SpaceGypsies

ConGlom's Dealer Room

MTAC and ConGlomeration were excellent back-to-back weekends. While MTAC was in Nashville, TN, ConGlomeration was held April 13-15 in Louisville, KY. You’ve already heard what I thought about MTAC, and ConGlom was a stark contrast. The average attendees’ age was probably twice what it was at MTAC and it definitely made for a different experience. The parties, for instance, were much cooler. Friday night I attended the Xerps party and got to try what they call “skippy,” a concoction of Keystone Light and who knows what else that’s sure to make your evening turn out either really well or really badly. Regardless of the manner of your night, you’re unlikely to remember much of the experience. Unfortunately for us, Friday evenings’ parties got shut down pretty early due to noise. We hit the hay in preparation for the following night.

"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword"

We spent the majority of Saturday evening at Barfleet’s party. They’re a pretty awesome organization which uses Starfleet’s organizational structure in an effort to throw awesome convention parties around the Midwest. I must say they accomplished their mission at ConGlom! They served four different colors of punch (I went to bed with an entirely blue mouth…) and kept the music going to late into the night. Because of a friend’s connection to the group we were allowed to stay for the after party. It’s a good thing, too, because I wasn’t ready to go to sleep! We also stopped by a Ghostbuster themed party, which didn’t have as many people, but definitely provided some fantastic drink options. While I didn’t try a sample of each (though that was actually on the poster-sized menu), I had something made with root beer and cinnamon whiskey, which changed my life. A.MA.ZING.

As I expected, the Masquerade was the prime event of the weekend. For such a small convention, there were some surprisingly excellent costumes! Three members of my cosplay group, TL;DR Cosplay, actually won Best in Show! Dorian, Courtney, and Cy dressed as characters from the most recent Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.  Other winners included Arwen from The Lord of the Rings and Codex from The Guild. After the costumes had been presented, the judges began to rate each costume. Meanwhile, Mystic Hips Belly Dance performed for the audience. I especially enjoyed their use of comedy and geek items, including severed heads, a bottle of rum, and a bat’leth. One woman even performed with a live snake!

Codex from "The Guild"

I found only a few negatives to this convention, the most prominent of which was its people-to-space ratio. The Louisville Ramada Plaza Hotel and Conference Center was far too large for the number of attendees. We had to walk almost the full length of the hotel just to get to the conference center and panel rooms, usually passing attendees of the two other conferences being held at the same time. The hotel has a very strange layout and made our first hours there pretty confusing.  I wasn’t a big fan of the location, but the convention staff were great. Apparently physically obtaining a media badge is just always going to be a hiccup in my convention weekends, because the folks at the registration table looked at me like I was from Mars, just like the volunteers at MTAC did. They called the woman in charge of registration though, and she knew exactly who I was from our e-mail correspondence. She gave some instructions and I was soon given my badge, which ended up saying “program participant,” rather than “press.” Despite all that, they had great attitudes and were happy to help with anything we needed the rest of the weekend.

Belly dancing with a bat'leth? Suprisingly graceful!

While ConGlom featured a wide range of panels, some of the things I found most interesting were ongoing.  First of all, the game room was really great. It was probably better attended than anything else at ConGlom and hosted every analog game I could think of. There was also a surprising number of young children at the convention, due in part, I’m sure, to KidCon, a room completely dedicated to entertaining ConGlom’s youngest guests. It featured everything from visits by the convention’s guests of honor, to storytelling games, to crafts. I think more conventions should feature not only child-friendly programming, but child-intended programming, and I applaud ConGlom for rising to the challenge.

This convention also featured a fantastic dealer room. There were all sorts of items I’d never seen before, and a wide variety of fandoms represented. In the middle of the room was ConGlom’s art show and silent auction, which had some lovely pieces. I almost caved and bought a TARDIS light switch cover, but decided my TARDIS dress, phone cover, and tattoo were probably enough. I was surprised, though, by the level of craftsmanship and talent present at such a small convention. Were I a collector, I would have been delighted.

All around, ConGlom was a great small convention. It had awesome parties, cool people, quality costumes, and beautiful art. I’d definitely recommend it as a low key geek-away-from-home.

I first visited the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (known as C2E2) last year and was very impressed! Held at McCormick place, which may be Chicago’s largest convention center, this con was all set to impress. With a star studded lineup of guests and vendors galore, C2E2 certainly doesn’t disappoint! Here’s the Good, the Bad and the Meh from C2E2 2012.

The Good-

Honestly, I loved this con so there were a lot of good things!

John Barrowman takes a video of the crowd for his mum.

