Clubs Im In- Peeps I Know IRL
To hear me rant more: [link]
RJ's Quote "To heal, we must first injure."
Visit Mab, the one I worship: [link]
(To make up for not doing an Animania one...)
Hotel or Con Name : Supanova Pop Culture Expo Brisbane - And I stayed in a place called the Palace Embassy on the corner of Elizabeth and Ann St.
When you stayed : April 4th to the 7th
Hotel/Con Staff : Hmm, well... to be honest it was sometimes hard to spot any of the actual con staff around, though you knew they there... somewhere... The crowd was a factor in this, I'll get to it later. But the few times I did see them, they seemed to be working very hard to help people out. Though, there were a few door issues with getting in the morning. The Saturday we were there we got stuck behind a guy who hadn't realised he was in the wrong line (we pre-rego'd the night before and had our yellow wristbands on). We -and everyone behind us- were stuck waiting for about 5 minutes while 2 people were confusing themselves over what he should do. And all we had to do in the end was wave our wristbands and could walk right in. There were heaps of other staff inside waiting to check as well. I don't see why we had to wait, and considering the line, any delays were definitely felt.
I feel perhaps the biggest letdowns were not with the volunteers, but with security and the organisers of each event, as well as a few tech difficulties from the AV people in the theatre. Apparently there was some pedo going around on Saturday trying to get hugs from girls, asking how old they were, and in some cases, actually burying his face into girls' boobs. Now, from what I read on the Supanova forum, security hadn't done anything about it. But then, some said that when they went to security later that day, it had been the first they'd heard of it. Possibly the fault could be placed upon those who were targeted and didn't report it, however. But I'm not entirely sure of what happened.
As for the organisation of the events, I can't say much apart on the anime-related ones, but that's the most relevant here, right? I'll say it here: REGISTRATION WAS DISAPPOINTING. On the Sunday we did our Death Note group, we were one of the first to get to the table. We'd pre-rego'd on the site beforehand, but somehow they lost our information. They put us in still, which was good, although we had to wait for a very, VERY long time and I almost couldn't walk by the time we got up on stage. Being first in line =/= being first to go on stage. I was also pretty irritated, and so were others, at how we were lined up. We all were shoved into a little side area of the hall itself and had to listen over the roar of the crowd (who could barely fit into the hall in the first place) for our names and somehow wriggle our way into a mess of a line. It would have been easier to place all the cosplayers into the perfectly-sized foyer and then called names out there for us to walk in. You'd think they'd have fixed this by Sunday after what happened on Saturday, but no. On the Saturday, there were even people who had registered and then didn't even show up, or they'd left, or couldn't even get into the hall from the crowd.
There were many other problems as well with pre-registration. They never told us we had to pre-register for everything. Anime trivia? Yup. Cosplay chess? Yup. Karaoke is a given, but I never saw a form for it on the site. I think this is mostly because the registration desk only had a sign saying 'cosplay registration' on it and nothing else there. I never got to participate in the chess unfortunately. As for the tech problems, these were most prominent in the karaoke. I was first on stage to sing, and somehow they'd lost my song. They also did that for another group too, and a few had to start over because in the middle of their song some other song would suddenly come blaring out. They said perhaps it was interference from another source, which I dunno about, but it was fixed once they swapped mics. But I do have to give the AV guys a big clap for the complete and utter lulz they gave everyone over the weekend. A lot of people got into fights with the words flashing up on screen, even the voice actors doing the charity event on Friday night.
Oh, I think I have to mention that my group actually got to meet the overall organisers when we went to breakfast. I was quite surprised - they looked like they could be someone's grandparents, and they sounded Greek. They were really nice though and waved to us when we saw them again the next night in the city.
I'll mention another incident in a bit which may be interesting. As for the hotel, we had a nice time. Although it was a backpacker's, we hardly really ran into other people and the person manning the desk was always very helpful. The only problem was that our end of the hallway, and our room, was like an oven. You'd get off the lift, walk down the hall and eventually you'd find yourself feeling like you were standing under a heating duct. We had to keep the door open and a fan on for most of the night until we went to sleep. I woke up on Friday night feeling like I was choking from the heat and how stuffy it was. They couldn't do a thing about it though. =/ Hopefully next year we'll do better, because it was also a HUGE pain in the butt to get to the con from where we were. We also got lost. The RNA showgrounds is a huge area and although we were told 'it's opposite the hospital', we couldn't find the place for about half an hour. We even ran into a guy on a motorbike looking for it too. Eventually we found it though. It was nowhere near the hospital. =_= We took a taxi in the morning from then on.
EDIT: I also didn't notice it at the time, but since reading some of the comments on their forum, I'm shocked THERE WAS NO FIRST AID STATION. Seriously, WTF? They're kidding, right? I'm not sure if it is or not, but if it's illegal, they better get their act together then.
