KawaKon is over for another year. I hope some of you made it, it was great fun. Our next convention happens in July - 24 Hours of Potter. I hope I can survive that one lol
The con went well, I think, Registration was busy most of the time. I worked there all day Friday and Saturday and about an hour on Sunday. I never found time to go into the Dealer's Room, but that only means I didn't spend any money. I never saw the guest either, Quinton Martin, I heard he looks like a hobbit, though, and likes to flirt. There were some very interesting and well made costumes there. I saw a very good Charizard, and an Abby from NCIS. I awarded both of them cosplay hall awards to put on their badges. Also to the girl who played Grell from Black Butler. The ladies from Three Rivers Okiya were there and did their formal tea ceremony, and Steve and Cathy Swope put on a balljoined doll tea party. Friday night there was a Gotham Mystery Social which I hear went well, I sold 32 tickets for that.
Friday night Harley and I showed Repo! the Genetic Opera. Before that, I went to Sarah, my daughter's, Wheel of 4chan event. She and Elaine were doing that, and what I saw of it went very well, and everyone was having fun. We were very lucky after that - a guy was dressed as Graverobber at the con, and found out about the showing of Repo!, so he 'crashed' the showing and did all Graverobber's lines! Our security chief, Deech, dressed as the Repo Man and did his! It was amazing.
Saturday night, I sat through the showing of Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice. I was the only one that stayed til the end. Some left for the yaoi panel, and some did not care for it. Hanzo is an acquired taste, I think, it's the most sexual samurai film I've ever seen, and you really don't see anything explicit, but you know what's going on. The same actor who played Zatoichi played Hanzo - Shintaro Katsu. After that, it was Rocky Horror time! For Repo! we had cupcakes and Zydrate, and we threw out fake body parts. On top of the cupcakes, we had gummy brains and kidneys. For Rocky, we had cupcakes with gummy lips, soda and leftover Zydrate, and frozen chocolate covered bananas. We sold loot bags too, in tote bags donated by Dreamspinner Press. First we had the Virgin Sacrifice - our virgins paired up and had to put condoms on bananas, after which we allowed the audience to molest them. Then, before we could start the film, there was a bit of an interruption. We noticed the lights seemed to be flashing, but we attributed that to the Rave which was going on beneath us, as well as the noise, and didn't think hard about it til someone came in and said there was a fire alarm and they were evacuating the hotel! So at about midnight we all trooped outside into the cold. Some people were barefoot, others scantily clad. We stood there til we got the all clear to go back in. I heard it was a transformer on the fourth floor that blew, and that after that a guest got overexcited and went into cardiac arrest. Once we reassembled in the showing room and got settled, I delivered the oath (I've always wanted to do that lol) and started the movie. It turned out that a guy who was in the audience (a really tall guy with shoulder length hair, wearing a Lolita dress) knew all the responses, and he made them, which was great! Steve Swope dressed as Janet, but I didn't get to see, cause he wore a coat over it and I only realized it was under it when it was too late. But he did responses too, including going up to the screen for the chinfuck and spinning of the world. It was tremendous fun! But with the delay and then the time change and then cleaning up rice afterward, it was 5 before I got to bed, and I got up again at 8.
Sunday I sat at Registration for an hour, then I went to my samurai in the cinema panel with Mikhail. I was so nervous! I was afraid I would totally screw up. Mikhail reassured me and told me not to be nervous, and I think the panel went well. It was fun. Not well attended, but fun. The head of Three Rivers Okiya, Yasmine, who is a very very nice lady, was there. I think I talked to her more this weekend than at any other con. I'm glad I did. We gave out prizes, including a copy of Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, which we then showed. I only nodded off in it once lol By the time that was done, Closing Ceremonies were under way, so Sarah and Erin and I went down there, but didn't go onto the stage, as I've done before in the past. After that, it was time to clean up, then the con chairs ordered us some Chinese food - we ate and went home. By ten I was wiped out, and went to bed til 8:30 the next morning.
I have to say that running a con is a great deal of work, but it's done with a great deal of affection and enthusiasm. I much prefer staffing a con to simply going. I like to help people have a good time, and I enjoy running Registration because everybody comes there at some point, and paperwork suits me pretty well, plus I am really anal about doing things, and I am good at handling money. This was the first year I ever did a showing, and we did two - Repo! and Rocky Horror. I think we'll do it again next year, it was a lot of fun.
I hope we'll have a BishieCon this year. Bishie is smaller than Kawa, but in its way it's more fun, because it's more intimate and laid back. The people who come to BishieCon are those who enjoy m/m romances and yaoi, not battle scenes and such particularly. I would like to be a guest at a con some day, I think that would be fun. Dreamspinner was the guest publisher last year, and if I hadn't already been working the con, I could have been a guest, but I was so I couldn't. C'est le vie.
That's it for now, KawaKon is done for another year. I'm ready not to be working on con stuff for a little while, I think. But soon. Very soon I know it'll lure me back again.
