Thursday at Calgary Entertainment Expo 2014

I headed over from work around 3pm. Worked out really well as I just ate lunch while I worked so I could get out of there quickly. Luckily I work about 2 mins away by car and I arrived in good time on the grounds. They're getting smarter each year, taking over more of the grounds. I can imagine Saturday is going to be nuts. The fire marshals will be watching. Volunteers were really anal about people stopping for too long last year, so I suspect a lot of that again this year (seriously, don't be too hard on them if you're going and they ask you to move...the fire department got super pissed off the one year because of overcrowding and if it happens again, no more con).

I got my wristband at the grandstand, which was really a good idea because it diverts the crowds of people that need to exchange their tickets away from the rest of the con. After picking up a "grab bag," nearly murdering an ATM machine and purchasing my photo op, I headed out to the line-up...to get inside.

It may be hard to see, but that entire +15 is full of people. There were two sections of the line, and I ended up in the secondary one. I was still 30-40 minutes early. And no, I do not know those people in the picture. I was alone at this point.

Sign above the line really says it all (even if it's actually referring to hockey). I met two other con attendees in line, Sarah, who had come from Vancouver with the poster she got JUST in time for the con that she was going to get autographed, and Thomas, who was excited for...well pretty much everything. Not too sure about Thomas though...he IS an Xbox fan after all (cue angry rants from xbox owners).

After a long wait in line and a lot of random discussions later, we were allowed into the building. On the way in I spotted (and was perplexed by) the terrifying inflatable characters outside the expo pavilion.

Inside I felt like a kid in a candy store. The cliché is the only real way I could describe it in the moment. I was extremely happy as well, because the con only had about 1/3 of the people that would be there on Saturday...AND I HAD ROOM TO BREATHE. It was wonderful and all the vendors had fully stocked merch. Sarah went off in search of the Expo store while Thomas stuck around for awhile to look at through artist's alley. I found some delightful prints, jewellery and leather work on my travels, but only ended up purchasing prints for the time being.

Yessssss merchhhhh. Thomas decide to wait in this area for his friends (who apparently decided to show up after all, which is good because he said he had been ditched by them) and I continued on alone (which was probably for the best as I was distracted by everything and I'm sure my drooling over ALL THE MERCH is a little frightening if you're not used to it).

I then found one of the many Daleks of the hundreds I am bound to encounter over the weekend. I should count the number of Daleks encountered, and document that progress. Sadly, I will have to wait until I return to see how many I truly find.

I continued my wanderings as the room slowly filled with more people. I spent a good 10 minutes at one of the medieval weapons vendors thinking "yes, I could use a Bodkin point for practical purposes" and then tore myself away from the dagger with much difficulty (they also had a mace man...a freaking mace...I could totally use a mace). I collected business cards of the places I wished to return to (I think I can make a full deck out of them at this point). In line Sarah gave me the brilliant idea of writing down the booth numbers on the cards to remember where they were. I, however, am not that brilliant, so I just pocketed the cards after I received them.

I dunno wtf this is.

As I travelled, I took a couple pictures of cosplayers who were kind enough to stop for me. I always find it difficult to approach people to ask for their picture as I feel like a complete creep. I know that's not the case, but it's still a whole level of awkward I'm really not used to. regardless, I got a few good pictures. I was super excited about the Alice costume as I recently finished an LP of that game. I am disappointed by the lack of blood on the dress though.

I met up with Rachel and we shopped for a short time, mostly looking through artist's alley once more. Thirty minutes before Billy Boyd's spotlight, we decided to head outside towards the pavilion to line up. Out there we got a closer look at the curious giant inflatable----

HOLY SHIT. RUN CHILD! THE WOMAN IN GREEN WILL ACT AS A DISTRACTION. WHY ARE YOU SMILING? IT'S GOING TO CONSUME YOUR SOUL.

We had excellent timing as when we reached the line, they had just started allowing people to enter. We found a seat somewhere in the middle and waited for Billy Boyd to arrive.

