AWA Rant / CON report
I do believe..i am NEVER going to AWA again. The constaff was so bloody rude for the majority. When i had packed my things, the website said props were ok.. when i got there after driving 500 miles with Heidi, Carolann , Richard and Alisson..they said we coudlnt have ANY props..! You have NO idea how pissed off i was.. poor richard had to ride the entire way with that sword taking up some of hsi space..its amaszing how much we fit in that minivan! oh yeah.. the original van we rented woudlnt be given to use because of drivers age problems..so we ended up having to rent another van at 5 am the day we were leaving...........
aside from the van problem we ha no problem getting to Atlanta.. We had left early Thursday morning and made it out of florida in amazing time (at a legal speed too!). As soon as we got into Georgia we had troopers tailing us all the time, just itching to give us out of staters a ticket to meet there quota... ha.. we were on cruse control so they had nothing on us ^^.. one even followed us for over 5 miles , tailing closely...
When we got there we fumbled around, trying to find the hotel..it wasnt much of a problem.... the construction didnt help....
We got to the hotel ,and Heidi droped us off at the front of the hotel where we unloaded..we needed 2 carts! We checked in and got our key cards,..one of which was lost pretty dam quick.. we got to our room and unpacked like mad men.. we hung all our costumes and pressed everything that was wrinkled..We went down stairs to find our other roomie Randy (BGCRISIS) and bumped into Steve Bennet.. and right after we found Steve we found Randy ^^.. lWe went and got our regestration..i could see Carolann sweating it out when they had a hard time finding her badge..^^;; they did find it however....We then got dressed up in kimono and Yukata and waddled accross the parking lot to the Ruby Tuesdays.. the food was good but we had problems with undercooked burgers.. (they were nearly raw).. Randy got ill from one.. Landers sent his back till it was black and crispy ..we waddled back to the hotel and after a couple of hours we decided that hot tub down stairs sounded very nice..and boy was it.. we really enjoyed it emensely.... We got out eventually and driped our way back to the hotel room and started dewing into the weeeee hours of the night..i really have to get Heidi a present..she handstiched the finishing details on my serenity costume.. my handstiching is horrendous..hers is beautiful....^^..
FRIDAY::
got up early..sliped on my Usagi school fuku i believe...(dam memory!) and went down stairs... nothing was happening... i went back up stairs rather bored.. finaly came down a bit and got in line for the dealers room opening.. guess what..delayed... again..of course.... i took off, ..i was not goingto stay 3 hours in line for the dealers room.. i wandered about and went up to change again... so many costumes so little time..i put my saillor mon musical costume on.. for all of two hours.. cause i found out Nicole was changing into Sesshoumaru later...
anyways... got back in the dealers room line.. it was irritating.. cause we were inline... suddenly when the doors opened up they let everyone in at once.. no line.. just a mass crowd of rabid anime fans.. i shoped around a bit , found a few things and made most of my purchases that day..i could barely find any Inuyasha stuff..i was dissapointed..there were barely any pins, or toys..but i DID get my Sesshoumaru plushie! <3..and Kouga too...somehow i figured they woudl be bigger.
i went back to my room and got into Inuyasha.. i stayed in that for a while .. we took group pictures and i had alot of fun..we actually had a nice sized group ^^
see? We found a super cute Shippou! but we coudlnt find her in time for the group shot ;.; The fucking staff was assholes and requested i put my CARDBOARD prop away.. they werent very nice about it either..
After a little bit i went up and changed for the ball.. put on fancier make up, had to readjusted my wig a bit.. I put on my new serenity costume..dam the boning on my bodice..it kept bending!..i went downstairs and ran into a little girl dressed as Small Lady Serenity..she was so dam cute..allthgouh her odango kept falling off... people took pictures of us.. god i hope i can find a copy of that! After a while i went back up, grabbed Heidi and we headed downstairs to save a place in line for ourselves..Randi was still working on his costume....(did i mention he spray painted in the room..i think we were high for hours ^^;; He didn't realise we didnt have opening windows in our room ^^;;
anyways.. we went down and our jaws nearly droped as we saw the line for the ball..i instantly knew there was no way we could get in.. but we got inline and stayed in line foir a while..they kept moving the dam line around.. finally they annouced that the ball was full and no one would be allowred in past the 200 people.. Carolann managed to get in and told me it was quite bad, that there was no decor, no food, and was so tightly packed there was no possable way to dance.. i'm kinda glad we didnt pay to get in..I ranted for a little bit and we left..guess where we went.. Ruby Tuesdays again.. hehe..Randy avoided the hamburgers..^^;; poor guy..he was ill most of the con.
