FanExpo 2013 Con Report

So after 11 years of awful lines and being yelled at by security, this was the year we (glayish and I) decided to do VIP tickets.

This year the guests were AMAZING and all the panels were ones I actually wanted to attend, so the VIP ticket actually ended up being really worth it *o*. This was such a great con. NO waiting in line, excellent guests/panels, and very favorable treatment from the staff. I didn't choose to make any intense cosplay this year, although I DID bring 4 costumes. I actually finished everything a couple days before, so there was no stress there either. Maybe my only complaint is that we were in panel rooms so often, we barely had any time to try and take photos of our and other people's cosplay.


Thursday
Got into my Maid Hungary (anime version) cosplay at home, helped glayish with her Uhura hair and then packed the car up. Drove to our hotel on Queen's Quay and got there around 1pm. It was the same hotel we stayed at the year before, which had nice big rooms, although the lobby was under renovations this year. We got settled into our room around 2pm and decided to do lunch at the Japanese restaurant across from the hotel.

After that we headed over to the convention centre South building to the VIP lounge (just a room with tables, chairs, water, and a few snacks lol) to get our other VIP things which weren't shipped to us beforehand.

The first thing I pulled out of the bag was an awful huge red foam Ta'al (Vulcan Salute) hand with the words "Star Trek into Darkness" plastered on it. =_=........ rgg. Otherwise this year Lucky Charms and Franks Red Hot sauce were sponsors, so there were some goodies there. Some lithographs and exclusive comics were in the bag too, but I'm not into those so they're wasted on me lols.

Thursday didn't have any panels which I was interested in seeing... So the day ending up being a find free stuff & shop for everything day XDD

I finally got the latest volumes of Blade of the Immortal and a bunch of other things....

Like some freebies. (BEYBLADE AND HOT SAUCE!!!!)



And more Piccolo for my collection of Piccolo:



I did ask the few anime DVD dealers if they had Puella Magi Madoka Magica or the Death Note live action movies, but nobody seemed to have them (at least that day).

While glayish was shopping for Star Trek t-shirts we ran into an idiot dealer who we spent at least 20 minutes in conflict with over the fact that he didn't want to sell her the Men's Small shirt when there were Women's shirts to choose from. .... -_-!!!!!!! Literally WTF.

All she did was ask if he had a Quark (Ferengi rules of acquisition) t-shirt in small, and he launched himself into some huge rant/lecture about how he had been selling t-shirts for 30 years, and that a men's small would not fit her body properly. Uh yeah? We know that? We know what fits us. ON AND ON!!!! "Oh, you've got a great body, and I'm telling you you should buy a women's instead." "If this was 10 years ago you would have only been at one of these events as someone's DATE!" "Now you're about 40% of the attendance and spend about 70% of the funds at my booth."

WTF??? First of all... we WERE at FanExpo 10 years ago, and back then the dealers didn't argue with you about what you wanted, they just took your money!! UGH this man kept pointing out the women's styles (which weren't wanted because they didn't have Quark on them). He also got another booth employee to try and show us the crappy generic red/gold/blue TOS shirts. I don't know why he was so adamant about not selling that Quark shirt to glayish!!!!!!!!?

After numerous back and forths on whether he even had the shirt in stock or not, he FINALLY went and found it. As he sold it to her he just asked "Can you sew?", to which glayish confirmed she could, and he was all "OK good."

OTL!!!! As if every damned t-shirt a woman puts on has to be form fitting/???? Anyway that was bullshit. She got the Quark t-shirt tho.

I ran into a fan of my DeviantART!



After scouring through the dealers room all we could we went over to the North building to check out the autograph booths where the celebrities would be signing and to see if any of the times were set up yet. The celeb's set their own times though, and it all depended on the day they were there. Nothing was really going on, so I just bought a nice TOS Chekov & Sulu photo print in preparation of getting it signed by George Takei.

