Category: convention

[July 04-07, 2013 – Minneapolis, MN, US]

Convergence was packed. It was insane. On Thursday, July 4, practically the entire con attendees descended into the hotel. 5000 people in the reg line from 11:00am till about 7:00pm. If you got stuck in the line, average wait time was 4 hours! Of course I skipped the line until is was barren, like around 8pm-ish.

With over over 6500 attendees, the 40 party rooms were crowded. Um, that’s an understatement. People, people, people just everywhere, all in the same place. The con had to make the hallways one-way only because of the massive crowds. People were saying that they need to get a bigger hotel, but I don’t know of any hotel that works as well for all of the nice lined up party rooms. The best costume I saw was Madame Vastra (took her 9 months to complete) and Jenny from Doctor Who. Click on the picture or link to see the rest:

Madame Vastra and Jenny from Doctor Who – Convergence 2013.

 
 
 
[Oct 26-28 2012 – Seattle, WA – USA]

I haven’t been hitting conventions or traveling to “exotic” places of interest this year. So much less to report than usual. Maybe I’ll pick up next year…

I did go to Steamcon IV; however, this is a repeat con so I usually don’t take as many pictures as if it were a new one. SO his is my paltry presentation (sorry):

Steamcon IV Oct 26-28 2012

 
 
 
[May 25-28, 2012 – Santa Clara, CA – USA]

Hanging out at BayCon and cranking up those airline miles. I like long weekend four day cons because I can stay up late on Saturday (since normally flights are reeeeal early going west to east).

Sunday is a nice relax-a-day. Oddly, there were more party rooms Sunday night than there were on Saturday; but the costumed people on Sunday dropped to almost nil after 5:00pm.

The highlight of course is the Klingon room party – they threw it on Friday and Saturday night and that’s always fun. I am being deficient in pictures again, but here are a few:

The Klingons

[May 18-20, 2012 – Piscataway ,NJ – USA]

Another year, another visit to the Steampunk Worlds Fair. Met my old friends there from the first Steampunk Worlds Fair. Was totally cool. The best part of the Fair is that there are a massive number of merchants there so you can get every conceivable (Inconceivable!!!) outfit or accessories thereof. The entertainment is also top notch. The con spanned two hotels and there both were crawling with a ton of people dressed to the max so it was very entertaining.

With all cons, there are pros and cons but the “cons” of the con really stood out this time. Just don’t buy extra tickets for anything other than music venues. They are very lacking. For example, the Absinthe Tasting only had two absinthe and two mead! Mead? Really? Now, I would not have minded as much if they went through the whole ritual of the melting the sugarcube, etc. Nope. Just filler entertainment trying to pad out 4 drinks in 15 minutes to a drag out of 2 hours. And this pushy “entertainer” (I use that term loosely and he shall remain nameless) kept on interrupting with his less than funny antics. He did that last year too. Very annoying. I don’t know why they let usurpers ruin planned events like that. Anyway… For the finale, Voltaire took the stage and he was quite entertaining, except (since this was a surprise guest) a lot of people felt extremely uncomfortable with his R and X rated lyrics.

So again, third year in running, I completely dis-recommend any dinner tickets, any high teas, any tastings and any event (other than music) that costs extra. I rate them a complete waste of money and precious “con time”. Enough on that – I need to emphasize everything else was just great. People were dressed to the nines and everyone was having fun. Here are a few pics. I know I should take more…

Voltaire at Steampunk Worlds Fair 2012