Welcome To The Convention

Artists at Katsucon creating a chalk mural of Legend of Zelda.

I know, it's not Sunday. It's Monday. Happy Presidents day from the US. I like this holiday better than Valentines Day because I get the day off. Yahoo! Three day weekend!

Which was really helpful since I went to an anime convention this weekend. I was at Katsucon. It was a lot of fun. One of my friends told me a ton of things that I had to do and what to expect and how awesome the whole weekend would be. He was right. He was also right about how much food and parking were going to be.

I had to work on Friday, so I got to the convention in the mid evening. It was crazy crowded. I initially stood in line to get my badge for twenty minutes before my friend told me to get food first. The line would die down. He was again right. I was also glad I registered for the conference instead of buying my ticket there. The line was huge for people just walking in.

That first night I was too tired to really do anything. I made up for that on Saturday and Sunday. I basically passed out on Sunday after everything was finished. I think my two favorite panels I went to were the "Attack on Titan" voice actors panel and the Samurai sword demonstration. My friend and I got to the Samurai sword too late to participate, but it was still cool to see.

So after all of the craziness, my next question is will I go again next year?

Answer: it depends.

It's not that I don't want to go next year. If things were different I would 100% say yes, I will go again next year. As it stands, I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to go. I'm currently in the process of moving and travel might be hard and expensive.

However if I am able to go back at least I'll be a little smarter about going than I was this year. Yeah, I made a few errors while attending that probably cost me a lot more than they needed to be.

1) Parking - parking was very expensive at the hotel where the convention was, like over 50% higher than it was across the street (and that was with a small discount). Next year I am either going to carpool or remember to park across the street. I wasn't too upset though, since the wind was terrible and it was incredibly cold.

2) Lodging - I stayed at my parent's house. It was about 20 miles away from the convention center. It was less expensive than staying at the hotel. However there were benefits to staying at the hotel the convention was at. Mainly that I could take a nap in the middle of the afternoon and go to some of the later events instead of going home so I wasn't driving when I was super tired. Also the wind was scary bad while driving and it was supposed to snow (thankfully it didn't), so it might have been hard to drive. Next year I might get a hotel room. The trick will be to find some friends to stay with me and getting a room before the hotel is overbooked.

3) Food - it was expensive and the wait to eat in one of the restaurants in the hotel was forever. Next year I might try to bring my own food or at least an empty water bottle.

4) Meeting up with people - the convention was huge. I somehow managed to find two of my friends (one had my phone number, the other I had to find). Next year I get everyone's phone number and make sure they have mine. That way we will definitely see each other.

5) Cosplay (or dressing up as a favorite character for those who don't know what cosplay is) - I didn't really cosplay this year. I did dress up and I could "claim" to be cosplaying, but I didn't do anything special. My biggest challenge is my hair. I don't own any wigs so it's difficult to style my hair to be similar to a character. Next year I might plan a little better and buy a wig and work on getting the right set up for a cosplay. I just have to decide who I want to be.

6) Crowds - There is no way around them. Getting there early got me around some of the mass of people, but to get into some of the more popular events there were lines. I almost didn't get into two panels because the rooms were too small for the number of people who wanted to attend. Next year I'll get to the events in the smaller rooms earlier. The events in larger rooms didn't really have this problem.

And those are the things I learned from attending my first big convention. I say big because compared to Bronycon this was huge (though Comic con is still the largest I know about).  I had a lot of fun and would love to attend again next year.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Let me know if you guys have any ideas for a post. After all, I'm still wandering around Wonderland.