The Holiday Suckers

[Sliceanddice]

Ok me and my friends where talking about D*Con and the finances involved in going, and i pointed out that the prices where higher in the three key hotels (Hyatt, Hilton, and the Mariott) because they where the ones most people think of and with the increased demand for their rooms, because non con-goers would want to stay there. Another friend said and its labor day weekend, holiday rates and all.

It made me think because of the increased people the staff must go nuts.

So this is a call,
I wanna here storys about guests during Con seasons....

Just because i wanna see if they are funny as i think.

[JustADude]

Nothing really funny, but I once stayed in a hotel room for a Con like 30 minutes from my house just so I could run until I crashed and not have to worry about driving back. Mom payed for the room as my birthday present, which was literally the Saturday in the middle of the Con.

I did, indeed, stay up from 9am Friday until 2am Sunday, thanks to a diet of imported Japanese sugar and caffeine, using the room only to drop off several armfuls of stuff from the Dealer Room and take a shower around 4am Saturday morning. I'm apparently also godlike at DDR when I've been up for 35 hours.

[Andara Bledin]

I did, indeed, stay up from 9am Friday until 2am Sunday, thanks to a diet of imported Japanese sugar and caffeine, using the room only to drop off several armfuls of stuff from the Dealer Room and take a shower around 4am Saturday morning. I'm apparently also godlike at DDR when I've been up for 35 hours.

Muscle memory. Your body knows what it's doing and the commands go stright from input (seeing the arrows) to output (dancing) without any sort of interference from your psyche (omg, I'm not good enough do that!). I do that with things like Tetris. I once played a long game while paying attention to a conversation on the other side of the room; I could see the monitor off to the side of where I was actually looking. It was one of my best scores ever.

^-.-^

[FenigDurak]

When Star Wars Ep III was premiering in theaters, a group of my geeks and I (hehe!) banded together with a local movie theater to have fun games and prizes and festivities in conjunction with the midnight preview and the opening day stuff.

I was mid costume contest judging (in Leia, of course!) when a guy came up to me, introduced himself as an employee of the Mariott that hosts the large con out this way and handed me a Star Wars pin. It was apparantly an employee gift thing for the con. -=shrug=- That's really about it.

As for Dragon Con...A guy I know told me today he'd rather go to D*Con than Comic Con because it's less crowded. I laughed at him till I nearly peed.

[Jinxy]

I have a long long history of working and going to cons and have never not stayed in a con hotel, it's closer to the action, and always more interesting.
I always can tell who the new employees at a host hotel, they're the ones who have this wide-eyed look, it's not like they haven't been warned, it's just that they don't really believe what they've been told.
I'll be at D-Con this year, the bf is working and I'll be kicking back and enjoying myself, we live about 45 mins away and made sure we got a room.

Jinxy

[Decker]

I'll be at Connecticon this year, so if anyone is around, look for the quiet dude in the black fedora.

[Jinxy]

I'll be at Connecticon this year, so if anyone is around, look for the quiet dude in the black fedora.

Heck if enough people are going we should have a meet up

Jinxy

[friendofjimmyk]

So, what types of conventions do people usually attend? When I hear convention, I think of the NA conventions I go to and they aren't like what you guys are talking about...well, I guess in their own way they are.

In regards to the last convention I went to - I was the programming chair and responsible for getting all the speakers together for the weekend. Even though the hotel was merely 15 mins down the road from my house, I stayed the weekend at the hotel. Our first workshops started early, so I went to bed around 5am to get up and open the first workshop at 7am. It was fun. I had a blast. But I needed all day Sunday to sleep to recoop!

[Rolling Star]

I've never been to a con, although I really want to go. It's too expensive for me...

[Andara Bledin]

I've been attending conventions since fall of 1990. I've been to 3 gaming cons a year (except 1) since I started going. I usually work as staff in the computer gaming room, so I'm something of a fixture. I've both stayed in the hotel and done a commute (I live 20 minutes from the convention hotel) and I much, much prefer to stay there. Nothing like playing some console game until 3am then dragging my tired ass to bed so I can be up to open up the room again at 7 the next morning.

I also go to various fan conventions, including several furry conventions (always stayed at the host hotel), San Diego Comic Con (there is no host hotel since it's mega huge, bordering on way too large), and a couple of anime cons which were either one-day things, or in one convention's case, we had relatives within 5 miles of the place.

If you have the money, it's much better to get a room on site. Most conventions have events going around the clock and you can also hit up room parties in the evenings and not worry about having to drive anywhere.

^-.-^

[Enjis]

Anthrocon. It is REALLY the con to go to for weird hotel experiences!
Fursuiters galore, anthropomorphic art and books, a HUGE dealers room and art show...and dozens and dozens of fans dressed as 'furries'. (7 thousand fans attend every year)
The hotel has no problem with us, and I help do security with my gang of friends.
The con is 24 hours for 4 days, and people are roaming around the hotel wearing costumes, tails, painted faces...you name it.

They are also going to local restaurants wearing the stuff.
Ah, good times.

[Jet]

I've been to AnimeIowa and Reactor, both were pretty fun. I wanted to go to Acen but it looks like it will be only AnimeIowa this time around.

[Sliceanddice]

i want to go to D*Con and i cold afford it if my transmission didnt need to be rebult back in feburay....

the closes thing ive ever been to a convention was the game event i went to wehn i was 8 and played pog and other games for like 16 hours... util my aunt who took dicovered they where all evil sinners and dragged me out.

[mischugenah]

Muscle memory. Your body knows what it's doing and the commands go stright from input (seeing the arrows) to output (dancing) without any sort of interference from your psyche (omg, I'm not good enough do that!). I do that with things like Tetris. I once played a long game while paying attention to a conversation on the other side of the room; I could see the monitor off to the side of where I was actually looking. It was one of my best scores ever.

^-.-^

LOL I always called that 'zen gaming', when you're so tired or distracted that your brain stops getting in the way. It's amazing!

[Tigress]

The staff at the Sheraton where Animazement is held could take or leave us. Some of them royally hate us. Some of them love us and want to see all the pretty costumes. Some of them just think of it as part of the job.

The poor people leaving on Thursday or Friday just don't know what to make of us.

I've never encountered this myself, but I have heard stories of convention-goers getting harrassed by "normies" also staying at the hotel. The normies will tease them, throw things at them and even assualt them. The closest I've come to that was during my first convention, when I went down the road to grab something to eat while still in costume. An older couple called the manager to complain about my distracting costume, but the manager simply explained that I was part of the convention going on down the road.

This year, a bunch of friends and I went to a Chinese restaurant. I had changed into street clothes so I wouldn't get anything on my costume. However, one of my friends was still wearing his pirate costume and was getting all kinds of stares. He
started hamming it up, doing a bad Jack Sparrow impersonation and pretending to be drunk. It was then that I wished I still had my ninja costume on because I pretended to "support" him on our way out.

Then last weekend, I popped in to work after I had come back from a convention so my husband could pick up some stuff on my employee discount. I still had on my costume and got a lot of stares and sniggering. Screw you, people. Your kids want to take pictures with me and I look awesome!