We went to check out the North building VIP lounge (same deal, just a room with tables/chairs). The North building lobby carpet was replaced with white tiles this year, so the whole area worked well as a reflector. We were able to get some good photos in there thanks to that! (Also first time not kicked out of an area for taking photos!!!! wtf)

Here's me as Maid Hungary from the small photoshoot:


Maid Hungary 2 by ~TechnoRanma on deviantART

Maid Hungary by ~TechnoRanma on deviantART



After that, there wasn't much else going on in the North building so we went over to the elevators to get to the bridge level.

While using the elevator, it turns out Veronica Taylor (the voice actress of Amelia from Slayers) and her daughter(?), plus a FanExpo volunteer got into the elevator with us! O_______________O

I had made Cruise Ship!Amelia specifically to wear to this con on Saturday and get Veronica Taylor's autograph then. Baw, I was too surprised at seeing her I just hid my face in the corner while glayish told her I was a big fan of her work on Slayers. OTL

After that I was in a good mood lol. We met up with Jaymie (one of the people we stood in line with for hours at March Toronto Comic-Con to watch the ST: TNG cast Q&A).

Saw kintaei and chibik3r0 going up the escalator as we went down, Noooooo~. Later on we found them again while they were eating Chipotle in the South building cafeteria area. kintaei let me have a bite of her food *o*;;; felt very hungry for more after that.

While checking out the Car from RUSH, I met another fan of my DeviantART!



We ended up leaving the con around 9pm (closing time) with all our purchases and headed over to Chipotle to get some food for dinner X'D. We walked back to our hotel and had late dinner while I ironed our Chekov & Sulu outfits for Friday.


Friday

glayish and I got into our Sulu & Chekov outfits that we had made back in May to watch STID. I was carrying my camera, video camera, tote bag, 2 bottles of Coke Zero, AND our space dog alien for the whole day. OTL. So heavy.

We decided to go straight to the North building to get autographs. Turns out George Takei was signing when we got there, so it was time to test out the VIP badge XD. The process was, you just saw if the celebrity was signing or not, and then went to the near-by VIP services booth where a runner would take you up the the front of the line.

We immediately got George Takei's autograph!! He said we were wearing the correct Starfleet regulation outfits and that we only needed Walter Koenig's signature now X'D. Bahaha it took so little time, no waiting in line. That was magnificent.



Nichelle Nichols was not at her booth yet, so we decided to go across the street to the public underground mall/cafeteria for some Manchu Wok. On our way back from there, two ladies called us 'Spock' and asked why everyone was dressed up -_-. .. R@ge at being called Spock even while in command gold as Chekov.

We went back into the North building but Nichelle still hadn't arrived yet. Yvonne showed up and we caught up with her while waiting for various celebs to show up.

During that time I noticed Todd Haberkorn (voice actor for North Italy) had arrived at his booth to sign autographs! I whipped out my pizza prop and got the VIP runner to get me first in line!



He signed the crust XD;

Todd was very nice, I think I surprised him by knowing he also plays Spock in the fan TV series "Star Trek: Continues"! Anyway I was very pleased to meet him finally. I have his autograph all over all the Hetalia prizes I've won from FUNimation, but I've never met him in person. Love his Italy voice!

After that was more waiting for Nichelle. It was getting closer to the time that a panel I wanted to see was going to start, so we all packed to leave for the South building. Of course that's when Nichelle Nichols showed up! So we got her autograph!!



She was very pleasant.

Afterwards, we walked over to the South to see if we could catch the Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary panel.

When we got to the panel room for the Sailor Moon panel 40 min early, the line was LOOOOOOOONG. We asked where the VIP line was and APPARENTLY the front of the line access was only good for "main events". =_________=... That kind of lol, really pissed me off, so I asked if they could help us out at all, they said to come back in 20 min. We went down to the VIP lounge and I asked where the main office was -_-. Anyway long story short, I complained a bunch and got escorted to the panel. We got front row seats!!!!!!!!! lolll XD;;;

Anyway, the Sailor Moon panel was actually really, really good. The audience sang the dub theme song to open the panel and close the panel (including echoes and hand movements, LOL omg). The dub voice cast (Moon, Tuxedo Mask, Jupiter, Mars) were there. ALSO John Stocker was there (he directed/produced, and also did the voice of Grandpa and others), AND HE WAS WEARING A BEYBLADE T-SHIRT!!!

