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MediaWest*Con 2010 Report
Better late than never, I suppose. Its taken a while, but I was unwilling to give up on posting my report of MediaWest Con from May, since a lot of it was written as I went along.
MediaWest 2010
Friday
Friday morning found me waking up way too early and heading down to the lobby to await registration. Registration was different this year, in that they didn't have us get in line based on our names, but instead came around, and asked us our names, and went back to the desk to bring us our badges and registration information. Everything seemed to go smoothly and a lot quicker than I remember, despite the fact that they couldn't find me! Eventually I was located, and I headed toward food.
Food located and eaten, I headed into the dealer's room to do some initial browsing. I picked up a couple odds and ends, but nothing screamed at me right away this year. Later in the afternoon I went to my first panel, "Matt Smith: Good choice or harbinger of series disaster?" I'd expected a lively discussion about our opinions on the current series, but the actual panel was a lot more subdued. I ended up killing the battery in my laptop, as I curled up in a chair towards the back and listened to the panel while making icons, and not contributing much. After the Doctor Who panel, I decided to just do some wandering, back into the dealer's room, an initial wander through the art show, etc. I avoided the Torchwood panel (the only one of the weekend, if I remember right), to stay away from yet another Ianto argument.
We got dinner and then did some hall crawling. I wasn't expecting a ton of doors to be decorated by this point, because a lot people arrive on Friday and a lot of doors don't get put up until Saturday. But its still fun to look at what is up, even knowing that I'd go back and do the same thing again later.
Our door of potential offensiveness.
The Barrowman door, that made it extremely difficult to get more than a foot from our room, since it was right next door.
Saturday
Saturday started with me, once again, waking up way too damn early (I hate my internal alarm clock), and heading down to the lobby long before anyone else from the room was awake. I didn't have any panels I wanted to go to until 11:00am, so I fought with the internet for a while, and then decided to work on some non-contest icons for a change. I also made the decision to go to Philadelphia Comic Con (aka Wizard World Philadelphia, as my Doctor Who group keeps telling me), so I went ahead and bought my ticket to that one. Which took eternity on the net connection.
Once roommates started to trickle downstairs, I grabbed breakfast, and went to the one panel I'd really been looking forward to. Real Person Slash. I've always said that I would defend people's right to write and read it forever, but it just wasn't my thing. With some recent new fandoms, I've discovered that's no longer entirely true. And since our door was "Things I Wish I'd Known Before Getting Into an Real Person Fandom,"![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mashfanficchick and I felt we had to go to the panel. I'd been expecting a bit more controversy, I must admit. We ended up having a very nice discussion about why and how we got into it, and why we stuck with it, despite its mixed acceptance within fandom.
After the panel, I went back into the art show, and started to seriously consider which pieces I wanted to bid on, and which I needed to wait and see how much they got to, and which ones I just wanted to stare at for a while. Despite intending to go to other panels in the afternoon, I never quite made it there, as I kept getting distracted. Either by things in the dealers room or art show, or friends in the lobby, etc. I did make it to the Stargate Atlantis Fanfic panel, and picked up some new titles to look for and read. If only I could find the list I'd scribbled down...
At 5:00pm was one of the panels that I'd really been looking forward to. Since getting massively into Top Gear, I haven't had the opportunity to talk to other people who are true fans of the show too. So the Top Gear panel was highly anticipated for me. And I had a really good time at this one. It was great being able to geek out about something that is well outside my typical fandom, and feel like I belonged there. A few people had noticed our door, with the Top Gear pictures on it, particularly the one that slashed Richard and Oliver (who is a car, for those of you who may not know).
After that, I didn't have any more panels that I was planning on going to on Saturday, so we met up to head over to grab dinner at a restaurant that I can't remember its name. They make really good steak though, and delicious bloomin' onions. I ropedmashfanficchick into watching QI with me while we ate (since we didn't have time to watch an episode of Top Gear), and inadvertantly made her late for the Starsky and Hutch party that she was going to. (Sorry!) I wasn't really in the mood to party, so I hung out in the room with the door open, fought with the internet (getting to watch Doctor Who took a LONG while), made icons, and talked to anyone who stopped by.
Sunday
Sunday morning dawned with me up early (suprised, anyone?) and a finally successfully obtained episode of Doctor Who. I headed down to the lobby to watch so that I didn't wake everyone up. Near the end,aztiluna13 joined me and we watched the last few minutes together. I went to the first panel of the day, which was on David Tennant's last Doctor Who episodes. I honestly forget exactly what we talked about, but I know I wore the battery on my laptop down again. I kinda got on an icon roll that weekend, and couldn't stop.