When they said "spotlight on Billy Boyd," I didn't actually think there'd be a spotlight. Hence, poor Billy was drowned out in a sea of blinding white light in all my pictures. The screen helped a little bit with that aspect. He did a wonderful job answering the questions, especially some of the more awkward ones. Some highlights and quotes from the spotlight:

"I missed the one while I was doing the other one." - Billy

"Sounds like bad relationship advice." - hostess from The One Ring.net (apparently it's their 15th anniversary this year...go check it out!)

"I stood up to sit back down again." - Billy in the middle of answering a question

Billy's favourite practical effect to work with was from Space Milkshake. 

There are hundreds of cats, dogs and toads named after Merry and Pippin. Billy encouraged more to be named (he figured a 90% rate for cats and a 10% rate for dogs in terms of naming...he had not heard about the toads at that point).

My favourite story was about when he was filming Master and Commander and they were doing a storm scene. They were using a large water tank to film it, with pipes showering water on them for the rain and a jet engine for the wind. Apparently a bunch of the supporting actors were peeing in the water tank. Little did they know that the water from the pipes showering them during the scene...was being drawn from the tank. So they were being showered with piss for a good week until someone found out and shut it down to drain and refill the tank. When they asked what was going on, they were told "sorry, but you're all covered in piss."

If Billy could have played any other Lord of the Rings character, Legolas was his first choice, Arwen was his second choice, and Gollum was his third. 

When asked if he'd rather sing or act, he said he would like to sing act. He didn't care what production it was, even Shakespeare. And when he said "Shakespeare," Rachel and I gave each other knowing looks as we were about 3 feet away from him last summer as when he played Banquo at the globe theatre in MacBeth. Yeah...I lost a bet after that play. I will never mistake Billy Boyd for Dominic Monaghan ever again. 

There were other good moments, but those are the ones that came to mind.

After the spotlight, we headed back into the exhibition halls to shop more and get Rachel her expo t-shirt. We encountered Disgruntled Gandalf (okay, the person wasn't really disgruntled...I think they were just annoyed that they had just been in about four other photos). That hat is awesome. I would love a hat like that.

Not a Dalek, but I know some people that would appreciate this.

We encountered the movie prop display and shop again, nearly the same one that was here last year. I at least got a nicer picture of it. The Gandalf Hat that was there was being sold for 36000 360 dollars (EDIT: My brain added extra 0s for some reason). I decided that I did not want a hat like that. I can't afford to.  

And then I got menaced by the Pale Orc. I look so puny.

On the way out we encountered the Southern Alberta Lego Users Group display. Everything was awesome. 

And of course, here is the other giant Dalek I found. That brings our total count up to 2 Daleks.

As we left I spotted the giant Gordon Freeman figure. I was tempted by this until I saw the price tag. If it had been Corvo Attano...maybe I would have considered it. At any rate, it's a good tie-in to the HL2 LP right now.

As we left the con, I was amused to see how many of the vendors still wanted to sell stuff despite the volunteers and announcers telling us to GTFO. Most of the vendors were still selling items long after the 8pm announcement. It's refreshing because by Sunday, all their merch will be gone and they'll be too tired to care anymore.

Thursday Comic Con was amazing. Definitely doing that again next year. I may not get out to the con today (Friday), because some stuff came up. I might make it out for an hour/hour and a half, but otherwise, I'll be there most of the day Saturday and Sunday, and there will be MANY more pictures as I won't be so focused on MERCH.


PS - WTF

Snapped that while Rachel was looking at goggles.

Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2013: Friday

I'm posting this after two days at the expo and I'm exhausted, so I'll have to see how much I remember. I went to the con alone at first, mostly just to do some shopping on my own while people still had merch and because I didn't want to drag around people (or worry about losing them which is EXTREMELY easy with is many people). Unfortunately most of my photos are terrible quality because a) I have poor quality cameras, b) I couldn't stop long a lot of the time due to the amount of people and the level of patience of those I was taking the pictures of and c) because I'm an awful photographer. That and the flash was off for the benefit of the people I was taking the pictures of (seriously, I'll come back to this later in the Saturday post).

