Con Report - Otafest '09
So, for the past two days, I've been massively busy with a fabulous little volunteering gig down at the local university. I can't possibly state enough how much fun I had.
The weekend began uneventfully, with me being freaked out about not finding people. And of course, being freaked out about going to the volunteer room. It's not like I know that many people, after all. And I'm not that good with meeting new people. I did, however, find Niki almost immediately upon entry; we went to the volunteer room and I managed to get my t-shirt and lanyard from Nathan.
From there, we headed over to the vendors' room. At 9 in the morning, though, cons are utterly empty. So we chilled in the very empty room while everyone set up their stuff.
Very empty room is very empty.
As a volunteer, I got first pick of the vendors' room - we get half an hour before the room actually opens. Despite the fact that they had issues getting it open I managed to get a decent stash of stuff. Photos of my haul at the end. When we were in line, there was a bit of complaint going around that we wouldn't get any time to ourselves before the rest of the con-goers got in at 10. We did, though, fortunately; it was only about ten minutes, though.
For the next hour or so, Niki and I wandered around, snapping off shots of cosplayers and the like, before she had to go to her shift at the dodgeball.
My childhood, epitomised.
Me with a companion cube.
After a time, we ended up going to the spot where Niki's shift was; instead of the dodgeball being set up, there was a lovely game of tug-of-war going on. It was pretty sweet, I must admit.
Sho was only complete with his megaphone. When they took it away, we were disappointed.
While we were waiting for the dodgeball to begin, we found some Hetalia cosplayers. It was good stuff.
After a while, though, I had to take off to the world's most tedious shift - art auction. Three hours in a room with gorgeous art, at cheap prices, and no one to bid on it. I did, however, manage to do a rather nice pen drawing of Emmy that I'll post to dA at a later time.
It was likely because of its positioning that hardly anyone came by (only 300 people in two days); it was right beside the free arcade, which was hard enough to find in itself.
I couldn't bring a book with me, though, because I had to cover a floor shift in the vendors' room right after. Luckily, it was just downstairs, so I left five minutes early to get there. Turns out, Dani needed more people to cover entrance instead, so I got to sit for the shortest hour of my life greeting people and asking them for their wristband, just to make sure they had paid. A shocking amount of people tried to get in without one, and a few were really rude when we had to ask them to go buy one in order to get in. Like, seriously, it's not that difficult a concept.
The view from my seat at the front.
One of the vendors also gave us a box of the most delicious meat buns ever.
After my shifts - the only two I had for the day - Aileen, who was working the sketch drive just around the corner at the Artist Alley, and I took off to the Photoshop tutorial by Budgie. It was pretty interesting, actually, seeing exactly how she does stuff in her colouring. She had some useful tips for how to do stuff that I had been doing the hard way, so I'll have to test out how to do it later, potentially with my Emmy-doodle.
Aileen hadn't been able to get into the vendors' room until after the tutorial, since she had so many sketch drive shifts, so we took off there afterwards, from the science theatres. I ended up running into a friend from school, though he graduated a year or so back. I barely recognised him, since his hair is usually down to his hips; he recently hacked it all off to be about two inches long and streaked with blond. Quinton's a pretty rad guy, though, so I hung out with him a mite while Aia looked around.
At 6, I ended up running more errands that I probably did all day; I helped out the Artist Alley mostly - both by running my friend's booth for a few minutes while she did exec-like things, and by running the cash box to the command centre, among other things.
The one thing I absolutely love about volunteering for a con, instead of just attending, is that they feed you. It's great.
A shot of our volunteer room.
And a shot of the maths that were on the board at the end of the day. (lol, I drew Sho.)
So, at every con, I have to watch at least one thing. This year, it happened to be Antique Bakery. I know, I know, why would I go to watch a show I already have on my computer? Well, it was on, and Aia wanted to watch it. So we went. Ended up getting there a bit early, though, so we watched the tail end of the Sailor Moon R movie.
And let me tell you, I forgot just how much I love Sailor Moon. I mean, really. We were watching the super-epic scene where Princess Serenity is trying to defeat Queen Beryl with the help of Tuxedo Mask and her Inner Senshi, and I got shivers from how awesome it was. The dub ruined it a bit, though.
I'm definitely going to have to watch that series again. Right after I finish watching Antique Bakery in its entirety, though. That show is utterly hilarious. Provided you enjoy hints of yaoi.
DAY TWO.
Aileen and I had an early morning shift with the art auction - a grand total of 13 people came in that day - so we had to get there pretty early again. I was there so early that the command centre had three people in it, and the volunteer room wasn't even open. Of course, further proof that cons are fantastically empty on Sunday mornings is in the fact that the route over was empty, as well.
We got utterly bored during that three hours, so the three of us who were supposed to be manning the table - Bryden, Aia, and myself - created Punctuation Man, a fusion picture made of "sepia in blue" tones (as stated by Bryden) and punctuation. We ended up setting it out for bidding, with a minimum bid of 25 cents. It was great.
