Animazement 2011: Thursday night, precon!
So it's been a while since I posted here and honestly, between my twitter and my review blog I don't think I'll be posting here as much anymore. However, this is still the perfect place to dump random thoughts about books/movies/what-have-you (I've got a post about Torchwood brewing that I might actually write-up soon) and con reports which is what we have here. Like any con, preparation for Animazement started months ago (getting people for a hotel room, buying a badge late since they didn't announce that pre-registration had been going on all along on the website) and sewing cosplays. Actually, I was supposed to have all my outfits done months ago but, due to slacking off around Christmas time and deciding to do a sixth outfit last minute I spent the three weeks leading up to the con sewing a dress, two shirts, a skirt, making a sword, and plenty of other last minute touch-ups which I just managed to finish Thursday afternoon before China (in no way related to the country/Hetalia) picked me up, helped me cram my stuff into her tiny car, and set off on the two hour ride to the hotel.
Didn't have much trouble getting into Raleigh actually and found two of our roommates (six people in the room all together, made walking around in the morning tricky but not impossible) already there, one of whom was hanging out with other friends, and a fifth soon joined us for dinner, moving the cars to a cheaper parking deck ($7 parking for the whole con get!) and then the line. Three of us, China, Yorie and myself, had pre-registered and had to wait in a line that felt like it was over 9000 people, apparently the con staff weren't expecting 2-3000 people to show up on pre-con and were horribly understaffed, unorganized (okay, my last name starts with "M" and therefore I was in the G-O line, why was my nametag in the P-Z box? Also, they couldn't even find the badge for the girl before me and had to write hers out on the spot and the badges didn't have people's handles written on them this year like they have in years past). We got in line at 6:55 (and were shortly joined by our friend Caroline and had fun with her pink parasol for the rest of the evening) and I got my badge at 9pm on the dot, what is this, a 10,000+ person con? Also, I had plans to do some photoshoots with people the next morning and I had been hoping to use pre-con to walk around the RCC and familiarize myself with the layout but, after standing there for two hours (by comparison, for AZ 2010 I spent about only 30 minutes in line and was done way before my friends who were buying their tickets at the con, this year those lucky peeps were in and out in about 15 minutes) I didn't want to be there any longer.
So yeah, in case I haven't already stressed how long the line was, it went halfway across the front of the convention center, turned the corner, and then went almost all the way down one of the shorter sides. They had to stay open late so they could give badges to everyone who was in line by nine. Here's a video that has some footage of the line, you can even see Caroline's pink parasol at 2:29. At least I ran into some friends in line, back in high school I already knew everyone who was going to the con (my friends and I, it was a small school) but here in college I end up running into a lot of people I like who I didn't know were going and that's the best part of a con, the people you hang out with.
Didn't have much trouble getting into Raleigh actually and found two of our roommates (six people in the room all together, made walking around in the morning tricky but not impossible) already there, one of whom was hanging out with other friends, and a fifth soon joined us for dinner, moving the cars to a cheaper parking deck ($7 parking for the whole con get!) and then the line. Three of us, China, Yorie and myself, had pre-registered and had to wait in a line that felt like it was over 9000 people, apparently the con staff weren't expecting 2-3000 people to show up on pre-con and were horribly understaffed, unorganized (okay, my last name starts with "M" and therefore I was in the G-O line, why was my nametag in the P-Z box? Also, they couldn't even find the badge for the girl before me and had to write hers out on the spot and the badges didn't have people's handles written on them this year like they have in years past). We got in line at 6:55 (and were shortly joined by our friend Caroline and had fun with her pink parasol for the rest of the evening) and I got my badge at 9pm on the dot, what is this, a 10,000+ person con? Also, I had plans to do some photoshoots with people the next morning and I had been hoping to use pre-con to walk around the RCC and familiarize myself with the layout but, after standing there for two hours (by comparison, for AZ 2010 I spent about only 30 minutes in line and was done way before my friends who were buying their tickets at the con, this year those lucky peeps were in and out in about 15 minutes) I didn't want to be there any longer.
So yeah, in case I haven't already stressed how long the line was, it went halfway across the front of the convention center, turned the corner, and then went almost all the way down one of the shorter sides. They had to stay open late so they could give badges to everyone who was in line by nine. Here's a video that has some footage of the line, you can even see Caroline's pink parasol at 2:29. At least I ran into some friends in line, back in high school I already knew everyone who was going to the con (my friends and I, it was a small school) but here in college I end up running into a lot of people I like who I didn't know were going and that's the best part of a con, the people you hang out with.