- Organization! Reed Pop, the lovely folks that bring you C2E2 and PAX, have conventions down to a science. The full color programs are a great tool along with the mobile app, to help convention goers navigate the vendors and programming schedules.

- C2E2 Staff! I have to give a special shout out to the C2E2 staff. Those folks work hard! Not only do they work hard, but every staff member we spoke with was friendly and polite. If they didn’t know the answer to our question they quickly went to find it for us! The staff was simply lovely and made the convention all the more enjoyable.

- John Barrowman! Seriously, this man is FANTABULOUS! I admit I didn’t know much about him before his panel. I had seen Torchwood and enjoyed it, but that was about it. I left his panel wanting to watch everything this man has ever been in! He was amazing! I’m always impressed by actors who are appreciative and great with their fans. John Barrowman goes above and beyond. Yes, his autograph line was 2 hours+ long, but that was because he joyfully spent a moment with each and every fan.  You don’t see that often.

- John Cusack!Speaking of amazing celebrities, the opportunity to see Chicago legend John Cusack in person was a once-in-a-lifetime treat! He was everything you would expect John Cusack to be. He even had gracious answers for some of the rather awkward questions during his panel. I left his panel with a new appreciation for him as an actor.

With the wonderful David Newell

- David Newell! The name may not be familiar, but I guarantee most people will know him by his catch phrase “Speedy Delivery!” For more than 30 years, Mr. Newell played Mr. McFeely on the childhood classic Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. We met Mr. Newell at the Toonseum table on the vendor floor and the childhood memories came flooding back. The videos Mr. McFeely delivered to Mr. Rogers had always been my favorite part of the show. It was a honor to meet such a T.V. icon. His panel was also one of my favorite panels to date. He revealed behind the scenes stories, showed old clips and bloopers, and told the story of a man, Fred Rogers, who had touched children’s lives for generations. For me, this panel was the highlight of the weekend.

- Jake Rueth! Ever since I spotted Tiarala and Mythandros’ prints by Jake Rueth, I knew I had to have some. His art is colorful, whimsical and, well…it makes you smile. I purchased two prints from Mr. Rueth, my favorite, “Rainbow Shower” and the beautiful, “The Universe.” I can’t help but smile every time I look at these prints hanging in my home.

The Bad-

There wasn’t much bad when it came to C2E2. Overall, I have to say that nothing was particularly “bad” about this convention!

The Meh-

The Science Fiction Outreach Project was one of the many great booths at C2E2

- Programming. While C2E2′s programming was more varied than say, Wizard World, Cyphan Con (a smaller convention) had more when it came to variety of programming. If C2E2 adds more panels such as costuming and gaming, their programming line-up would move from decent to excellent.

- Food. This is more McCormick Place’s issue than C2E2′s. There wasn’t much in terms of food options. The food offered was your general cafeteria-style fair. Nothing flashy and certainly nothing healthy. Setting up food carts on the convention floor may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up emitting a lingering funk in and around the food area that was a little nauseating.

- Artists’ Alley. This is the one place where more organization, or a better labeling system, would have been helpful. PlayItGrand and I spent a good hour looking for Ant Lucia, the amazing artist behind the Star Wars pin-up posters, only to walk right past him. I ended up purchasing one of his prints from a vendor who was kind enough to direct me to Mr. Lucia’s exact location in the Alley. Thankfully, Mr. Lucia was incredibly gracious and even signed my poster for me.

Original costumes from Captain America.

- Costume Contest. Granted C2E2 isn’t as big as Dragon*Con for costumes, but their costume contest was rather disappointing. First, it was limited to the first 30 contestants/groups to sign up. Given the size of the stage this ended up making sense. The PA system for the stage, however, was muddled and it was very hard to hear what the announcer was saying. (I’m sure the foam encasing our heads didn’t help either). Rather than using a pre-show judging system like Chicago TARDIS does, C2E2 used an applause-based system to determine the winners. Again, this is great if you have a costume that allows you to play to the audience, but it doesn’t really have much to do with the actual quality of the costume. A team of “celebrity judges” would have been awesome, as well as categories like Best in Show, Best Construction, Audience Favorite, etc. would have made this costume contest 100 times better.

- The C2E2 App. After having experienced an app like Dragon*Con’s, C2E2′s was kind of a disappointment. Mostly the app wasn’t fully updated and offered a poor search function and only marginal information in some cases. This made it difficult not only to find where a guest could be found, but when they were appearing throughout the weekend. For example, guests were listed as signing from 10:00 until 7:00. That’s a large window of time. If it were broken down to the actual times the guest would/should be sitting at their table signing it would eliminate the need for fans to constantly be returning to the autograph area to see if the guest was there.