Later on, Aia got a hankering for ice cream, so Bryden and I manned the table while she went with Niki and Steph (who were manning the arcade next door) to the nearby Dairy Queen to get sundaes.
We all split up after a bit, so we could all get to our respective places: Aia to her sketch drive shift, Niki and Steph to wherever, and me, to the BJD panel. And my god, were those dolls beautiful. I learned tonnes from the girls who were running it; they gave a great beginner's rundown of how to care for them and what to do before buying one. Brittany even let me hold a few of hers, including her baby girl. If I thought I loved them beforehand, I loved them even more with one in my hands.
Doesn't help my feeling of impending sadness that this gorgeous Tatiana model that would have been utterly perfect for an Emmy-doll was going for $400 online - full wig, eyes, and outfit - and I don't have any money. So sad.
And this is the little girl with whom I fell in love at the panel. Isn't she beautiful?
After that, I killed a few hours over in the Artist Alley, mostly watching Allison's booth and getting to know her neighbour. There was a few really rad cosplayers, of whom I got photos later, when I was over near the registration desk, killing time with Steph and Niki while they tallied the points for the Mr and Ms Otafest competition. That was pretty rad, I must say.
I ran into Fatima somewhere between then and my shift, and we went to go try on corsets. I've always wanted to, ever since a girl a few years back told me I'd be perfect for one, but I never had the time to actually go up and wear one. So this year, I did. It was so comfortable.
Me, in a corset. La la la la-la.
Then, of course, came my final shift of the weekend. I was supposed to do bag check, but they had nearly ten people helping out; I ended up getting roped into entrance duty temporarily, until they closed the doors. We close the vendors' room up at 5, thereby allowing them to start cleaning up for the evening. I made sure people didn't try to leave through the wrong door, and then Vicky asked me to cover the back door, and make sure people didn't try to come in.
All in all, I ended up standing for a good two hours before Wendy and Dani decided I could come help out with other stuff, so I went and folded boxes. All that clean up jazz was pretty boring stuff, so I won't recap it in much detail. They always reward us, though - I got two Pokemon on behalf of the vendors' execs, and a cute L pin from Jenny.
I see you there, hard at work.
As aforementioned, here's my stash of stuff:
Good haul. Lovely, adorable Kaito pin; graphic novels, and posters. And a mushroom.
tl;dr: Otafest was a blast and a half. You should go. 8Db
Also, my apologies that the cuts friggin' hate me.
The weekend began uneventfully, with me being freaked out about not finding people. And of course, being freaked out about going to the volunteer room. It's not like I know that many people, after all. And I'm not that good with meeting new people. I did, however, find Niki almost immediately upon entry; we went to the volunteer room and I managed to get my t-shirt and lanyard from Nathan.
From there, we headed over to the vendors' room. At 9 in the morning, though, cons are utterly empty. So we chilled in the very empty room while everyone set up their stuff.
Very empty room is very empty.
As a volunteer, I got first pick of the vendors' room - we get half an hour before the room actually opens. Despite the fact that they had issues getting it open I managed to get a decent stash of stuff. Photos of my haul at the end. When we were in line, there was a bit of complaint going around that we wouldn't get any time to ourselves before the rest of the con-goers got in at 10. We did, though, fortunately; it was only about ten minutes, though.
For the next hour or so, Niki and I wandered around, snapping off shots of cosplayers and the like, before she had to go to her shift at the dodgeball.
My childhood, epitomised.
Me with a companion cube.
After a time, we ended up going to the spot where Niki's shift was; instead of the dodgeball being set up, there was a lovely game of tug-of-war going on. It was pretty sweet, I must admit.
Sho was only complete with his megaphone. When they took it away, we were disappointed.
While we were waiting for the dodgeball to begin, we found some Hetalia cosplayers. It was good stuff.
After a while, though, I had to take off to the world's most tedious shift - art auction. Three hours in a room with gorgeous art, at cheap prices, and no one to bid on it. I did, however, manage to do a rather nice pen drawing of Emmy that I'll post to dA at a later time.
It was likely because of its positioning that hardly anyone came by (only 300 people in two days); it was right beside the free arcade, which was hard enough to find in itself.
I couldn't bring a book with me, though, because I had to cover a floor shift in the vendors' room right after. Luckily, it was just downstairs, so I left five minutes early to get there. Turns out, Dani needed more people to cover entrance instead, so I got to sit for the shortest hour of my life greeting people and asking them for their wristband, just to make sure they had paid. A shocking amount of people tried to get in without one, and a few were really rude when we had to ask them to go buy one in order to get in. Like, seriously, it's not that difficult a concept.
The view from my seat at the front.
One of the vendors also gave us a box of the most delicious meat buns ever.
