VisionCon weekend
Jan. 24th, 2010 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterWell, here I am at VisionCon, on the last day of the convention.
Not a whole lot to say about how the weekend went. I came down at about noon on Friday and held down the SpringfieldGAME (Eclectic Endeavors) table pretty much by myself (Chris Stuart was here for a bit and so was Sandy Clark, but I haven't seen Sandy since.) Went down to the mall to have dinner (slice of pizza from S'Barro's) and on the way back found Kmart was clearancing a bunch of soon-to-expire Special Dark chocolate bar 6-packs for 90 cents, and bought a few to hand out candy bars to people at the convention.
Spent the evening hitting the party rooms, meeting people I used to know but now only see once a year at VisionCon (maybe twice a year now if SpringfieldGAME becomes an institution). Chris Stuart drove me back to my place at 12, I showered and got to bed.
The next day I caught the 10:20 bus down, but realized I'd forgotten to eat breakfast so stopped off at the mall to have a pretzel at Auntie Anne's. Got to the con about 11:30 or so. Attended a couple of interesting panels.
One was hosted by a gastric bypass recipient in the hope of educating some of the morbidly obese gamer crowd about the bypass process. Unfortunately, it hadn't been publicized very well; I was the only attendee. I found it very interesting, though, and suggested he see about coming to our con as well.
Another was for a group called Zombie Squad, a community organization that uses zombie movies to emphasize disaster-preparedness and charity fundraising. Pretty neat idea, I thought.
But I spent most of the day over in the Best Buy room, playing Rock Band 2. Someone had a cheat code that unlocked all the songs, and it basically kicked butt. Though there was still a fairly limited selection of songs even with them all unlocked. I did mostly vocals, and a little bit of bass and guitar.
Spent the evening sitting at the SpringfieldGAME table writing something on my laptop and taking the occasional picture. By the time I noticed what time it was getting to be, it was 11:00, and I quickly did another circuit of the party rooms for more free booze and then one of the other GAME folks drove me home.
This morning I woke at 8:30, shaved and got to the con by 9:30. Not much going on as it's the end day when everything starts shutting down. The Best Buy room was only open from 12:00 to 1:30, most of which I spent there playing. Now I'm sitting back by the SpringfieldGAME booth with my laptop, freezing a bit as the main doors are propped open for people to load stuff.
SpringfieldGAME got a really great booth location this year. Last year we were in the middle of the row of tables going around the border of the room. This year we got an island right in the middle of the floor as you come past the registration counter—literally the first thing you see as you walk in. We got a lot of interest, and it was nice that we could show a video of scenes from the previous year's convention. I think our next con will be better than the first one, especially since we know a lot more about it now.
Galen from local animé dealer Otaku House was in charge of the animé screening room this go-round. He did a decent job selecting titles, though I didn't really spend much time in the room. It had a projector, but sound was provided through a boom box. (The main movie room up the hall had two big tower speakers and a subwoofer.) One thing I did like was they had printed up a little "poster" for each title currently showing and stuck it up on the door when the title changed. We've got to do that next time.
Didn't do more than glance at the dealer room this year (no money, so no point) but it seemed to be about the same as usual. Otaku House did have as good a placement there as we did in the main room: the first thing you see when you go into the door. I hope he did all right.
Anyway, that's the con for this year. It was fun, even if I didn't spend much money on it. Looking forward to our own events through the year and in October.
Not a whole lot to say about how the weekend went. I came down at about noon on Friday and held down the SpringfieldGAME (Eclectic Endeavors) table pretty much by myself (Chris Stuart was here for a bit and so was Sandy Clark, but I haven't seen Sandy since.) Went down to the mall to have dinner (slice of pizza from S'Barro's) and on the way back found Kmart was clearancing a bunch of soon-to-expire Special Dark chocolate bar 6-packs for 90 cents, and bought a few to hand out candy bars to people at the convention.
Spent the evening hitting the party rooms, meeting people I used to know but now only see once a year at VisionCon (maybe twice a year now if SpringfieldGAME becomes an institution). Chris Stuart drove me back to my place at 12, I showered and got to bed.
The next day I caught the 10:20 bus down, but realized I'd forgotten to eat breakfast so stopped off at the mall to have a pretzel at Auntie Anne's. Got to the con about 11:30 or so. Attended a couple of interesting panels.
One was hosted by a gastric bypass recipient in the hope of educating some of the morbidly obese gamer crowd about the bypass process. Unfortunately, it hadn't been publicized very well; I was the only attendee. I found it very interesting, though, and suggested he see about coming to our con as well.
Another was for a group called Zombie Squad, a community organization that uses zombie movies to emphasize disaster-preparedness and charity fundraising. Pretty neat idea, I thought.
But I spent most of the day over in the Best Buy room, playing Rock Band 2. Someone had a cheat code that unlocked all the songs, and it basically kicked butt. Though there was still a fairly limited selection of songs even with them all unlocked. I did mostly vocals, and a little bit of bass and guitar.
Spent the evening sitting at the SpringfieldGAME table writing something on my laptop and taking the occasional picture. By the time I noticed what time it was getting to be, it was 11:00, and I quickly did another circuit of the party rooms for more free booze and then one of the other GAME folks drove me home.
This morning I woke at 8:30, shaved and got to the con by 9:30. Not much going on as it's the end day when everything starts shutting down. The Best Buy room was only open from 12:00 to 1:30, most of which I spent there playing. Now I'm sitting back by the SpringfieldGAME booth with my laptop, freezing a bit as the main doors are propped open for people to load stuff.
SpringfieldGAME got a really great booth location this year. Last year we were in the middle of the row of tables going around the border of the room. This year we got an island right in the middle of the floor as you come past the registration counter—literally the first thing you see as you walk in. We got a lot of interest, and it was nice that we could show a video of scenes from the previous year's convention. I think our next con will be better than the first one, especially since we know a lot more about it now.
Galen from local animé dealer Otaku House was in charge of the animé screening room this go-round. He did a decent job selecting titles, though I didn't really spend much time in the room. It had a projector, but sound was provided through a boom box. (The main movie room up the hall had two big tower speakers and a subwoofer.) One thing I did like was they had printed up a little "poster" for each title currently showing and stuck it up on the door when the title changed. We've got to do that next time.
Didn't do more than glance at the dealer room this year (no money, so no point) but it seemed to be about the same as usual. Otaku House did have as good a placement there as we did in the main room: the first thing you see when you go into the door. I hope he did all right.
Anyway, that's the con for this year. It was fun, even if I didn't spend much money on it. Looking forward to our own events through the year and in October.