After the panel, we grabbed breakfast, and then bounced back and forth between the dealer's room and art show for a while. I'd been watching a few pieces of art that I had decided to bid on, and a few others that were still only at one bid, mine. Two were very sparkly John Barrowman in La Cage Aux Folles pieces, which were only a $5 minimum bid, one was a beautiful picture of the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Amelia, and the last one I must have stared at for ages before draggingmashfanficchick over to look at it for me. And yes, she informed me that I was an idiot, and the reason I was so captivated by it was because it was totally me. It’s a stunning nonfandom picture of the Earth, but not actually from space. It looks like it’s from a low satellite or high altitude airplane. Absolutely breathtaking. The other piece that really caught my attention was from a fandom that I’m not actually in. Yet, as I’m starting to figure out. It was a blue and black picture of Tony Stark, with the arc reactor looking like it was glowing. I was planning bidding on a few other pieces too, like a 3-d Tardis shadowbox-thing and a picture of David Tennant. So I decided not to go for the Iron Man one, a decision I still regret. The other pieces I was looking at were of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy, and the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Amelia. I ended up bidding on the second one, with the limit that if someone else tried to outbid me, I’d let it go.
I went back into the dealer’s room to talk to the Bear Lady after my art show meandering, to discuss the new bears I wanted to order. I’d gotten two bears at the last Eastern Media Con, a Jack Harkness and Tenth Doctor bear, and they’re absolutely gorgeous. And with my new obsession with Top Gear, I decided I really wanted a Top Gear bear. But I couldn’t decide which of the trio I wanted the most, so I decided what I actually wanted was all three. So we needed to discuss what outfits I wanted them in, and a lot of the other details involved.
After that, I headed back into the art show for last minute bidding before we got kicked out. At the very last second, I hadn’t been outbid on the two La Cage pieces, the space one, and the Doctor Who one. At that point, if no one outbid me in the last possible second, I had spent $45 at the art show, a record low for me. There were still two pieces I was going to try for in the art show, so I was left with a lot of flexibility in how much I was willing to spend.
After stopping back up at the room, whenaztiluna13 informed us we had won “Score Keeper’s Choice” for door decorations, I grabbed some food and relaxed in the room and lobby before the auction started. I’d decided to bring my laptop down with me to work on icons during the items that I wasn’t bidding on. I ended up getting a lot of icons done during it, most of which have been posted already. I think I drove the people around me nuts, asking what they thought of a particular one, whether the coloring was right, etc. The auction itself was a lot more subdued than the previous auctions I’ve been to, but still a lot of fun. I truly fought for the 3-D Tardis, but it went way out of my price range. And then the same thing happened with the David Tennant piece. Once the bidding hit $200, I gave up and congratulated the person I’d been bidding against. And then the bidding kept going. At which point I felt significantly less bad, because it ended up going so far beyond what I was willing to spend, I knew that I’d had no chance anyway.
I did some hall crawling after the auction, and then stopped back down to pick up the art that I had won in the show itself. I’m still amazed at how little I spent on art this year.
Outside of the box
Inside of the box
Gorgeous space picture
Door certificate
Monday
The only plans I had for Monday were to wander through the dealer’s room one more time, which was good because I picked up a few Top Gear luggage tags. Because what’s better to have on your luggage tags than a form of transportation?
We loaded the car and checked out of the hotel, and got on the road about 1pm. With 650 miles and three states ahead of us, we knew it was going to be late by the time we got back to my house. And then the rain started. Last year we hit torrential downpour in the mountains in Pennsylvania. This year, it started before we’d even left Michigan, and in the middle of a lot of construction. We did eventually get to Ohio, and then finally into Pennsylvania. Where we hit the rain again. We finally made it through the downpour for good, and had a straight line home. Things I learned during the drive: (1) the best way for a claustrophobic me to drive through tunnels is to go very fast; (2) going really, really fast really, really is a lot of fun (at one point I managed to get up to 104mph – yep, I’m nuts!), (3) rain is not fun to drive through, especially not in the mountains. We also started planning our door decorating for next year. Boys and their Toys (aka guys and cars). The list is already three notebook pages long, so we’ll need to limit it somehow. But we’ve got time to figure it out. We also need to figure out how to design it, but we’ve got time for that too. Our last stop before getting home was only about 90 miles away, but I had hit the point of desperately needing caffeine to keep me going, and no one else was able to finish the drive. We did eventually get back to my house, about 12 hours after leaving Michigan. Once again, despite the rain, it took us about an hour less to get home than to get there.
Tuesday
I’d crashed hard Monday night when we got home, but I still woke up relatively early, although a bit late for my normal. After dropping Meg off at the train station,mashfanficchick, aztiluna13, and I went to grab lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and stop over at the comic store. I picked up an arc reactor t-shirt (the same one that mashfanficchick had gotten on Wednesday). And then her mom arrived at my house to take the rest of the MediaWest crowd home to New York.