After my shifts - the only two I had for the day - Aileen, who was working the sketch drive just around the corner at the Artist Alley, and I took off to the Photoshop tutorial by Budgie. It was pretty interesting, actually, seeing exactly how she does stuff in her colouring. She had some useful tips for how to do stuff that I had been doing the hard way, so I'll have to test out how to do it later, potentially with my Emmy-doodle.
Aileen hadn't been able to get into the vendors' room until after the tutorial, since she had so many sketch drive shifts, so we took off there afterwards, from the science theatres. I ended up running into a friend from school, though he graduated a year or so back. I barely recognised him, since his hair is usually down to his hips; he recently hacked it all off to be about two inches long and streaked with blond. Quinton's a pretty rad guy, though, so I hung out with him a mite while Aia looked around.
At 6, I ended up running more errands that I probably did all day; I helped out the Artist Alley mostly - both by running my friend's booth for a few minutes while she did exec-like things, and by running the cash box to the command centre, among other things.
The one thing I absolutely love about volunteering for a con, instead of just attending, is that they feed you. It's great.
A shot of our volunteer room.
And a shot of the maths that were on the board at the end of the day. (lol, I drew Sho.)
So, at every con, I have to watch at least one thing. This year, it happened to be Antique Bakery. I know, I know, why would I go to watch a show I already have on my computer? Well, it was on, and Aia wanted to watch it. So we went. Ended up getting there a bit early, though, so we watched the tail end of the Sailor Moon R movie.
And let me tell you, I forgot just how much I love Sailor Moon. I mean, really. We were watching the super-epic scene where Princess Serenity is trying to defeat Queen Beryl with the help of Tuxedo Mask and her Inner Senshi, and I got shivers from how awesome it was. The dub ruined it a bit, though.
I'm definitely going to have to watch that series again. Right after I finish watching Antique Bakery in its entirety, though. That show is utterly hilarious. Provided you enjoy hints of yaoi.
DAY TWO.
Aileen and I had an early morning shift with the art auction - a grand total of 13 people came in that day - so we had to get there pretty early again. I was there so early that the command centre had three people in it, and the volunteer room wasn't even open. Of course, further proof that cons are fantastically empty on Sunday mornings is in the fact that the route over was empty, as well.
We got utterly bored during that three hours, so the three of us who were supposed to be manning the table - Bryden, Aia, and myself - created Punctuation Man, a fusion picture made of "sepia in blue" tones (as stated by Bryden) and punctuation. We ended up setting it out for bidding, with a minimum bid of 25 cents. It was great.
Later on, Aia got a hankering for ice cream, so Bryden and I manned the table while she went with Niki and Steph (who were manning the arcade next door) to the nearby Dairy Queen to get sundaes.
We all split up after a bit, so we could all get to our respective places: Aia to her sketch drive shift, Niki and Steph to wherever, and me, to the BJD panel. And my god, were those dolls beautiful. I learned tonnes from the girls who were running it; they gave a great beginner's rundown of how to care for them and what to do before buying one. Brittany even let me hold a few of hers, including her baby girl. If I thought I loved them beforehand, I loved them even more with one in my hands.
Doesn't help my feeling of impending sadness that this gorgeous Tatiana model that would have been utterly perfect for an Emmy-doll was going for $400 online - full wig, eyes, and outfit - and I don't have any money. So sad.
And this is the little girl with whom I fell in love at the panel. Isn't she beautiful?
After that, I killed a few hours over in the Artist Alley, mostly watching Allison's booth and getting to know her neighbour. There was a few really rad cosplayers, of whom I got photos later, when I was over near the registration desk, killing time with Steph and Niki while they tallied the points for the Mr and Ms Otafest competition. That was pretty rad, I must say.
I ran into Fatima somewhere between then and my shift, and we went to go try on corsets. I've always wanted to, ever since a girl a few years back told me I'd be perfect for one, but I never had the time to actually go up and wear one. So this year, I did. It was so comfortable.
Me, in a corset. La la la la-la.
Then, of course, came my final shift of the weekend. I was supposed to do bag check, but they had nearly ten people helping out; I ended up getting roped into entrance duty temporarily, until they closed the doors. We close the vendors' room up at 5, thereby allowing them to start cleaning up for the evening. I made sure people didn't try to leave through the wrong door, and then Vicky asked me to cover the back door, and make sure people didn't try to come in.
All in all, I ended up standing for a good two hours before Wendy and Dani decided I could come help out with other stuff, so I went and folded boxes. All that clean up jazz was pretty boring stuff, so I won't recap it in much detail. They always reward us, though - I got two Pokemon on behalf of the vendors' execs, and a cute L pin from Jenny.
I see you there, hard at work.
As aforementioned, here's my stash of stuff:
Good haul. Lovely, adorable Kaito pin; graphic novels, and posters. And a mushroom.
tl;dr: Otafest was a blast and a half. You should go. 8Db
Also, my apologies that the cuts friggin' hate me.