Ohayocon 2011

Before Ohayocon this year I had no idea that I would be going all three days. I thought that I would save money by only going one or two days because money had been tight. I only thought that, at most, I would be going the first and last day. However, that would mean that I would miss the third day, which is the longest day at the convention with the most things going on. At the very last moment, I cracked and bought a full 3 day pass. I figured that I had nothing else going on that weekend, and I would regret just sitting around the apartment for a day or two while a whole bunch of awesome was going on. I literally made the decision in the registration room.

I'm glad I did even though I spent the second day completely alone due to scheduling issues with the girlfriend and not being able to find anyone I knew before they passed out from lack of sleep. However, the girlfriend was with me the first and third day. She ran in to a whole bunch of people she knew. However, I probably would have to if I actually grew up in Ohio. I've only lived here for two years. By the way, this Chocobo was so freaking cute! I think I made him or her bashful or incredibly uncomfortable. Either way, awww!



One of our first stops was of course the dealer's room. This year, the dealer's room/artist's alley was in a brand new room. I looked for Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex merchandise, but it seemed few and far between. I finally decided on a GITS:SAC key chain, though.



The Ohayocon dance was moved to the old dealer's room location and the main event stage was moved to another new room. All three rooms were located on the third floor and the rest of the convention was closely compacted near the general vicinity of these rooms. This eliminated the need to walk or ride the trolley to the other side of the convention like last year. The convention felt smaller as a result, but in reality there were more people than ever and a decent amount of room to hold those people. I think it worked out for the better.



The major theme this year was steampunk, and there were many steampunk centric events. One of those events featured the below steampunk DJ rig. I later found out that this particular rig was featured in a Boing Boing article just a few months earlier. As you can see, it has since undergone some changes and upgrades.



I also spotted this awesome steampunk guitar at the same event.



However, the show stealer was this steampunk music box which one first place in the masquerade.



As I mentioned earlier, I spent the second day all by myself. While this did make the con less enjoyable, I made the best of the situation and enjoyed some panels and snapped pics in between. I couldn't help but feel like I was being followed, though. This bush gave me some weird vibes.



The convention was then raided by a Nerf Dalek. Security tried to handle the situation, but they were no match for even a single Nurf Dalek.



A creeper tried to take the Nurf Dalek out, to no avail.



Finally, order was maintained. The Dalek saw that it was no match for the darkness that lurks in the human mind.



The highlight of the third day was definitely Rikki Simons' panel. He is, of course, the voice of Gir on Invader Zim. The poor guy was sick so he could not do voices very well and was coughing at everybody, but he was still hilarious. My girlfriend got him to answer one of her questions.



A few days after the con, I myself became sick. The con itself kept me away from important things that I didn't realize that I was needed for and I got sick immediately after the day I took off to recover. I was going to use that time to be productive and catch up on everything but I was so bad off that I even had to call off sick from work. I have been working my butt off ever since so please excuse the late report.

However, I had a ton of fun this year, especially since I could actually see panelists with my new glasses. Last year, many panelists and especially Jonathan Coulton (during his concert) were fuzzy and featureless. It was the first time I started to contemplate whether I needed glasses or not. After almost a year of contemplating this, I finally decided that it wasn't particularly safe for me to drive without some form of optical correction.

This was my third year at Ohayocon. The other two years, I spent a considerable amount of time taking pictures and shooting video. This year, I decided to just enjoy the con more. However, I still took guite a bit of pics. You can view the rest in my Ohaycon 2011 Flickr set. I also edited together some of the video clips that I filmed and made the below video.



I am definitely going again next year. Space is just my thing and next year's theme will be space. I hope there's some Outlaw Star discussion.