And so ends the 30th MediaWest*Con. A bit quieter than previous years, but still a huge amount of fun. And plans are already being prepared for next year’s trip!
MediaWest 2010
Friday
Friday morning found me waking up way too early and heading down to the lobby to await registration. Registration was different this year, in that they didn't have us get in line based on our names, but instead came around, and asked us our names, and went back to the desk to bring us our badges and registration information. Everything seemed to go smoothly and a lot quicker than I remember, despite the fact that they couldn't find me! Eventually I was located, and I headed toward food.
Food located and eaten, I headed into the dealer's room to do some initial browsing. I picked up a couple odds and ends, but nothing screamed at me right away this year. Later in the afternoon I went to my first panel, "Matt Smith: Good choice or harbinger of series disaster?" I'd expected a lively discussion about our opinions on the current series, but the actual panel was a lot more subdued. I ended up killing the battery in my laptop, as I curled up in a chair towards the back and listened to the panel while making icons, and not contributing much. After the Doctor Who panel, I decided to just do some wandering, back into the dealer's room, an initial wander through the art show, etc. I avoided the Torchwood panel (the only one of the weekend, if I remember right), to stay away from yet another Ianto argument.
We got dinner and then did some hall crawling. I wasn't expecting a ton of doors to be decorated by this point, because a lot people arrive on Friday and a lot of doors don't get put up until Saturday. But its still fun to look at what is up, even knowing that I'd go back and do the same thing again later.
Our door of potential offensiveness.
The Barrowman door, that made it extremely difficult to get more than a foot from our room, since it was right next door.
Saturday
Saturday started with me, once again, waking up way too damn early (I hate my internal alarm clock), and heading down to the lobby long before anyone else from the room was awake. I didn't have any panels I wanted to go to until 11:00am, so I fought with the internet for a while, and then decided to work on some non-contest icons for a change. I also made the decision to go to Philadelphia Comic Con (aka Wizard World Philadelphia, as my Doctor Who group keeps telling me), so I went ahead and bought my ticket to that one. Which took eternity on the net connection.
Once roommates started to trickle downstairs, I grabbed breakfast, and went to the one panel I'd really been looking forward to. Real Person Slash. I've always said that I would defend people's right to write and read it forever, but it just wasn't my thing. With some recent new fandoms, I've discovered that's no longer entirely true. And since our door was "Things I Wish I'd Known Before Getting Into an Real Person Fandom,"
mashfanficchick and I felt we had to go to the panel. I'd been expecting a bit more controversy, I must admit. We ended up having a very nice discussion about why and how we got into it, and why we stuck with it, despite its mixed acceptance within fandom.After the panel, I went back into the art show, and started to seriously consider which pieces I wanted to bid on, and which I needed to wait and see how much they got to, and which ones I just wanted to stare at for a while. Despite intending to go to other panels in the afternoon, I never quite made it there, as I kept getting distracted. Either by things in the dealers room or art show, or friends in the lobby, etc. I did make it to the Stargate Atlantis Fanfic panel, and picked up some new titles to look for and read. If only I could find the list I'd scribbled down...
At 5:00pm was one of the panels that I'd really been looking forward to. Since getting massively into Top Gear, I haven't had the opportunity to talk to other people who are true fans of the show too. So the Top Gear panel was highly anticipated for me. And I had a really good time at this one. It was great being able to geek out about something that is well outside my typical fandom, and feel like I belonged there. A few people had noticed our door, with the Top Gear pictures on it, particularly the one that slashed Richard and Oliver (who is a car, for those of you who may not know).