Walk into the con and the first thing I see is good old Gollum at a promotional booth for The Hobbit where they were carrying replica movie props. I ended up getting a picture (today actually) with Gandalf's staff...though I need to track down the picture as I have no idea whose camera it ended up on....

After my close encounter with Gollum, I head through the autograph and media room, grinning like a fool because I had been looking forward to this weekend for many months. I noted, with a great deal of thanks, that the con was a lot more open, less crowded and a lot more organized this year, which is a HUGE improvement off of last year. I could actually breathe and move my arms in the aisles at the expo! Last year was awful, especially with the number of people stuffed into the autograph, photo op, food court, media room (yes, all of those were in the same room). ANYWAY. Much better this year. I can say a lot about the organization of the con, especially after some unfortunate experiences in previous years involving a missed photo op, holding a sign for an hour and being bored out of my mind volunteering (after being given a shirt three times too big for me even though I ordered a small) and nearly suffocating in the throngs of people. But I digress.

The swords you see above, which I was intending to mention before I launched into a mini rant, was from one of the first booths I visited. I love swords and weapons. Especially ones from games and shows that I can drool over. Top is the swords Kratos uses in God of War, bottom is a mix of Altair's Sword from Assassin's Creed, a Halo sword, one of those Klingon swords and two weapons I can't really remember or make out from the picture. And I'm sure I'm wrong or being dumb about something in that picture.

I turned around and continued looking at booths until I ran into this fellow with a Portal Gun. I was mostly excited about the Portal gun (which they were selling at another booth for a ridiculous amount of money though I considered it for a moment before I realized I wasn't spending too much money this time and walked sadly away and continued to see people carrying them around all day tearing bits of my soul out with every encounter). Props to the costume though. This isn't the first time I wished I had better costume design and construction skills. 

I wandered a bit and spotted my first Altair. Poor guy was buying a lemonade so I left him be for the moment. He stopped by a booth for awhile nearby a display I was looking at so I figured I'd try to snap a picture. He didn't seem too happy about putting his drink down for a snapshot, so I tried to take it as fast as possible, which resulted in me taking the photo faster than he was ready. I also think he was part of a group doing professional photos so I felt even worse. So after I took this I was so embarrassed that I slipped back into the crowd blending in with the rest of the nerds to become incognito again. I tried to avoid him the rest of the day. Shouldn't mess with an assassin.

Wandered around for a long time afterwards and picked up some of the graphic novels and t-shirts that I wanted. Met some of the creators of webcomics that I like and oggled the booth with leather cuffs, leg and waist belts/pouches and a beautiful vest. As I returned to the other side of the room I spotted Barf and Dark Helmet and took a horrible, blurry picture of them. Wasn't the last I'd see of them as they entered the costume contest with us the next day. They were a pretty wicked duo.

Yay Lego. Also pieces of it moved.

Found two Ezios who were less grumpy about their picture being taken. Maybe this is because they were not trying to enjoy lemonade. Or maybe....they were all just acting in character....HMMMM.

One of quite a few Iron Mans (Iron Men?) that I saw wandering around. This was one of the two better ones that I saw over the past two days. One was a man, one was a woman. I THINK this was the man, but I cannot be 100% certain. I only say that because I think the woman Iron Man arrived later and I think she had a triangle glowy part, not a circle glowy part (see the technical jargon I used there?). These sections of the centre were some of the best to take pictures with plain backgrounds and a little extra room away from the crowded aisles. Only problem is that the staff and volunteers were shooing us away from the doors and edges of the building as they created fire safety hazards. We all thought this was extremely dumb until I heard from one of the workers there that after last year the fire department was not happy with the organization and concentration of people in the buildings. This year, if they did not ensure the safety requirements were met, the con would not be allowed to be held on the grounds next year. So I was a little more sympathetic after that. I'm just glad I got away with sitting and eating my sandwiches in front of one of these areas so I could rest my feet and process my spotpasses on my 3DS in peace (and I felt like an evil genius raking in the spotpasses until I realized everyone else in the room with a 3DS was probably an evil genius as well). Well relative peace. About halfway through a bunch of cosplayers happened to be in my corner and all began lining up to get their pictures taken right in front of me. As I was stuffing my face with jam, peanut butter and bread. Playing my DS. So I photobombed about six pictures there. You're welcome.

