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MARINES WE ARE LEAVING
I'm going to hold complete reviews of AX until tomorrow. That's only fair - con's still going on, but some of us have to work.
A couple of caveats - I got comp'ed in. I did not pay to attend. I did pay more to park than any other singular cost during the entire weekend. Seriously. More than food. More than anything in the dealer's room. Just to put a car someplace where it would not 1) get stolen, 2) towed, 3) worse.
Long Beach is a perfect venue for this con. The main room at the Westin for karaoke was nothing short of gorgeous. I spent most of the time I was there in karaoke, with one short foray into the main convention floor on Sunday.
That - was AWFUL.
I'll hold everything until tomorrow - but there's one thing I want to discuss.
I'm not going to go look at the weapons policy on the AX website. I want to ask this of the group at large.
How the hell do you 'peace-bond' a STICK?
Think about this a moment, and then try to get it to fit into the idea of peace-bonding props as a concept. It won't go.
The whole practice came about in an attempt to render props that could do damage, inert - you zip-tied the trigger of a gun so it could not be fired. You tied something to its holster so it could not be drawn.
But you never, ever could tie a bokken, a bo, a stave - those props could not be allowed on a convention floor. (The year I did Fanime, those props were returned to rooms, cars or the attendee left the con with them. Period.) Reason? The whole zip-tie thing is not to prove you got permission from the convention - that they knew you had the thing - it was to make certain you - or someone who took the prop FROM you - could not use it in a fashion incompatible with a large group of people.
And I saw zip-tied "sticks" of all kinds - with zips of all kinds of colors. Also, not kosher - anyone can go to Fry's and get zip-ties. A con that can issue armbands - seriously, they did - for staff to wear - can get their own flavor of zip-ties.
If they actually cared about the concept, of course. Instead of just doing it because - well - I don't know. I don't think anyone who was peace-bonding sticks was thinking either. I mean - what were you DOING, exactly?
The corker, though?
They had volunteers with these things staffing entry and egress points. This is outside the Dealer's Room - the only place I actually ventured outside the karaoke areas during the con.
To get to the Dealer's Room? You had to go past the Info Desk. The main entry point into the con. And then?
The lines to get into the Dealer's Room queued up through - DIRECTLY THOUGH - Artist's Alley.
No, this is not an opportunity to browse and schmooze or anything of the kind. If you could see anything of the artist's tables, it was the portions they were able to hang over 6' up. PACKED SOLID, it moved at the pace of the 405 in rush hour.
And this is how you got in.
There were volunteers inside the doors, outside the doors - and you had what looked like convention hall security checking badges.
NO AX RED VESTS ANYWHERE.
And the way in? NOT THE WAY OUT. The way out - was across the hall itself, and dumped you nearly in the loading docks, away from everywhere else.
The din was incredible, but then again - hello dealer's room, no surprise here - but looking up, I didn't see the large pavilions I'm used to seeing at an AX.
OH. They're going to Comic-Con. ALL OF THEM. INSTEAD. Got it.
What's left is small shops, distributors and the like. Of course, with a huge Borders across the street from the convention center, you'd better do something, yah? $10 manga went for $8, yahoo.
I had a short list, found the items and GOT OUT. AGAINST THE TIDE.
Seriously, I'd had enough - in less than half an hour - to go from accommodating to Bitch On Wheels LET ME OUT OF HERE NOW.
I gave myself a couple of hours afterward. Acoustic Karaoke Contest was absolutely the best part of the weekend - but I had a headache that would not leave the building, nothing helped, and instead of getting cranky and worse...went home at 8:30 PM.
Without a job, I really didn't have a thing to do.
More stuff tomorrow, once the con closes. Oh yes, there's more.
A couple of caveats - I got comp'ed in. I did not pay to attend. I did pay more to park than any other singular cost during the entire weekend. Seriously. More than food. More than anything in the dealer's room. Just to put a car someplace where it would not 1) get stolen, 2) towed, 3) worse.
Long Beach is a perfect venue for this con. The main room at the Westin for karaoke was nothing short of gorgeous. I spent most of the time I was there in karaoke, with one short foray into the main convention floor on Sunday.
That - was AWFUL.
I'll hold everything until tomorrow - but there's one thing I want to discuss.
I'm not going to go look at the weapons policy on the AX website. I want to ask this of the group at large.
How the hell do you 'peace-bond' a STICK?
Think about this a moment, and then try to get it to fit into the idea of peace-bonding props as a concept. It won't go.
The whole practice came about in an attempt to render props that could do damage, inert - you zip-tied the trigger of a gun so it could not be fired. You tied something to its holster so it could not be drawn.
But you never, ever could tie a bokken, a bo, a stave - those props could not be allowed on a convention floor. (The year I did Fanime, those props were returned to rooms, cars or the attendee left the con with them. Period.) Reason? The whole zip-tie thing is not to prove you got permission from the convention - that they knew you had the thing - it was to make certain you - or someone who took the prop FROM you - could not use it in a fashion incompatible with a large group of people.
And I saw zip-tied "sticks" of all kinds - with zips of all kinds of colors. Also, not kosher - anyone can go to Fry's and get zip-ties. A con that can issue armbands - seriously, they did - for staff to wear - can get their own flavor of zip-ties.