After that, I didn't have any more panels that I was planning on going to on Saturday, so we met up to head over to grab dinner at a restaurant that I can't remember its name. They make really good steak though, and delicious bloomin' onions. I roped
mashfanficchick into watching QI with me while we ate (since we didn't have time to watch an episode of Top Gear), and inadvertantly made her late for the Starsky and Hutch party that she was going to. (Sorry!) I wasn't really in the mood to party, so I hung out in the room with the door open, fought with the internet (getting to watch Doctor Who took a LONG while), made icons, and talked to anyone who stopped by.Sunday
Sunday morning dawned with me up early (suprised, anyone?) and a finally successfully obtained episode of Doctor Who. I headed down to the lobby to watch so that I didn't wake everyone up. Near the end,
aztiluna13 joined me and we watched the last few minutes together. I went to the first panel of the day, which was on David Tennant's last Doctor Who episodes. I honestly forget exactly what we talked about, but I know I wore the battery on my laptop down again. I kinda got on an icon roll that weekend, and couldn't stop.After the panel, we grabbed breakfast, and then bounced back and forth between the dealer's room and art show for a while. I'd been watching a few pieces of art that I had decided to bid on, and a few others that were still only at one bid, mine. Two were very sparkly John Barrowman in La Cage Aux Folles pieces, which were only a $5 minimum bid, one was a beautiful picture of the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Amelia, and the last one I must have stared at for ages before dragging
mashfanficchick over to look at it for me. And yes, she informed me that I was an idiot, and the reason I was so captivated by it was because it was totally me. It’s a stunning nonfandom picture of the Earth, but not actually from space. It looks like it’s from a low satellite or high altitude airplane. Absolutely breathtaking. The other piece that really caught my attention was from a fandom that I’m not actually in. Yet, as I’m starting to figure out. It was a blue and black picture of Tony Stark, with the arc reactor looking like it was glowing. I was planning bidding on a few other pieces too, like a 3-d Tardis shadowbox-thing and a picture of David Tennant. So I decided not to go for the Iron Man one, a decision I still regret. The other pieces I was looking at were of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy, and the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Amelia. I ended up bidding on the second one, with the limit that if someone else tried to outbid me, I’d let it go.I went back into the dealer’s room to talk to the Bear Lady after my art show meandering, to discuss the new bears I wanted to order. I’d gotten two bears at the last Eastern Media Con, a Jack Harkness and Tenth Doctor bear, and they’re absolutely gorgeous. And with my new obsession with Top Gear, I decided I really wanted a Top Gear bear. But I couldn’t decide which of the trio I wanted the most, so I decided what I actually wanted was all three. So we needed to discuss what outfits I wanted them in, and a lot of the other details involved.
After that, I headed back into the art show for last minute bidding before we got kicked out. At the very last second, I hadn’t been outbid on the two La Cage pieces, the space one, and the Doctor Who one. At that point, if no one outbid me in the last possible second, I had spent $45 at the art show, a record low for me. There were still two pieces I was going to try for in the art show, so I was left with a lot of flexibility in how much I was willing to spend.
After stopping back up at the room, when
aztiluna13 informed us we had won “Score Keeper’s Choice” for door decorations, I grabbed some food and relaxed in the room and lobby before the auction started. I’d decided to bring my laptop down with me to work on icons during the items that I wasn’t bidding on. I ended up getting a lot of icons done during it, most of which have been posted already. I think I drove the people around me nuts, asking what they thought of a particular one, whether the coloring was right, etc. The auction itself was a lot more subdued than the previous auctions I’ve been to, but still a lot of fun. I truly fought for the 3-D Tardis, but it went way out of my price range. And then the same thing happened with the David Tennant piece. Once the bidding hit $200, I gave up and congratulated the person I’d been bidding against. And then the bidding kept going. At which point I felt significantly less bad, because it ended up going so far beyond what I was willing to spend, I knew that I’d had no chance anyway.I did some hall crawling after the auction, and then stopped back down to pick up the art that I had won in the show itself. I’m still amazed at how little I spent on art this year.
Outside of the box
Inside of the box
Gorgeous space picture
Door certificate
Monday
The only plans I had for Monday were to wander through the dealer’s room one more time, which was good because I picked up a few Top Gear luggage tags. Because what’s better to have on your luggage tags than a form of transportation?
We loaded the car and checked out of the hotel, and got on the road about 1pm. With 650 miles and three states ahead of us, we knew it was going to be late by the time we got back to my house. And then the rain started. Last year we hit torrential downpour in the mountains in Pennsylvania. This year, it started before we’d even left Michigan, and in the middle of a lot of construction. We did eventually get to Ohio, and then finally into Pennsylvania. Where we hit the rain again. We finally made it through the downpour for good, and had a straight line home. Things I learned during the drive: (1) the best way for a claustrophobic me to drive through tunnels is to go very fast; (2) going really, really fast really, really is a lot of fun (at one point I managed to get up to 104mph – yep, I’m nuts!), (3) rain is not fun to drive through, especially not in the mountains. We also started planning our door decorating for next year. Boys and their Toys (aka guys and cars). The list is already three notebook pages long, so we’ll need to limit it somehow. But we’ve got time to figure it out. We also need to figure out how to design it, but we’ve got time for that too. Our last stop before getting home was only about 90 miles away, but I had hit the point of desperately needing caffeine to keep me going, and no one else was able to finish the drive. We did eventually get back to my house, about 12 hours after leaving Michigan. Once again, despite the rain, it took us about an hour less to get home than to get there.
Tuesday
I’d crashed hard Monday night when we got home, but I still woke up relatively early, although a bit late for my normal. After dropping Meg off at the train station,
mashfanficchick, aztiluna13, and I went to grab lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and stop over at the comic store. I picked up an arc reactor t-shirt (the same one that mashfanficchick had gotten on Wednesday). And then her mom arrived at my house to take the rest of the MediaWest crowd home to New York.And so ends the 30th MediaWest*Con. A bit quieter than previous years, but still a huge amount of fun. And plans are already being prepared for next year’s trip!