Tag Archives: cons

Nov 1 2011

A Belated Look Back at GMXv3

I’ve been having some serious writer’s block about saying anything about this latest Geek Media Expo (GMX vol 3 – October 21-23 in Nashville, TN). So instead of  a usual report, I decided to do a point-by-point with some photos.

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This year was held at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel, which was a bit of a nostalgia trip. My first MTAC, MTAC GO in 2005, was held at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. It’s been a long ride since then. It was fun returning back, but then I remembered the elevators.

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The Flash Dash Speed Drawing competition yielded this gem: Pimpachu and the GMX Girls! The GMX Girls are the mascots of the convention, and the subject of this round of drawings was “a superhero team up with the GMX Girls.” What better superhero than Pimpachu?

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Setting up for Saturday Morning Cartoons. I’ve done it every GMX, always associated with cereal and milk. That was gone by the first episode. We had some technical difficulties at first that delayed the event, but we got it going. Wrapped the showing with an episode of Jem and the Holograms, in honor of our guests Samantha Newark (voice of Jem) and Patricia Alice Albrecht (voice of Pizzazz).

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This… Well… This is what happens at 3am Saturday night with a Twister mat open.

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The hotel itself had just undergone renovations in some of the rooms. I couldn’t exactly get a picture of the persistent paint smell, but I did get one of a hastily assembled door handle.

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And this can stand on its own.

You can view the rest of my pitifully few photos at my Flickr page. I really need to start taking time out of each con to take photos.

I also recommend visiting the GMX YouTube page to watch continually updated videos from the con. Especially funny ones like this clip from the exceptional Geek Slam:

 

(Off Topic: I am working on a new theme and design for the blog. I like this one, but the background is just a placeholder. Let me know if you have any thoughts.)

Sep 23 2011

Back from JapanFest 2011

Sometimes I get so used to regular geeky/anime conventions that I forget that “normal people” actually go to cultural festivals. That happened this time with JapanFest, Atlanta’s Japanese cultural festival, where I helped with some of the anime viewing content. Turns out, Akira and New Cutie Honey aren’t the most family friendly titles (retrospect d’uh). Thanks to my good friend Jess Merriman of MomoCon with helping in the selection.

I even had to quickly end my Cutey Honey: The LIVE clips in my “Tokusatsu Heroes” (Japanese super heroes) panel because it has partial nudity (sparkles cover the NSFW bits, but still…).

JapanFest is a rather large Japanese cultural event held every September in Atlanta, GA. It’s often on the same weekend as Anime Weekend Atlanta (which I also attend). This year, it wasn’t, so I got to stay the whole time. Again the con promo thing, as well as running panels and video.

I’m often surprised by how large JapanFest actually is. Anecdotal conversations said over 10,000 people, and I believe it. We ran through most of our promotional stickers and all of our fliers at the MTAC booth, and most of that was within the first day. I’m sure not being on AWA weekend helped, but it gets fairly large numbers anyway.

As a cultural festival, the big draws are the events and the exhibitions, of which I hardly got to see. The exhibition hall was littered with vendors and sponsors selling and promoting. Including a bunch of Yamaha vehicles. More importantly and probably just as big of a draw, the exhibition holds a popular food court of various Japanese restaurants. I was able to get some delicious okonomiyaki for just $3.

It’s nice to see so many different people from what I typically see at anime and geeky conventions. As a promoter, I get to reach a slightly different audience. As a people watcher, I get to see a new variety of people who aren’t all used to the foreign and “strange” costumes and content that I more or less see all the time at anime shows.

As a panelist, it’s a different experience as the audience for this rendition of my Tokusatsu Heroes panel seemed less interactive but just as interested versus the other cons I’ve presented this at.

JapanFest falls in September every year, also known as the month I might as well live in Atlanta. As mentioned, it’s around or during AWA as well as near to Dragon*Con. All three are worth it for  the trips. JapanFest is a more peaceful show, partially because of it only being two days and no night content, but also because the crowd is calmer. I’m glad Nashville has been getting a similar event in the spring, with the three-year-old, one-day Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival, but I don’t see that supplanting the interest in going to JapanFest.

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Off topic: how do you prefer seeing titles of works protrayed on the web?

  1. Bold?
  2. Italics?
  3. Underlined?
  4. “Quotation marks?”
Aug 30 2011

NikoScream @ Dragon*Con 2011

It’s Labor Day weekend again, which means thousands and thousands of geeks and nerds will descend upon downtown Atlanta for the 25th annual Dragon*Con, a large multi-genre fandom convention.

It’s also the first con since 2007 that I’m going to and not promoting. Thanks to the very capable staff that MTAC and GMX has been amassing, it’ll be in good hands. While this will be my “vacation” con, I’ll still be doing some work in panels. Check below to see my panels and those I’m helping on.

My panels:

  • DC Animated Universe
    Friday at 2:30pm in the Dunwoody Room at the Hyatt (Animation Track)
  • Tokusatsu Heroes
    Saturday at 7pm in the Dunwoody Room at the Hyatt (Animation Track)

Panels I’ll sit on:

  • How to Run a Convention
    Monday at 1pm in the Courtland Room at the Hyatt (Anime/Manga Track)

Panels I helped on:

  • OTAKU JEOPARDY: Live-Action Edition
    Sunday at 5:30pm in the Courtland Room at the Hyatt (Anime/Manga Track)

If you’ll be in the area, hit me up on Twitter @nikoscream.