I arrived at the entrance to the convention center at 10:40 a.m. ready to walk in and buy my con badge. There were two lines stretching from the entrance. One was moving rapidly, the other wasn't moving at all. I quickly learned that I was to wait in the stationary line, which I arrived to the end of, two blocks and ten minutes later. The lines were even worse on Friday with many people walking away even though they had prepaid. Go here for the 9 news story of the event.
After an hour and a half, nearly 20 street passes on my 3DS and lot's of people watching, I was in! Thousands of people were milling about, queuing at the atm or heading off to the dizzying array of speakers, games, events and vendor booths.
Guest speakers included William Shatner, George Takei, Stan Lee, Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton, Sandeep Parikh, Robin Thorsen and Peter Mayhew (the voice of Chewbacca) just to name a few. The celebs gave talks, had meet and greets and autograph sessions. Photos of the celebs were not allowed at the different events and when they were moving between them, the throngs of people clustering about did not allow me to get a decent photo.
There was gaming of all types going on including RPGs, Table top wargaming, CCGs, boardgames and LAN parties. Movies were showing, symposiums on "How have comics affected your life" to the "Whedonverse" and everything in between went on all weekend. Go here to see everything you missed.
People in costumes were everywhere and ranged from cardboard heads and pick axes from Minecraft to high dollar replicas of popular and obscure heroes throughout the decades. Go here to see the photos I took while at the con. There were so many costumes, I could have spent the entire weekend just taking photos and only captured a fraction of what was out there. As it was, I only had 4 hours to soak it all in.
After getting my badge, my bearings and a copy of the Con guide, I decided to head to the exhibitors hall. The sheer volume of people and number of vendor and artist booths (nearly 700!) was overwhelming. 1up was there with several classic arcade games to play, including Donkey Kong with Steve Wiebe (from the King of Kong documentary) present on the machine trying to get a kill screen. Walter Day the retired scorekeeper from Twin Galaxies was also present at the con.
At location 1230 was the Genesis booth. You could pick up your premier copy of the comic book that preludes a crowd funded, filmed in Colorado zombie movie that is due out in October this year. It's sure to be a B movie but I picked up a copy of the 1st issue for $4.20. I'm a sucker for all things zombie. I will be sure to watch the movie and get back to you on what I thought about it.
Wandering back from the Genesis booth I heard some loud rock music being played nearby with a crowd of people surrounding a stage. It was Stan Lee on the drums and two other people in high dollar Iron Man costumes playing guitars on Rock Band. Highlarious!
All manner of toys, comic books old and new, games and clothing were available in the exhibitor hall including some very cool dice rings! Go here to learn more.
There was a large variety of people at the con and many of them had a 3DS. I pulled in a toatl of 60 street passes(the second highest number of passes I have received in one day. The first being a day in the Harajuku district of Tokyo) with some memorable ones like an upside down face mii and a zoidberg mii. It was a great time and I found myself wishing I could have spent the whole weekend fully immersed in geeky fandom. Game on!
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