It was ackward..i was one of the only cosplayers there.. at least with a wig on... i got lots of looks.. at least carolann looked somewhat normal..and heidi was wearing a beautiful blue sparkly dress..i really liked it.. ^^
A few more cosplayers filtered in and id idnt feel so bad..we saw Steve bennet again...said hi..woudlnt believe the size of the drink they had on the table..
We ordered a super huge icecream brownie bowl..it fed all 4 of us..
We got back to the hotel and i walked around a bit more, finally going back up stairs.. we all changed and hit the hot tub.. it was alot busier then thursday ( of course) ..there was so much clorine in there i coudlnt stay long..it burned my eyes...
We driped our away back to our room again ^^;; .. Turned in after sewing some more..
Sat::
got up in the morning and put on Sernity with the wings..i seriously have to work on a better harness for that...i walked only a bit had a few pics taken.. and headed back to the room to change ..the wings were bugging me...i wore myu for a couple hours again, then changed into Inu for the cosplay judging .. i paniced for a while..cause heidi vanished and had the room key and my replacement claws and glue..and i needed to get my sword out of the room for the juding.. after about 2 hours randy showed up and helped me get into the room for my sword..still coudlnt finfd Heidi... RIGHT as i was about to go into judging room she showed up .. Johnny got Both of us in and we fixed up my nails..i nervously sat waiting and was finally judged..they didnt ask anything about the costume except how long it took... i volenteered info about it like how the pattern is a japanese priests hunting clothes....and how the hakama was mde correctly... they really didnt seem to care....but at least one of the judges was an IY fan...
I felt the juding and was heading back to my room..i wasnt even IN con area when i got pulled aside and was nicely told not to bring my sword past the hallway doors past the escalator and that i had been warned before. If he hadn't been so nice about it i woudl have snapped at him.. I had told him iw as coming back from prejuging and on my way to the room.. i swear...the con was friging anal this year..i am SO not going back... I put thr sword up for a few hours before the contest and wandered around for a bit..i went back and got my sword for the "fashon show".. i tell you..it was hell back stage.. it was dark.. i coudlnt make out anything that was said.. they coudnt figure out how they were gonan arrange the line..there were only 2 people backstage.. ..the poor girl was so frustrated cause they kept changing things on her... the mc's of the fanshin show were asses.. they often made rude comments towards cosplayers.. i was very very annoyed when they called someone else by MY name.. there was NO place for us to sit after the show was done..so i ended up sitting on the floor...along with over 150 other cosplayers... the annoucning was stupid..they didnt know what the hell they were doing.. they called out "and the winner is chii".. the crowd repllies "WHICH CHII? theres 5 of them!"
and poor Lander.. they made it sound like he won....he really should have got something... but AWA is well known for hating cosplayers and esp crossplayers.
We took some group cosplay pics, and some of me and nicole as Menoumaru...heh.she had me in an interesting postion for one of those..@.@....
I had been in Inu for over 9 hours so i went to go change out.. and switched back to Serenity and met some very nice people.. I drolled over Melissas cel collection... and Heidi bought me a late night meal.. i could just feel my blood suger droping that night...
oh yeah..did i mention the elevator NAZI'S?.. they started having a con staff member in each elevator and woudlnt let people on .. they had 2 evelvators going up 2 going down..we had been waiting in line to get on nd when it was our turn a big black guy jumped in front of us (and now we now he was head of con secuirty) and wudlnt let us on..but let people who were behind us in line on.. oh you have no idea how pissed Heidi and I were.... went to sleep eventually...after packing most everything up except one costume..
Sun:
got up and dragged my ass out. put on my school fuku and wig and went out for an hour or so..went shoping in the dealers room and made my last purchase...i had to borrow Carollanns badge cause mine had fallen off during the fashion show....went back up to the room finding i had been very bored and went to go clean up.. i was very surprised and worried when there was no one in the room and it was 11:20.. 40 mins till check out...Randy showed up then Heidi and we cleaned up , condensed and made a small prayer that everything would fit in the van..we called for a cart and waited about an HOUR to get one.. we finally got out of the room, and werent penelized because it was so hard to get down to the main level..I heard Kevin from Fansview almost missed his flight cause he cudlnt get downstairs...