The questions were entertaining lol. "Will Darien please propose to Serena?". XD. Lots of feel good stuff, including the women doing their attacks in the voices and talking about what it was like recording. Very good first panel to go to. The room should have been bigger because there were still people who hadn't been let in.

After that panel, already we managed to hit a new personal record. Usually I end up only going to ONE panel (if any) per con, and it's usually not very good. (probably because I hate lines and end up watching crappy panels).

We met up with Yvonne again and wandered around the South building. We did a small photoshoot with her photographer friends and got a little bit of video.



After that, we decided to go over to the North building where George and Nichelle's panel would be held.

When we got there we were early and happened to walk into the last bit of David Hasslehoff's Q&A. It was actually pretty entertaining, even though we hadn't intended to watch it. LOL. VIP pass again was really worth it. The first 3 rows of the centre stage were all dedicated to VIP. So there was no fighting for a spot or sitting smashed up against other people.

George and Nichelle's panel started shortly after that. I thought that they would do the panel TOGETHER, but they each only took 30 minutes each. That was okay though, they each had prepared great speeches/talks on Star Trek and what it meant to be involved in Gene Roddenberry's vision. I think I prefer that to Q & A. This way you get to really hear what they wanted to say, rather than answering people's inane questions -_-!! It was enjoyable, though it did get pretty heavy when the topics turned to Japanese internment and racism.



Also, Americans, pls remember that during WWII Canadians went to fight in 1939... NOT after the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Anyway, after that, the Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars) Q & A was beginning. We stayed for that as well. I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND MUCH!! I haven't seen the recent star wars movies, and I watched the old ones WAYYYYY long ago. Also, I'm not a fan. Lol.

They had a bunch of those dark side trooper guys come out and stand in front of the stage for the WHOLE hour. I don't know why they decided to do that?? Half way through they were beginning to sag and shift uncomfortably. It was just distracting lol. And big wrinkly red picked his wedgie >_>.



We got out around 7:30pm. Since Saturday was going to be all business in order to make every panel and autograph we wanted to do, we decided to make it an early night on Friday. We left the con and ate at the Japanese restaurant for dinner.

Saturday

On Saturday got dressed up in my Cruise ship!Amelia (Slayers Revolution ep. 7) cosplay. lmfao hurray for 1 episode obscure anime cosplay at a comic-con. (I must say I DID get recognized at least 5 times, so that's ok then X'D.) I helped glayish with her Uhura hair and then we headed straight to the North building for more autographs.

Once we got there Zachary Quinto and Veronica Taylor were signing! glayish went to go get her Quinto autograph (I wasn't really interested in getting Quinto's autograph. Nu!Spock is my least favourite character ever).

I got VIP services to take me straight to Veronica Taylor. The guy who was supposed to be next in the regular line got all huffy and annoyed that I was going before him, but lol. I derived some satisfaction from that XD.

Veronica Taylor was so nice!!!!!! I finally got to tell her how much I loved her work on Slayers! She took a photo with me (she takes photos with all the people who cosplay as her characters) and said she will post it on her FB page. So hopefully I'll find it on there!



I got her to sign my bracelet so I won't ever lose the signature *o*

After that we waiting around a bit trying to figure out when Karl Urban would be signing. However a sign went up that said he'd be signing after 3pm, so we had loads of time to wander over to the South building and grab some pizza for lunch. We walked around the dealer's room and got some free Dr. Pepper and Red Rain samples to drink.

The time flew pretty quickly, I don't remember much of what went on. We met up with a few other people and then had to go back to the North Building for Quinto's Q & A.

While we were seated 45 minutes before Quinto's panel, all off a sudden some other guy comes in and starts to talk. Turns out it was Todd McFarlane (of misogynist comic book fame) late for his panel. Now, I was VERY surprised we were suddenly sitting in for this guy's panel, because I had poured over the schedule and I'm absolutely CERTAIN he wasn't scheduled to be talking in that panel room. =_=

Anyway it ended, and the room FILLED to capacity for Zachary Quinto's Q&A.

