Tag Archives: New York comic con

Oct 15 2012

65 kilometres walked so far

I’m not quite sure where to start writing about the last few days. I know I should have done a blog every day but I’ve just not had the time, energy or the wifi connection. We’ve had a few real cool days in New York and at New York Comic Con and I’m actually quite sad it’s over. I’m going to ‘chunk up’ events and drip feed them to you by theme over the next few days/weeks until you are as bored as I am by cosplayers 🙂 But first an overview…

20121014-210641.jpg
Any convention review starts with the predictable sore feet, queues for everything from toilets to sketches, huge crowds, crazy cosplay people etc etc. But you know what, its actually been a lot of fun. The Con organisers did really well this year and it felt more planned and less chaotic than less year. The food was also much better than normal and the fanboys seem to have read, and acted upon, the advice to have a shower every day. Crucially we learnt some lessons from previous conventions and forked out the extra for VIP tickets this year.

An extra $80 meant four whole hours in bed extra for four days. Sixteen hours more sleep than usual for convention… It’s almost worth it just for that. It also got us entrance to the VIP lounge with comfy sofas, TV screens showing the main sessions. So no queuing there either and we could watch from a sofa with a drink. It also gave us secure and easy storage so Scifi hubby took a small suitcase with him each day, left it there and ran back and forth to switch books over. Massive change from hauling huge amounts of graphic novels around (guess who is usually a packhorse).

We spent the first couple of days racing around getting sketches and signatures from various artists and celebs (more on that later) and then have been light and free for the last couple of days (well mostly) to wander through the booths, laugh at cosplay folk and actually have some fun.

Convention moment of the day today:

    Me to stall holder (who was dressed as a giant kangaroo – I have no idea either) with a wall of scifi knickers: Please can I take a photo of your pants?
    Him: Who do you work for?
    Me: I have this blog…

I’m still not sure why it mattered who I worked for, why he was so protective of his knickers or what the right answer was but I got my photo…

20121014-210726.jpg

20121014-210815.jpg
More tomorrow…

Sep 30 2012

A tale of two congresses

I have a proper job, I know that may surprise people but I wear a suit, work in an office and like to think that what I do matters, I work for a major multinational company and travel a lot for work. This is a rather large contrast to the Scifi world I often inhabit at home and sometimes the contrast becomes starkly obvious.

This week I’m at a very large conference for work. A brief outline of the event goes something like:

    Attendance – 20,000 people
    Dress code – suits
    Sessions to sit through to learn new information
    Key ‘star’ speakers people want to hear talk, or meet
    A huge exhibition area with every company in the sector here
    Meetings from 7am until midnight
    Long queues for overpriced (and not very good) food at the exhibition centre
    Champagne and cocktails in the conference bar in the evening.
    Lots of media coverage and film crews wandering around.

In two weeks time I’ll be at the New York Comic convention. I was trying to explain the concept of a comic con to some colleagues over dinner last night. It went something like this:

    Attendance – 90,000 people
    Dress code – jeans, comic based tshirts, fancy dress (showering appears to be optional!)
    Preview screenings, talks by comic artists and celebs
    Key ‘star’ people from the movie and comic industry that everyone wants to hear talk, get a sketch or signature from or meet
    A huge exhibition area with every company in the sector here
    Queues from 7am (and earlier) and sessions to go to until midnight
    Long queues for overpriced (and not very good) food at the exhibition centre
    Beer in the conference bar in the evening.
    Lots of media coverage and film crews wandering around.

So comic con is bigger, more laid back and smellier but in some ways there are actually very similar. The biggest difference is the fancy dress. This conference would be so much more fun if a fancy dress rule was implemented!

I find I’m actually looking forward to four days in my jeans (I DON’T do fancy dress), drinking beer, staying in a cheap hotel, getting star struck over Princess Leia, dodging people dressed as Ewoks and random manga characters, hunting down comic artists who you have no idea what they look like. It will definitely make a change. Roll on comic con.