We packed up and got everything to fit in the car.. i took my wig off and put it in my luggage..still wore the school uniform thoguh....went up and waited on carolann at her table..seems she was doing really god and didnt want to leave...after a while no one was buying so we packed up and left, saying our goodbyes....i hate leaving..but i really wanted to get on the road...
oh GOD..the trip home..we got turned around on the right road out of there..we ended up filling up on gas ..30$!!!.. and ate at wendys..food was good..i got a HUGE ass hamburger..3 pattys of beef... everyone was picking on me cause of the "usagi" thing..^^;;
we got back on the road and groaned as travel slowed down...little did we know what laid ahead.....turns out traffic was backed up for miles...we started beating each other up with plushies... carolanna and alisson startyed doing unmentionable things with the plushies..~.^.. finally it dawned on us ot watch avis on Richards laptop ..we eneded up watching gravatation.. i hate to say it..but i like it! never thogut i woudl like a Yaoi series.. gah..thr power saving thing on the computer was annoying..w had to touch the mouse thing every few mins or the screen would go black.....the police directed us off the interstae (we made sure to shut down the comp before they saw it ) and we went through this little hick town... finally got back on the road and to normal speed....we managed to cover 5 miles in 2 hours while we waited.....i think one of the best moments of the night is when the cop asked where we wanted go go .. Heidi blurted out "FLORIDA!".... he he....I found out just today that 3 people died in the wreck..but thats all the info i got..........we stoped at a rest area, streched our legs, got stale snacks and hit the road again.... most of us passed out for a while.... we cheered when we hit the state line.. we droped off richard once we arrived in Tampa, and headed back to my place.. i let alison sleep here sense her mom was due at 6:30.. heidi carolann and i went to drop off the van.. sadly Heidi had left her fav cd in it...we came back and i halled ass home.. they fell asleep but me.. i coudnt sleep..so i hit fansview and killed some mail..^^;; and thus was the end of the trip....^^;;
condensed version:: AWA sucked for the most part..if my friends had not been there i would not have had any fun at all....the secuirty was overbearing and rude....the cartoon network panel was so boring.. alot of panels were cancelled or had moved rooms so i coudlnt find them.. the final fantasy ball was a JOKE.... i fully intend to scedule COSPLAYCON to rival AWA....maybe a week before....over all i paid 40 bucks to be treated like shit.. even thoguh i really did love seeing my friends again...
thanks everyone who made the con fun for me.. i did enjoy it ONLY because of YOU!!!
aside from the van problem we ha no problem getting to Atlanta.. We had left early Thursday morning and made it out of florida in amazing time (at a legal speed too!). As soon as we got into Georgia we had troopers tailing us all the time, just itching to give us out of staters a ticket to meet there quota... ha.. we were on cruse control so they had nothing on us ^^.. one even followed us for over 5 miles , tailing closely...
When we got there we fumbled around, trying to find the hotel..it wasnt much of a problem.... the construction didnt help....
We got to the hotel ,and Heidi droped us off at the front of the hotel where we unloaded..we needed 2 carts! We checked in and got our key cards,..one of which was lost pretty dam quick.. we got to our room and unpacked like mad men.. we hung all our costumes and pressed everything that was wrinkled..We went down stairs to find our other roomie Randy (BGCRISIS) and bumped into Steve Bennet.. and right after we found Steve we found Randy ^^.. lWe went and got our regestration..i could see Carolann sweating it out when they had a hard time finding her badge..^^;; they did find it however....We then got dressed up in kimono and Yukata and waddled accross the parking lot to the Ruby Tuesdays.. the food was good but we had problems with undercooked burgers.. (they were nearly raw).. Randy got ill from one.. Landers sent his back till it was black and crispy ..we waddled back to the hotel and after a couple of hours we decided that hot tub down stairs sounded very nice..and boy was it.. we really enjoyed it emensely.... We got out eventually and driped our way back to the hotel room and started dewing into the weeeee hours of the night..i really have to get Heidi a present..she handstiched the finishing details on my serenity costume.. my handstiching is horrendous..hers is beautiful....^^..
