A-Kon 17 - Day One
Back home after the first day of A-Kon 17 (anime convention) in downtown Dallas.
Initial impression: it is a pain in the ass to park in Dallas. This was aggravated by the fact a city-sponsored Arts Celebration was going on in the vicinity of the Dallas Museum of Art several blocks away.
Hotel parking (A-Kon was at Adam's Mark) was full by the time we made the drive over around 12:30, as were all the paid parking lots around the hotel. "No event parking" -- that meant us.
We ended up finding a garage about 3 blocks away, which ended up not being all that bad, since it meant we had covered parking. Then we faced our next hurtle: getting registered.
The pre-registration process was sorely out of wack, with loooong lines (sort of defeating the purpose of pre-registering), which the A-Kon security people tried to reorganize a couple of times as we waited in line, causing everybody's places to become somewhat confused. By the time we showed up, the crowd had grown a bit cranky.
Twenty minutes later, badges hanging from our necks, we were ready to party.
At all the anime conventions I've ever gone to (this is like my sixth) the aroma of body odor fills the air. Lots crowds wearing either heavy costumes or flesh revealing costumes. The smell of overripe flesh is pervasive.
As per usual, we hit the dealer room and wandered for a while, getting a feel for who had what and at what prices. The usual assortment was on display: tons of Anime DVDs you've never heard of (not yet anyway), including Hentai (adult) DVDs, comics, figures, swords, t-shirts, kimonos, snacks -- the list goes on.
After a while we wandered over to one of the video screening rooms and watched Animes for a couple of hours, the made a final pass through the dealer room before it closed at 7:00 pm.
More tomorrow...
Initial impression: it is a pain in the ass to park in Dallas. This was aggravated by the fact a city-sponsored Arts Celebration was going on in the vicinity of the Dallas Museum of Art several blocks away.
Hotel parking (A-Kon was at Adam's Mark) was full by the time we made the drive over around 12:30, as were all the paid parking lots around the hotel. "No event parking" -- that meant us.
We ended up finding a garage about 3 blocks away, which ended up not being all that bad, since it meant we had covered parking. Then we faced our next hurtle: getting registered.
The pre-registration process was sorely out of wack, with loooong lines (sort of defeating the purpose of pre-registering), which the A-Kon security people tried to reorganize a couple of times as we waited in line, causing everybody's places to become somewhat confused. By the time we showed up, the crowd had grown a bit cranky.
Twenty minutes later, badges hanging from our necks, we were ready to party.
At all the anime conventions I've ever gone to (this is like my sixth) the aroma of body odor fills the air. Lots crowds wearing either heavy costumes or flesh revealing costumes. The smell of overripe flesh is pervasive.
As per usual, we hit the dealer room and wandered for a while, getting a feel for who had what and at what prices. The usual assortment was on display: tons of Anime DVDs you've never heard of (not yet anyway), including Hentai (adult) DVDs, comics, figures, swords, t-shirts, kimonos, snacks -- the list goes on.
After a while we wandered over to one of the video screening rooms and watched Animes for a couple of hours, the made a final pass through the dealer room before it closed at 7:00 pm.
More tomorrow...
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