If they actually cared about the concept, of course. Instead of just doing it because - well - I don't know. I don't think anyone who was peace-bonding sticks was thinking either. I mean - what were you DOING, exactly?
The corker, though?
They had volunteers with these things staffing entry and egress points. This is outside the Dealer's Room - the only place I actually ventured outside the karaoke areas during the con.
To get to the Dealer's Room? You had to go past the Info Desk. The main entry point into the con. And then?
The lines to get into the Dealer's Room queued up through - DIRECTLY THOUGH - Artist's Alley.
No, this is not an opportunity to browse and schmooze or anything of the kind. If you could see anything of the artist's tables, it was the portions they were able to hang over 6' up. PACKED SOLID, it moved at the pace of the 405 in rush hour.
And this is how you got in.
There were volunteers inside the doors, outside the doors - and you had what looked like convention hall security checking badges.
NO AX RED VESTS ANYWHERE.
And the way in? NOT THE WAY OUT. The way out - was across the hall itself, and dumped you nearly in the loading docks, away from everywhere else.
The din was incredible, but then again - hello dealer's room, no surprise here - but looking up, I didn't see the large pavilions I'm used to seeing at an AX.
OH. They're going to Comic-Con. ALL OF THEM. INSTEAD. Got it.
What's left is small shops, distributors and the like. Of course, with a huge Borders across the street from the convention center, you'd better do something, yah? $10 manga went for $8, yahoo.
I had a short list, found the items and GOT OUT. AGAINST THE TIDE.
Seriously, I'd had enough - in less than half an hour - to go from accommodating to Bitch On Wheels LET ME OUT OF HERE NOW.
I gave myself a couple of hours afterward. Acoustic Karaoke Contest was absolutely the best part of the weekend - but I had a headache that would not leave the building, nothing helped, and instead of getting cranky and worse...went home at 8:30 PM.
Without a job, I really didn't have a thing to do.
More stuff tomorrow, once the con closes. Oh yes, there's more.
Have I mentioned I'm claustrophobic?
My head is not a fun place.
I am now glad we couldn't afford to go.
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OH. They're going to Comic-Con. ALL OF THEM. INSTEAD. Got it.
Wait. ADV/Sony/Big Name Exhibitors that always have the first 20-50 feet inside the dealers room weren't there?
I hope![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
digitalpanther will be able to shed some light on this... o.O
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The short form answer: You can't.
The longer form answer: If it is a weapon-like object that cannot be peace-bonded, it is not allowed. Period. End of sentence.
I get a 'bye' at LosCon because most of the ConCom knows about the fencing demos. That being said, it makes me itch in funny places when security tells me that I'm jake, but the fanboi isn't (not that I want the fanboi wankers to be jake, but yanno...)
As a result, I am very careful to have the blades in the case when I am not actively doing the demo.
One rule for all. And yes, I include myself in that.
no subject
The problem is that only a select few on con-staff actually know what "peace bonding" is about. The rest (including lots of folks who really should know, but just don't bother to find out, because they figure it's not their job) just think of it as "zip-tie the weapons". If it's zip-tied, it's ok. This is compounded when people who are new to the whole thing ask somebody in charge, and are told exactly that. Then those people later go on to be the ones actually doing the peace-bonding, and presto, you get zip-tied sticks.
And of course nobody out on the con floor is actually going to know or care. They just know to look for zip-ties, and if they see one, they figure it's been ok'd by con-ops, so it's not their problem. I've never actually heard of any con doing what really should be done and sitting down with all of the staffers and volunteers before things start and laying out "look, this is the policy, and this is the reason for it, and if you see a weapon, even if it's got a zip-tie, ask yourself "could it be used to hurt somebody", and if the answer is yes, tell somebody."
Of course I don't think I've ever seen any con properly explain their peace-bonding policy to the con-goers either, which really doesn't help, especially on those few occasions when somebody does get confronted about it..
But yeah, no big surprise, and not exactly unique to AX..
Suddenly I see...
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Cons ain't what they used to be (And maybe they never were).
I used to go to Fanime mostly for the panels, but of late they seem to be de-emphasiszed. There was a time, back in the day, when the fanfic panel would out-draw some of the GOH panels. In 2007 there was no fanfic panel at all.
Maybe we've said it all. Maybe it's just getting to hard to find 10 people in a room of 35 who've all seen the same series. Maybe the 'market' for anime fanfiction has been filled with DVDs and translated manga and fansubs.
Fanime now runs in the the San Jose convention center, so each of the panel rooms is cavernous, which makes interaction a lot harder. The smaller panel rooms at the hotels were much better suited to fan panels.
There's not much reason to go to video rooms nowadays - not with online stores full of DVDs and the web. The dealer rooms are okay, but there's really only so much non-media "Stuff" I can fit in my life these days.
Heck I've been pretty successful picking up stuff used of late.
I'm not as comfortable at cons these days, so many of the participants are so young they could barely read when I started writing. Of course I'm just jealous. I would have loved to be able to go to cons as a teenager. Ah well...