More excellent cosplay to be seen after lunch. Funny story with this one. Involves me being fairly braindead, but in my defence I had a reasonable excuse. Woman on the left is a friend of the person I cosplayed with this year. Last year she went to the Calgary con as a demon hunter from Diablo III. She won the contest in her category. I see her both Friday and today, but don't clue in on Friday that I have met her before, complimented her on her last year's costume and five-finger shoes and that she knew my close friend. Then on Saturday (still today I suppose) I see her again and don't clue in until a few minutes later that I had seen her Friday, taken her picture, and had thus looked like an idiot. On the bright side, I was in costume today so she probably had no idea I was being an idiot. Yay.

Took this picture three times and the best one is STILL BLURRY. Maybe I was just nervous to be in the presence of such dastardly looking villains. 

Tee hee hee it's a blurry furry. There were only two booths focused on furries this year. And I only saw one. Maybe it's finally a dying trend. Doubtful. Though...the horse head trend appears to be on the rise. I swear they were multiplying. I spotted two of them at first. Then suddenly there was around five. Then I came across a bench of about twelve of them. I wandered around puzzling and puzzling the strange occurance until I passed a unicorn horse head person hopped up on top of a regular horse head person in the artist's alley. Suddenly everything became clear.

 Point of the story is there were less furries this year.

I come across this handsome little group every year I go to the con. Always a pleasure to see such good costumes.

My favourite costume of the day. I saw him again today in line to get a picture with Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard and Mitch Pileggi (=D), but I am glad that I got such a good, clear picture the first time. At any rate, it's my shot of the day.

Last cosplay picture of the day. Katara from Avatar was rockin' the water bending. I am super upset that I missed getting a picture of Toph today. Unfortunately the need to re-hydrate myself slightly overpowered my need to wait for a break in the crowd to run over and ask for a picture. More on that later though.

And of course there's all the merch, merch, merch. There is a reason why I'm significantly poorer after this event. I just found these particular pieces amusing yesterday. I just love that Sonic's drink says "speed" on the outside and that a face hugger is getting a little friendly with him in the final photo. As for the middle...well I know a couple people that might appreciate it. 

To end the day I had the opportunity to attend the Weird Al Yankovic concert. The above photo is the opening band, "Kirby Krackle," a self-styled "nerd band." The music was decent, though I couldn't figure out why all the tunes sounded so familiar. I came to the conclusion that this was also a parody band, though I still can't be sure....I think they lyrics about "cosy pants time" and "grandma's house" kind of threw me off. They were fun though, and I really enjoyed the lead singer's voice. They're a fairly talented group of musicians...even if their lyrics did confuse me some.

Then of course was the concert. It was amazing. I was laughing almost all the time with the parody songs and little comedy videos in between. Weird Al seems like a cool guy, and while I liked him before, he forever has my respect and admiration for poking fun at Michael Bay, Meghan Fox and the Transformer movies. After that little bit, I wished I could just run up, tip my hat and say "kudos to you sir." I also appreciated "Smells like Nirvana" where Weird Al spit water all over the place and threw the bottle into the audience. Brings back some hilarious memories of a metal concert I went to some years ago. Also, some poor sod almost got in deep trouble when Weird Al was singing one of his songs around the audience. Guy ran over to get a picture and then suddenly there were six bodyguards and security surrounding him. He took one look at them and scurried back into the audience. Friend of mine got to see Weird Al up close as he was singing cheesy pick up lines in that same song on the floor. Though I'm not sure what he thought of the tiger-print suit and hip gyrations. Regardless, was a two hour show with four encore songs. I must say it was one of the best concerts I've been to.

All in all, a fantastic day. My feet were very sore afterwards. I would write about Saturday, but I'm already pretty exhausted and I have one more day of comic con left. I will write more tomorrow.