FRIDAY::
got up early..sliped on my Usagi school fuku i believe...(dam memory!) and went down stairs... nothing was happening... i went back up stairs rather bored.. finaly came down a bit and got in line for the dealers room opening.. guess what..delayed... again..of course.... i took off, ..i was not goingto stay 3 hours in line for the dealers room.. i wandered about and went up to change again... so many costumes so little time..i put my saillor mon musical costume on.. for all of two hours.. cause i found out Nicole was changing into Sesshoumaru later...
anyways... got back in the dealers room line.. it was irritating.. cause we were inline... suddenly when the doors opened up they let everyone in at once.. no line.. just a mass crowd of rabid anime fans.. i shoped around a bit , found a few things and made most of my purchases that day..i could barely find any Inuyasha stuff..i was dissapointed..there were barely any pins, or toys..but i DID get my Sesshoumaru plushie! <3..and Kouga too...somehow i figured they woudl be bigger.
i went back to my room and got into Inuyasha.. i stayed in that for a while .. we took group pictures and i had alot of fun..we actually had a nice sized group ^^
see? We found a super cute Shippou! but we coudlnt find her in time for the group shot ;.; The fucking staff was assholes and requested i put my CARDBOARD prop away.. they werent very nice about it either..
After a little bit i went up and changed for the ball.. put on fancier make up, had to readjusted my wig a bit.. I put on my new serenity costume..dam the boning on my bodice..it kept bending!..i went downstairs and ran into a little girl dressed as Small Lady Serenity..she was so dam cute..allthgouh her odango kept falling off... people took pictures of us.. god i hope i can find a copy of that! After a while i went back up, grabbed Heidi and we headed downstairs to save a place in line for ourselves..Randi was still working on his costume....(did i mention he spray painted in the room..i think we were high for hours ^^;; He didn't realise we didnt have opening windows in our room ^^;;
anyways.. we went down and our jaws nearly droped as we saw the line for the ball..i instantly knew there was no way we could get in.. but we got inline and stayed in line foir a while..they kept moving the dam line around.. finally they annouced that the ball was full and no one would be allowred in past the 200 people.. Carolann managed to get in and told me it was quite bad, that there was no decor, no food, and was so tightly packed there was no possable way to dance.. i'm kinda glad we didnt pay to get in..I ranted for a little bit and we left..guess where we went.. Ruby Tuesdays again.. hehe..Randy avoided the hamburgers..^^;; poor guy..he was ill most of the con.
It was ackward..i was one of the only cosplayers there.. at least with a wig on... i got lots of looks.. at least carolann looked somewhat normal..and heidi was wearing a beautiful blue sparkly dress..i really liked it.. ^^
A few more cosplayers filtered in and id idnt feel so bad..we saw Steve bennet again...said hi..woudlnt believe the size of the drink they had on the table..
We ordered a super huge icecream brownie bowl..it fed all 4 of us..
We got back to the hotel and i walked around a bit more, finally going back up stairs.. we all changed and hit the hot tub.. it was alot busier then thursday ( of course) ..there was so much clorine in there i coudlnt stay long..it burned my eyes...
We driped our away back to our room again ^^;; .. Turned in after sewing some more..
Sat::
got up in the morning and put on Sernity with the wings..i seriously have to work on a better harness for that...i walked only a bit had a few pics taken.. and headed back to the room to change ..the wings were bugging me...i wore myu for a couple hours again, then changed into Inu for the cosplay judging .. i paniced for a while..cause heidi vanished and had the room key and my replacement claws and glue..and i needed to get my sword out of the room for the juding.. after about 2 hours randy showed up and helped me get into the room for my sword..still coudlnt finfd Heidi... RIGHT as i was about to go into judging room she showed up .. Johnny got Both of us in and we fixed up my nails..i nervously sat waiting and was finally judged..they didnt ask anything about the costume except how long it took... i volenteered info about it like how the pattern is a japanese priests hunting clothes....and how the hakama was mde correctly... they really didnt seem to care....but at least one of the judges was an IY fan...
I felt the juding and was heading back to my room..i wasnt even IN con area when i got pulled aside and was nicely told not to bring my sword past the hallway doors past the escalator and that i had been warned before. If he hadn't been so nice about it i woudl have snapped at him.. I had told him iw as coming back from prejuging and on my way to the room.. i swear...the con was friging anal this year..i am SO not going back... I put thr sword up for a few hours before the contest and wandered around for a bit..i went back and got my sword for the "fashon show".. i tell you..it was hell back stage.. it was dark.. i coudlnt make out anything that was said.. they coudnt figure out how they were gonan arrange the line..there were only 2 people backstage.. ..the poor girl was so frustrated cause they kept changing things on her... the mc's of the fanshin show were asses.. they often made rude comments towards cosplayers.. i was very very annoyed when they called someone else by MY name.. there was NO place for us to sit after the show was done..so i ended up sitting on the floor...along with over 150 other cosplayers... the annoucning was stupid..they didnt know what the hell they were doing.. they called out "and the winner is chii".. the crowd repllies "WHICH CHII? theres 5 of them!"
and poor Lander.. they made it sound like he won....he really should have got something... but AWA is well known for hating cosplayers and esp crossplayers.