Overall Impressions : This was the first Supanova I've been to in a long time. I went back in its first years in Sydney when it was mostly a comic con with a few side anime-things. I can't believe how much it has grown. Actually, I think it has to be said that it's grown too big too fast perhaps. The crowd was massive and it was a pain to get around without getting squashed. The variety of vendors weren't too bad, but the prices were pretty expensive except for a few place (but at least there were no bootlegs, unlike Animania which I've been dedicated to for the past 5 years). A lot of the comments I've seen so far were about the prices of stuff. I paid $6.50 for a little phone-strap figure. The price of the food was the worst. $5 a slice of pizza? No thanks. Also, the line for the single ATM there was hilariously long.
I think maybe that the biggest inconvenience was the place. Like I said before, we were in the city, because although we tried to book early for the one place that was near the con, it was full and there was nowhere else to go. I think perhaps they should think about moving to a larger place where there is more readily available accommodation, even if that means going to the Gold Coast.
Time for that "incident" I mentioned before. It happened during the Kamehameha Blast Off contest. At first it was awesome because we got an ACTUAL marriage proposal on stage! (Goku asked Sesshomaru to marry him, haha. She said yes, by the way) Unfortunately though, it went downhill from there. A Sasuke cosplayer (and a male one at that) entered and the fangirls went wild. In the end we had a showdown of the Sasuke and Goku. The fangirls were screaming for Sasuke, and then... I almost wish they hadn't now, the AV guys put 'Goku can take his shirt off too' on the screen. Screams of 'TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF!' flooded the hall, but the Goku refused. Then the Sasuke fangirls felt insulted and started to scream 'SASUKE SASUKE SASUKE'. It was complete chaos and the host couldn't get control. Suddenly this girl grabs the mic and screams for people the shut up. They do. But then, in the silence of the hall, one lone person screamed out 'Show us your tits'. Oh, burn. The Sasuke fangirls start going crazy again. Luckily the host was able to get control again though by threatening to throw them out. I found out later the "woman" who had yelled for the fangirls to shut up was organising the cosplay, and although she was a bit of a control-freak, I felt sorry for her.
I really have to say it was the people attending who let it down for me this year. Unlike Animania where everyone is so supportive, the whole feeling was different at Supanova. There was one fat guy and his friends who just kept yelling out stupid derogatory things in booming voices during the events. When I was in the bathroom fixing my makeup next to Lady Planet (most awesome Captain Planet cosplay ever), a group of fangirls ran in with Sasuke's cape and a Renji's sword. They were basically drooling over them. I was pretty shocked, as were Lady Planet and my friend. We had to be the ones to tell them to take them back. It's stupid stuff like that which gets people's things ruined. Then there was my friend's stalker, and then the Ryuk... OH CRAP THE RYUK. My friend was cosplaying as L in our Death Note group, and this Ryuk would NOT leave us alone. Every chance she got she would jump on us, and at one point stole our Light's apple. She wouldn't listen to us and just kept hugging us. Our L was very disturbed... and bruised. The fangirls kept getting stupider over the weekend, until Sunday when it felt like bondage central. Now, I have to tell you this really ruined our Death Note cosplay. Our L and Light were chained together, as it was in the plot. I played Misa and designated 'make sure people don't get hurt person', which I reckon I did a good job of. Even in the crowd we made it work. But then, the fangirls really did a number on Sunday. I saw a Deidara on a leash, and a Cloud, and a number of others, and... oh, facepalm. Someone could have gotten hurt, and they just ran around not caring. Common sense wasn't with these people it seemed - people getting crash-tackled, 'will yaoi for-' and 'free hugs' posters, "buttsex" photos everywhere (mind you, this was a family con and I saw HEAPS of kids around), and just general stupidity. And our L told me you could buy yaoi paddles. He ran away when he saw a girl buy one.
Overall, the con was pretty fantastic apart from the fangirls. Heaps to do, cosplay was amazing, volunteers were great... I just wish there'd been more space. Oh, and more in the showbags. It was pretty empty apart from the program.
Misc. Comments : Too many Death Note cosplays... ;_; Nobody's fault I suppose. I think my group made up for it with our skit though. I was afraid since there'd been so many around and the cosplay comp was dragging on that we'd hardly get a response from the crowd, but at the end they really cheered for us! I was so glad. It took me a few days to get the music files together and then teach the choreography to Light and L in about ten minutes.
I'll put some of my photos in here, including from our Death Note photoshoot in the middle of Brisbane, which was pretty fun:
[link]And sorry for going on so long, but it was definitely a con to remember for me.
Miserable
...My camera broke. ;_; 
Tired
Flirty
Shame