FanExpo didn't have any rules against photography or filming for this one, so I whipped out the video camera and proceeded to film the whole panel. XDDD I'm glad I did. It was a LOT more entertaining than I originally thought it would be.



I uploaded the full HD video (52min) here on YouTUBE in case anyone out there is interested. (I have since deleted the 3 gigabyte file for space, so if it ever gets taken down that's it).


It started...




And the first question...





And glayish got one in there (I called out to get Zach's attention):




AND OF COURSE. THE TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE QUESTION:





Fwahahaahha XDDDD. Those were some of my favourite questions X'D. (I made the .gif sets on my tumblr as well btw. One of them got 19K+ notes @_@!!)

Anyway after that we filtered over to Karl Urban's autograph booth to wait for him to show up. A cheer rose op in the huge crowd when he arrived. The was a small horde of VIPs waiting for his autograph, but it was again immensely satisfying to go before all the people who had been waiting for hours for him lmao. Got his autograph and to see him up close~!!



There was nothing much else we had planned for the day until the masquerade, so wandered around the South building again taking in the sights.

Eventually we went back to the North building to use it for photographs:


Cruise Ship Amelia! by ~TechnoRanma on deviantART



I love those new aqua-blue contacts I got! They stood out really well. I just won't post a bigger close up because I don't like my face... maybe if I photoshop out all the pores... but the contacts were fabulousss

The line for the masquerade was already HUGE. But as VIP we got to go in first. The doors wouldn't be open for a while though, and the pizza from earlier wasn't really enough for me, so we went outside to the food trucks so I could get some poutine.

While waiting for my poutine a guy came up to me and asked if my DeviantART screenname happened to be TechnoRanma. I said yes, and he said he was Tim from Australia!!!! OMG from Beyblade fandom!!!! SO MANY YEARS AGO! We had lost contact (as what happens when people change fandoms and LJ becomes less popular), but he was in Toronto for the month and heard about FanExpo. He bought a day pass and happened to recognize me on the street from the preview I posted on my DevART. TALK ABOUT A SMALL WORLD!! That was amazing, it was great to see him. Now to rekindle the fandom friendship on tumblr XD. <3

Returned to the masquerade line with poutine and coke, and finished that off while waiting for the show. We got in and for once got really amazing 1st pick of seats XD!

The Masquerade itself wasn't that good. Just my luck, while trying to test the settings on my camera, one of the VERY few people who recognized me as Amelia from Slayers came up and asked for my photo. Naturally I was very happy to be recognized so I spoke with him, but this guy also turned out to be.. 'THAT Guy'.... y'know the type. Urgh. There was a free seat next to me and of course he sat in it. =/.... he also happened to be one of those "lol it's a new universe so all the awful plot holes and characterizations of the reboot trek r ok cuz of that. also just sit back and enjoy."

Thankfully during that barrage one VIP girl I recognized from other panels sitting in front of me joined in the convo to explain why TOS and the original movies are superior. Lols XD

I don't know why THAT guy started touching my VIP pass that I had on my camera bag when I was distracted by Derwin Mak in his Doctor outfit, so I accused of him of trying to steal my badge. He was more tolerable after that.

Anyway the show itself had some great acts. But the vast majority had no audio and simply screamed their lines (compared to years before when anime dominated the masq). Also, there were VERY few groups. I don't think there was one that exceeded 3 people; in fact I think there was ONLY 1 with that many putting on their skit. Mostly one-person walk-ons. In one case two separate costumes (Mass Effect, I think?) wore the exact same character and did the EXACT same skit with almost exactly the same game monologue audio. -_-;

I wasn't too impressed this year. If it hadn't been for the quality seating I probably would have tried to leave 1 hour into it.

There was also one AWFUL and UNFUNNY heckler a few seats over from me that kept shouting out insults at Gord (the M.C.). It was bloody annoying.

glayish and I left just before the very end of the show (where the announced the winners) to avoid the huge crowd.

