is going on. At some time, I lose the others
and get really frustrated. I stop to get a quarter of an all meat pizza
for $2.50 and get my head together. It was probably better than the $4.00
hamburger they were offering. Dan finds me eating and we head up to his
hotel room. It's okay, like the one I had when I went to Wrestlemania, but
without the balcony. (Which is a good thing when you are on the 10th
floor.) After seeing the room, we head back to the other hotel and check
out the dealers room.
Needless to say, the room is packed with people. The dealers are
selling everything from trading cards and stuffed animals to wall scrolls
and models. The strangest thing I saw being sold were two separate
tables of people selling swords. There were some really cool ones there, but
most of them were out of my price range. I also enjoyed looking at some of the
new Transformers that were imported and are hopefully going to be on
store shelves soon. I'm tempted to buy one of the Gundam models, but finding
someone to help me is really tough.
I lose Dan again and go look for the computer gaming rooms and console
gaming rooms. The computer gaming room is still being set up and I
could not even find the console gaming room. Right now I'm really frustrated
with Nate and the others because I cannot find them, so I call my mom
and we work out plans for her to come up with a key to the car so I can check
in to my room and start buying things from the dealers room. By the time I
get around to getting everything it's 3:30pm, I'm tired and the last thing
I want to do is walk across the street to the other hotel for the crowded
Biggs-Carter Experience. Thankfully, they are having another Experience
tomarrow, so I can go to that one when I am in a better mood. I go back
down to the dealers room and start making some purchases. The only
thing I get are some packs of Pokemon Neo from Japan. I head back to my room
and wait to open the packs until I get back from Jack in the Box (JITB). From
there I spend the rest of the night watching cable TV and reading D&D 3rd
edition.
I eventually get a visit from the others at 11:00pm, but since I wasted
all my energy looking for them all day I tell them to go on to karaoke without me.
SATURDAY:
I wake up at about 8:00 and go down to JITB. This was about the only
time of day you could get an elevator without about ten people being on it at the same
time as you. I come back and find the console gaming room is open and
check it out. Not too many people here so I get to try some games like Soul
Calibur and Crazy Taxi 2. I love Crazy Taxi, but something was a bit off
about this game. It seemed a bit slower than the original. The dealers
room opens at 10:00 and I go buy some more Pokemon Neo and debate
on whether or not I should get a Gundam. One table has the model kits for
$5.00, when some people are charging triple for the same one. Eventually
noon rolls around and we meet our mom and we go out for CiCi's pizza. I
try not go gorge myself on the pizza because I want to have some energy
for the Biggs-Carter Experience. We go back to the hotels at 1:00 and I
head over to the other one to get a good seat. Some people are already
there and we talk Babylon 5 for a while before the actors show up. Some
guy had a Radio Controlled car with a stuffed Pikachu on the roof. He put
it on the stage and drove it around toying with the sound guy who was
there setting up. At one point he drives the car off the stage and gets a
big cheer from all in the audience. Biggs and Carter show up about 15
minutes late and we get on with the show.
If you have never been to a convention with these two doing this then
you should really go to it. It's a real audience participation show with them
dragging people out of the audience to take part. They took us though
some fun acting exercises and for the last half-hour took questions from the
audience. It was a really great time, so I cannot recommend it enough
even for non-Babylon 5 fans.
After that, I ran over to the other hotel to get a good space in line for
the autograph session. I'm about fifth in line and pay the money to get
the pictures they are selling. Jason Carter was great. I'd rate him up
there with Patricia Tallman, as people I'd like to take to dinner. After
that I buy some more things from the dealers room, and head back up to
my room to relax for a while before dinner. After dinner of even more JITB, I
settle in and watch some of the convention channel that the A-Kon
people had set up through the hotels. They showed some of the fan produced
music videos that people sent in. Some of them were really great. A nod to
the person who did probably the best one of the con: "I'm Super!" by Big
Gay Al from the South Park Movie. The videos lasted for about an hour
and I did not want it to end. That is a sign of something good if I'm left
wanting more. The only bad thing about it though, was there were too
many videos based on the game Final Fantasy. After that I'm tired and go on to
bed.
SUNDAY:
I check out and after a breakfast of JITB (I'm now sick of the place) I
go back to the console gaming room. There I try out some games that I could not
yesterday because they were being monopolized by others. I play more Soul Calibur
and clean a few peoples clocks with Sigfried before I get my own clock
cleaned. After I get tired of that, I go next door where they have set up
a whole room dedicated to the game Dance-Dance Revolution. While I was
watching, a person in costume put in a Disney version of the game and
started to play. The song was Supercalifragalistic from the movie Mary
Poppins. As he was playing, he kicked off his shoes, then took off his
costume shirt and just as the song ended, he took off the pants and got a
big cheer from those of us watching. (He was wearing clothes under his
costume for you people with dirty, dirty minds.) After all that, I go down
to the hotel lobby and just people watch. Some people must have had a
boatload of money to spend because the bellhops were taking out carts full
of luggage and things purchased from the dealers room.
The dealers room finally opens and I go through, and in about 15 minutes
I've made all my purchases and I am out of there. My mom picks me up and I
go home.
Overall, A-Kon was a good show. Lots of people in some vary ornate
costumes. Sher would have had a field day taking all sorts of pictures. I
managed to snap a few and Nate and the others did too, but we have yet to
get them processed. I'm debating on if I should go next year, but for right
now I have to get ready for UncommonCon 2001 in November.
|