holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
Once more, into the con review.
After enjoying myself last year not braiding (and Arisia not having a Dealer's Row anymore), I again went into the weekend with primary goals of showing off a costume, socializing, and relaxing. I succeeded pretty well at all of them.
costume
I didn't have any new costumes made, and I didn't want to reprise my Elsa costume (since I don't have the hair and I am definitely not going half-Elsa to a con this big), but I did have my Supergirl costume from last spring's half-marathon that I wanted to get more mileage1 out of. Well, apparently everybody was taking their cues from me without me realizing it, as the two most common costumes I saw the entire weekend were Elsa2 and Supergirl3. I lost count when I got to six each! And many of them were quite well done. I privately thought my SG costume was the mostest awesomest, but really all the ones I saw were quality. I made sure to get in a few photos at least.
Jim didn't bring a costume, per se, but he did bring his LED coat4 and stilts, as well as his lumberjack5 outfit, all of which were quite eye-catching. Much more eye-catching than any of my outfits, in fact. To the point where I started joking that I couldn't go anywhere with him, because everybody would stop him for pictures and questions while I (in my costume!) would be ignored6. Maybe next year I'll actually figure out some semi-matching costumes so I can be a little more included. :)
Hall costumes are a lot of fun, although I realized after the plethora of lookalikes that it is a bit challenging to find a costume that 1) is within my realm of crafty ability, 2) is common enough that it will be recognizeable to a lot of people including me, and 3) a ton of other people won't also be doing it at the same con. I'm rethinking some of my previous ideas. Or maybe not, because they'd still be fun to pull off.
socializing
While exploring my newfound costume geekery and getting recognized for it is fun, a very large part of my Arisia experience is seeing friends who I don't get to spend enough time with. In such a confined space, it's usually possible to find a lot of people I know just by wandering around. So I did a lot of wandering around as well as some planning ahead and had some very nice time with people. Never for as much as I'd like; a weekend just doesn't work for that. But a nice start.
The downside to trying to see everybody in a weekend is that I and people I want to spend time with often have different social needs. Quiet intimate social time, loud chatty social time, room parties, dances, hallway wanderings, etc. And seeing people all at once doesn't work. I almost managed to go to some hotel parties one evening, but a very brief but unsettling dizzy spell made me have a disappointingly quiet late night in instead. Sunday I even escaped the hotel briefly, then came back for room socializing.
I wonder if it would work to try throwing a hotel room party next year. Not really a party party, but a verysmall hangout space that's quiet and private where people we like can come by and be snuggly. Will ponder this.
relaxing
Bereft of children and school schedules to work around, we were able to take a more leisurely drive in both directions, which meant we could drive mostly in day time when the roads were not awful, not get caught in traffic, not have either our arrival or our departure be rushed, and not have driving interfere with any sleeping. Definitely a win on all angles.
The hotel bed agrees with me really nicely, and I didn't have any silly business obligations that made me get out of bed any earlier than I wanted to, so I slept well. I went to a chainmail thingy where a small number of us artists basically walked around and schmoozed about 'mail stuff, and I got to show off some unique pieces. On a whim I went to the Buffy Once More With Feeling shadowcast showing and got the songs stuck in my head for the next couple weeks. I bought some awesomepants in the dealer's room, enjoyed art in the art show, ate properly, got a bunch of fun pictures taken of me, did a fancy braid or two, got enough hugs, and didn't get sick afterwards.
That was good, let's do it again.
1 ba-dum
2 I was Elsa before she was, er, cool.
3 That's if you don't count the number of people in total dressed as A Doctor
4 radioactive yeti
5 and he's O.K.
6 the best part was when I was "explaining" this phenomenon to a friend and Jim protested that it wasn't as extreme as I described, and JUST THEN some random person walked up and did EXACTLY what I was complaining about.
After enjoying myself last year not braiding (and Arisia not having a Dealer's Row anymore), I again went into the weekend with primary goals of showing off a costume, socializing, and relaxing. I succeeded pretty well at all of them.
costume
I didn't have any new costumes made, and I didn't want to reprise my Elsa costume (since I don't have the hair and I am definitely not going half-Elsa to a con this big), but I did have my Supergirl costume from last spring's half-marathon that I wanted to get more mileage1 out of. Well, apparently everybody was taking their cues from me without me realizing it, as the two most common costumes I saw the entire weekend were Elsa2 and Supergirl3. I lost count when I got to six each! And many of them were quite well done. I privately thought my SG costume was the mostest awesomest, but really all the ones I saw were quality. I made sure to get in a few photos at least.
Jim didn't bring a costume, per se, but he did bring his LED coat4 and stilts, as well as his lumberjack5 outfit, all of which were quite eye-catching. Much more eye-catching than any of my outfits, in fact. To the point where I started joking that I couldn't go anywhere with him, because everybody would stop him for pictures and questions while I (in my costume!) would be ignored6. Maybe next year I'll actually figure out some semi-matching costumes so I can be a little more included. :)
Hall costumes are a lot of fun, although I realized after the plethora of lookalikes that it is a bit challenging to find a costume that 1) is within my realm of crafty ability, 2) is common enough that it will be recognizeable to a lot of people including me, and 3) a ton of other people won't also be doing it at the same con. I'm rethinking some of my previous ideas. Or maybe not, because they'd still be fun to pull off.
socializing
While exploring my newfound costume geekery and getting recognized for it is fun, a very large part of my Arisia experience is seeing friends who I don't get to spend enough time with. In such a confined space, it's usually possible to find a lot of people I know just by wandering around. So I did a lot of wandering around as well as some planning ahead and had some very nice time with people. Never for as much as I'd like; a weekend just doesn't work for that. But a nice start.
The downside to trying to see everybody in a weekend is that I and people I want to spend time with often have different social needs. Quiet intimate social time, loud chatty social time, room parties, dances, hallway wanderings, etc. And seeing people all at once doesn't work. I almost managed to go to some hotel parties one evening, but a very brief but unsettling dizzy spell made me have a disappointingly quiet late night in instead. Sunday I even escaped the hotel briefly, then came back for room socializing.
I wonder if it would work to try throwing a hotel room party next year. Not really a party party, but a verysmall hangout space that's quiet and private where people we like can come by and be snuggly. Will ponder this.
relaxing
Bereft of children and school schedules to work around, we were able to take a more leisurely drive in both directions, which meant we could drive mostly in day time when the roads were not awful, not get caught in traffic, not have either our arrival or our departure be rushed, and not have driving interfere with any sleeping. Definitely a win on all angles.
The hotel bed agrees with me really nicely, and I didn't have any silly business obligations that made me get out of bed any earlier than I wanted to, so I slept well. I went to a chainmail thingy where a small number of us artists basically walked around and schmoozed about 'mail stuff, and I got to show off some unique pieces. On a whim I went to the Buffy Once More With Feeling shadowcast showing and got the songs stuck in my head for the next couple weeks. I bought some awesomepants in the dealer's room, enjoyed art in the art show, ate properly, got a bunch of fun pictures taken of me, did a fancy braid or two, got enough hugs, and didn't get sick afterwards.
That was good, let's do it again.
1 ba-dum
2 I was Elsa before she was, er, cool.
3 That's if you don't count the number of people in total dressed as A Doctor
4 radioactive yeti
5 and he's O.K.
6 the best part was when I was "explaining" this phenomenon to a friend and Jim protested that it wasn't as extreme as I described, and JUST THEN some random person walked up and did EXACTLY what I was complaining about.