A steam-powered computer...and it worked too!

- The Mailing List. Apparently registering as press for C2E2 automatically puts you onto a mailing list for various vendors and companies related to the convention. Pre-convention this is a great resource. It gives you an inside to some of the cool previews available at the con. After the convention it’s just annoying. We’re still receiving e-mails from companies who have clearly gotten our information off of the C2E2 press list. I don’t think this is C2E2′s fault. Obviously they can’t control what these outside persons do. Perhaps in the future, Reed Pop’s Media Relations staff should give guidelines to those who receive the press list and request that they not send informational e-mails post-convention.

Overall, C2E2 is a great convention. The location is great and so are the guests. Fans are just as friendly as you would expect convention goers to be. And the variety of vendors, artists, and guests is refreshing. This is a convention where you go to have fun. The expert way Reed Pop runs this con makes it relaxing for the con-goer. There’s very little frustration here. No unorganized lines or crowds. No rude or inexperienced staff members. This is, quite simply, a FUN convention!

Once again, Supanova fever has hit Australia. Kicking off in Melbourne on the 13^th April and finishing on the 15^th, the pop culture event made it’s way up to the Gold Coast at the Convention and Exhibition Centre on the 20^th to the 22^nd. This was the first time Supanova had been held on the Gold Coast, as previous years have only seen it in the state’s capital, Brisbane.

Zapp Brannigan - Wil Wheaton loved these guys

Supanova always lives up to the hype and this year was no exception. It was a massive and star-studded line-up of international superstars. The highlight of this event was James and Oliver Phelps, from the Harry Potter series. It also saw Morena Baccarin and Summer Glau, from the cult-classic series, Firefly, Peter Facinelli from Nurse Jackie and Twilight, Thor’s Jaimie Alexander, everyone’s favourite Admiral, Edward J. Olmos, self-professed Geek, Wil Wheaton and Stargate’s Cliff Simon and Rainbow Franks, just to name a few. Also too, a host of artists, authors and voice actors including Richard Horvitz from Invader Zim (he signed my shirt, but it washed off in the machine).

The signing line(s) for the Phelps twins were enormous (not as long as the one for Tom Felton the year previous, mind you). However, if you were lucky (or unlucky, however you would like to put it) enough to be in this line, the upside to it was that they were directly next to Morena and Summer. Us fangirls were flailing inside… it was fantastic. They are just so stunning and Summer is ridiculously cute, sweet and adorable… she can’t be human – wait a minute! Now I know why she was in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Every guest was amazing. Even little Chandler Riggs from The Walking Dead was awesome, always happy to chat with the people who came up to get something signed. Cliff Simon and Rainbow Franks were a duo not to be messed with, always looking for a laugh. From what I heard, their Q & A panel was hilarious, Rainbow showing up late as Cliff had misplaced him the night before. I think this is the part where I should tell you that Cliff decided to flick a rubber band at myself and another girl from a distance, just for kicks; it missed.

The start of Summer and Morena's signing war

I didn’t get a chance to see any of the panels (I really wanted to see Summer’s and Morena’s but I was just so busy… so much to see), however I did get my photo with Wil Wheaton, Summer and Morena. When I went to get my picture signed by both the girls (I use the term loosely as I don’t want to keep having to use their names), a large signing war started, with Morena signing over Summer’s side, just to be funny. Apparently it escalated and by the time it had gotten to about the third or fourth person’s picture, there was almost no picture to be seen. I just love how much flack they give each other.

However, I think the best and most consistent of the guests, when it came to signing, was Rainbow. His were like works of art. He was a great guy to talk to and always took his time with each of his guests.

Supanova is a massive event for us Australians. When conventions come, us up in Queensland often get missed, so for us to have two Supanova events a year is pretty amazing. Everyone knows about it and it is hard to go a day at one of these events without bumping into someone you know… or avoiding them as it sometimes may be. I was told that the line to get in was huge and it was a two-hour wait for people to get inside the venue. It just shows how popular this event is. Inside, the product stalls were constantly crowded and it’s always about ducking and weaving to get through the congestion, but we love it. We got to stock up on all our nerdy and geeky apparel (I’m so glad my parents don’t ever ask me how much I spend at these events).

The ingenuity and uniqueness of the different costumes is always fascinating to see. The Cosplayers have some of the best costumes ever. I think this year we even had a Sonic the Hedgehog and someone in an air-conditioned Totoro costume. The 501^st Division is a hit with the crowds as they have official Star Wars costumes and to top it off, they always collect donations for the Starlight Children’s Fund.

Below is just a small collection of a few of the costumes that were there.

