{"id":6149,"date":"2014-07-08T08:30:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T15:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/?p=6149"},"modified":"2014-07-08T08:30:45","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T15:30:45","slug":"gamcon-2014-the-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/08\/gamcon-2014-the-first\/","title":{"rendered":"gamcon 2014, the first"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks again to GAMCON for having me at their event last weekend! It was The Bremerton Gaming, Anime, and Music Convention’s very first year, and the staff was all sorts of anxious to make sure attending professionals had a good time. I felt very well tended. They had their share of first-year problems, but mostly, it looked like only their fair share – except, maybe, for running out of badge holders and lanyards. They only bought like 110, and those were gone in minutes. I’m told they got more later.<\/p>\n

I rode over on the ferry – I think it’s the first time I’ve gone to Bremerton as a passenger, so it was fun to get on and off the boat via the passenger terminal. Much cheaper, too, of course; bus to boat to CONVENTION! to boat to bus to home. And the convention facility was literally right next to the ferry terminal building, so it’s extremely practical.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

GAMCON’s dealer room had some size for a first-year, with a couple of more exposition-like booths, and a pretty good range of dealers. I talked with a maker group for a while, with a couple of educational groups, with some people who build entertainment systems, some artists – they had a lot of artists in the dealer room, lacking an art show – and I bought a Mockingjay pocket watch. I have a convention watch again! It’s been a while.<\/p>\n

But the best dealer had to be Team Rocket selling Pok\u00e9bathballs, which are not at all stolen and are most certainly not boobytrapped in any way.<\/p>\n


Not in any<\/b> way.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n


Larger at Flickr<\/a><\/i><\/center><\/p>\n

Other function space consisted of two primary function areas: an outdoor courtyard (concerts, original plan for cosplay competition, things like that) and the Fountain Room. Both spaces were pretty large, though the Fountain Room was a bit across-and-far from the rest of the event. Despite that, people found it. There was also what looked like a small tabletop area near registration, and a gaming trailer outside. I watched some Black Ops being played for a while, via the external display screen on the side of the trailer.<\/p>\n


There are fountains outside, but you can’t see them in this photo.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n

The cosplay event had to be moved inside because of light rain, so I’m not sure the outdoor part of that was the best idea. They had a lot<\/em> of entrants – I arrived late and didn’t get photos of everyone, but I still saw over 20 entrants.<\/p>\n

The format wasn’t like anything I’d seen before – no stage, more of a walkthrough on the same level as the audience, with classes of “beginner,” “experienced,” and “master,” and at least some awards given by popular vote. No sound support, and I’m not sure if their classes are supposed to correlate to the Guild tiers or not. But they did have a photo area, at the end of the hallway runway.<\/p>\n

There were a lot of hall costumers just wandering around – for such a small con, it sure had a lot of cosplay.<\/p>\n

I’m not posting all of the costume photos here, but I took a bunch – they’re on my flickr page<\/a>. But I’m posting this one, because…<\/p>\n


…now that is a goddamn scythe.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n


But flags make the best props. Even accidental exposures look awesome.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n

It felt right to one-day it; I really, really needed a day off, so I just kicked back Sunday and did pretty much nothing. But I’d go again next year, if they do it again, and were I in Bremerton or out on the peninsula in general I’d certainly give it a good look.<\/p>\n

Next weekend: Clallam Bay Comicon! It’s a weird one, on Sunday and Monday rather than Saturday and Sunday, because of Clallam Bay Comicon. Will it work? No idea. Let’s find out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks again to GAMCON for having me at their event last weekend! It was The Bremerton Gaming, Anime, and Music Convention’s very first year, and the staff was all sorts of anxious to make sure attending professionals had a good time. I felt very well tended. They had their share of first-year problems, but mostly, [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shows","category-tours"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}