We walked back to hotel. Exhausted, I ironed up James T. Kirk.


Sunday

PUT ON STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME COSPLAYS!!!!

Checked out and got the car packed up, then walked over to the North Building. Got dehydrated from the walk in the hot sun in so many layers of polyfill, polyester, and wool suiting OTL. I ate some pizza and talked with some more friends, but I should have drank something to feel better. I was avoiding drinking anything because if I had to use the washroom I'd have to take everything off to get the fat suit unzipped -_-;;;;;;

Felt lousy while sitting through Nathan Fillion's panel due to dehydration. I didn't know he had such a huge fanbase but his panel room was filled to the brim. Even VIP rows were very packed. He's interesting. The only thing I really remember/watched that he was in, was Firefly.

After his panel glayish went to go get us drinks from the food trucks outside (because it was $1 outside, and $2.85 if you bought it from the inside cafeteria =_=) and I got us some better seats.



Karl Urban Q & A began!

I'm positive Karl looked directly at us while we were dressed as Kirk & Spock (Voyage Home). He got that bugged out eye look for a second and then paid attention to the question someone asking. Lol, that's enough for me.



A lot of the questions were similar to the other panels we had attended. Actually early in, FanExpo asked everyone to stop recording and there would be no more filming at the panel. (???) Not sure why, but if I had to guess it'd be because Urban is starring in J.J. Abrams new tv series and jar jar prolly didn't want any 'Spoilerz' being given out accidentally >_>. There were quite a few Xena: Warrior Princess questions, so that was pleasing. Nothing that was lol-worthy like at Quinto's panel though.

After that, we hung out in the VIP lounge (North building) and got annoyed by the volunteer in there who kept asking questions. She did make herself useful by helping us get a few shots of us in Kirk & Spock (although the room was really poorly lit).

We then went for the Carrie Fischer Q & A. Ugh Star Wars. Lol. She was wearing about a pound of glitter on her face. I don't know why. Also, she was smoking while doing her panel. That was really really obnoxious to me. I don't know how they let her get away with smoking in a public building. (It's against the law in CANADA!!) >_>.

It finished and the room cleared out, and a couple people stopped us for our photo. (We didn't get our photo taken often at ALL during the weekend because of how many panels and autographs we were constantly attending).

My favourite comments I got while wearing that cosplay?

"So, you guys like Italian?"



XD

After that, the con was officially over. We walked back to the hotel (which was right on the water) and got some video as if we were walking around San Francisco looking for a pair of humpback whales.





I'M REALLY PLEASED AT HOW WELL THESE TURNED OUT! At least our silhouette's from far away I think looks great XD.

Looking at the videos, I think I could have gone bigger in the stomach with my fat suit stuffing. Also my neck is entirely too skinny in some angles, but that's not something I can fix all the time. Clenching and purposely giving myself double chin is actually pretty strenuous ^^;. Ah well, I'll know what angles work for when the Ripley's Aquarium in T.O. opens. (Hoping to get photos/video in there sometime).

I drove us home and when we got there my dad kept going on about how I looked just like him OTL!!!!!!!! Cry. I've been saying over and over how I was gonna look like him wearing Voyage Home!Kirk, and it was true (only with brown hair instead of black/white). OTLLLL. He took a photo next to me (I was unwilling), but that one will never see the internet, I hope.

Was SO EXHAUSTED. I had taken the Monday off work, and it turned out to be a great idea because I was bone tired. Hence, why I didn't get around to finishing this con report until now.

I still haven't unpacked yet either ^^;;;. Probably should get on that.

Anyway, long story short, GREAT CON!! The VIP pass was completely worth it (at least this year because of the guests), and I finished all my costumes ahead of time. I dare say this time I did the cleanest, most neat construction and sewing on my cosplay than all that came before.


Next con is probably December Toronto Comic-Con (formally known as DTAC)... and then Katsucon 2014! I'm still not entirely sure what I'll be making for those, but I have a to-do list and bunch of plans I should probably decide on soon X'D.