We took some group cosplay pics, and some of me and nicole as Menoumaru...heh.she had me in an interesting postion for one of those..@.@....
I had been in Inu for over 9 hours so i went to go change out.. and switched back to Serenity and met some very nice people.. I drolled over Melissas cel collection... and Heidi bought me a late night meal.. i could just feel my blood suger droping that night...
oh yeah..did i mention the elevator NAZI'S?.. they started having a con staff member in each elevator and woudlnt let people on .. they had 2 evelvators going up 2 going down..we had been waiting in line to get on nd when it was our turn a big black guy jumped in front of us (and now we now he was head of con secuirty) and wudlnt let us on..but let people who were behind us in line on.. oh you have no idea how pissed Heidi and I were.... went to sleep eventually...after packing most everything up except one costume..
Sun:
got up and dragged my ass out. put on my school fuku and wig and went out for an hour or so..went shoping in the dealers room and made my last purchase...i had to borrow Carollanns badge cause mine had fallen off during the fashion show....went back up to the room finding i had been very bored and went to go clean up.. i was very surprised and worried when there was no one in the room and it was 11:20.. 40 mins till check out...Randy showed up then Heidi and we cleaned up , condensed and made a small prayer that everything would fit in the van..we called for a cart and waited about an HOUR to get one.. we finally got out of the room, and werent penelized because it was so hard to get down to the main level..I heard Kevin from Fansview almost missed his flight cause he cudlnt get downstairs...
We packed up and got everything to fit in the car.. i took my wig off and put it in my luggage..still wore the school uniform thoguh....went up and waited on carolann at her table..seems she was doing really god and didnt want to leave...after a while no one was buying so we packed up and left, saying our goodbyes....i hate leaving..but i really wanted to get on the road...
oh GOD..the trip home..we got turned around on the right road out of there..we ended up filling up on gas ..30$!!!.. and ate at wendys..food was good..i got a HUGE ass hamburger..3 pattys of beef... everyone was picking on me cause of the "usagi" thing..^^;;
we got back on the road and groaned as travel slowed down...little did we know what laid ahead.....turns out traffic was backed up for miles...we started beating each other up with plushies... carolanna and alisson startyed doing unmentionable things with the plushies..~.^.. finally it dawned on us ot watch avis on Richards laptop ..we eneded up watching gravatation.. i hate to say it..but i like it! never thogut i woudl like a Yaoi series.. gah..thr power saving thing on the computer was annoying..w had to touch the mouse thing every few mins or the screen would go black.....the police directed us off the interstae (we made sure to shut down the comp before they saw it ) and we went through this little hick town... finally got back on the road and to normal speed....we managed to cover 5 miles in 2 hours while we waited.....i think one of the best moments of the night is when the cop asked where we wanted go go .. Heidi blurted out "FLORIDA!".... he he....I found out just today that 3 people died in the wreck..but thats all the info i got..........we stoped at a rest area, streched our legs, got stale snacks and hit the road again.... most of us passed out for a while.... we cheered when we hit the state line.. we droped off richard once we arrived in Tampa, and headed back to my place.. i let alison sleep here sense her mom was due at 6:30.. heidi carolann and i went to drop off the van.. sadly Heidi had left her fav cd in it...we came back and i halled ass home.. they fell asleep but me.. i coudnt sleep..so i hit fansview and killed some mail..^^;; and thus was the end of the trip....^^;;
condensed version:: AWA sucked for the most part..if my friends had not been there i would not have had any fun at all....the secuirty was overbearing and rude....the cartoon network panel was so boring.. alot of panels were cancelled or had moved rooms so i coudlnt find them.. the final fantasy ball was a JOKE.... i fully intend to scedule COSPLAYCON to rival AWA....maybe a week before....over all i paid 40 bucks to be treated like shit.. even thoguh i really did love seeing my friends again...
thanks everyone who made the con fun for me.. i did enjoy it ONLY because of YOU!!!