So, as you can see, it was a fantastic weekend for all. Fingers crossed for another Gold Coast Supanova event next year.

This year’s MTAC theme was Omega, or the end of the world. Though many of us did party hardy while attending theconvention, we all seemed to have survived. That’s no doubt, in part at least, to MTAC’s new home, the Renaissance Nashville Hotel and the Nashville Convention Center! While their sister convention, Geek Media Expo did themselves a disservice in their most recent hotel selection, MTAC hit the nail on the head. The Nashville Convention Center was a fantastic location for the ever growing event. A convention center? Who knew!

Shoppers in Artist Alley

Regular attendees of MTAC know and have nightmares about its trademark crowded hallways and teenager infested corridors. It was always a drag for cosplayers because pictures weren’t allowed to be taken in hallways because of bottlenecking. Too much room, however, can be just as awkward. The Nashville Convention Center was just the right size for MTAC Omega.

MageTV Interviewing a convention attendee

While a major event for me is usually the Cosplay Contest, this year I attended the Cosplay Sit-Out.  This event is for those either uninterested in the Cosplay Contest, or perhaps simply uninterested in waiting in line for 3 hours in order to get a seat. Regardless, I actually helped present this panel, led by amazing cosplayer Dorian Bugg. Dorian, myself, and several other panelists discussed the ins and outs of American cosplay vs Japanese cosplay, our costuming pet peeves, and anything else cosplay related. I admit I learned more than I taught! Dorian has a wealth of knowledge about Japanese tradition, fashion, and fandom in general and it was really eye opening to hear how my favorite hobby works in other countries.

Our panel room, however, presented a bit of a problem. For whatever reason the Cosplay Sit-Out was scheduled in an area open to the rest of the convention. This location made it very difficult to have discussions with audience members,

Part of the Cosplay Sit-Out Audience

since all the noise from the entire convention flooded in. This panel is traditionally held in a closed in space where it’s easy to pull up YouTube videos, show pictures, and generally horse around without interruptions. We were, however, not provided with a projector, or internet access, despite having requested both in writing long in advance. We never found out if this was an oversight or perhaps something else, but despite our requests to the guy in charge of the microphones, our two hour panel was left for its duration with none of the materials its presenters had requested. Taking care of panel participants may be a place which could use some improvement at this convention. Regardless of the difficulties, the Cosplay Sit-Out was a success! Everyone we talked to enjoyed the event and hoped to skip the Cosplay Contest with us again next year.

Speaking of difficulties, getting my Press Pass was a major undertaking. I was instructed to pick up my badge Friday evening from the Registration Table. I arrived a little later than I had intended, but well before Registration closed. No

Me looking all official in my hard-earned Press Badge

one at the table seemed to know what I was talking about, and once someone arrived who did, she didn’t have the materials she needed to check me in. The Press Passes were somewhere else, as was the list of expected Media Guests. If not for a kind friend of a friend who happened to be a higher up on staff and was willing to provide me with a Visitor Pass for Friday evening, a 20 minute ordeal could have kept me waiting all night. I got my badge with ease the next morning from someone well equipped and informed. I haven’t heard of any other problems with Registration; mine may have been an isolated incident.

I would like to say, however, MTAC’s Director of Media Relations, Tara Ptacek, handled herself and her job extremely well. She gave members of the Press clear instructions and kept us well informed on the weekend’s happenings. She set up interviews and press conferences with available guests, and I was impressed with her ability to handle so many things and people at once.

Other than the Cosplay Sit-Out, highlights for me included the Japanese Fashion Show and a press conference with Jason David Frank. The Fashion Show featured men and women modeling various styles from Japan, and told a little bit about each look. I modeled my favorite Japanese fashion style, Dolly Kei. The press conference was certainly an interesting experience. I never really watched Power Rangers, but I am a casual martial artist, so I was interested to see what the Green/White Power Ranger MMA Fighter Extraordinaire had to say about that. Highlights from the hour long press conference will be posted soon.

Overall, the convention was great. The rave was just as crazy and jam packed as usual, and Artist Alley brought a whole new level of talent. And the new location made it that much easier to see it all! I’m absolutely looking forward to next year’s event, and you should too!

Yeah, we dressed up as My Little Pony. Wanna fight about it?

John Barrowman is truly a force to be reckoned with. His panel was by far one of the most entertaining I have ever seen. A self proclaimed, “Gold Star Gay,” he didn’t hold back. He was also unbelievably gracious with his fans at his autograph table, taking a moment to chat with every person in line. John Barrowman is not only a Gold Star Gay, but an all around Gold Star Guy!

Enjoy!