Once you do something, you never forget. Even if you can't remember.

Sakuracon...

What can I say? I had a great time, but #1aminefan had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the Seattle Convention Center when it was time to go. She told me early on that she was "in her element." I'll say.

We arrived early Friday and faced the only low-point, if you can call it that, of the trip. There seems to be something built into the nature of the these conventions where the organizers are genetically incapable of running an orderly registration. We waited in line six hours to get into this thing. I was cool until the very end when we were finally just a few feet from the registration counter but the convention workers kept bumping VIPS who had just arrived to in front of us. Thus the last hour in line was spent just a few feet from registration.

When I finally got up to the registration counter I didn't say anything until they insisted I pay for the whole weekend even though we weren't going to be there Sunday and we had missed most of the Friday events because of their lack of organization. I laid into the poor little volunteer but backed off failry quickly as it really wasn't her fault and this wasn't about me, it was about my daughter and she didn't care.

(This guy with the giant sword in the registration line was obviously compensating.)

Once we got into the Convention Center it was cool. #1Animefan was ecstatic, like a kid in a candy store. This thing was BIG. At least four times as big as the convention in Portland.


The first thing she wanted to do was head to the park attached to the center to join a "glomping game." "Glomping" means hugging in the cosplay lexicon. It was a hugging version of spin the bottle.

After that we headed over to the vendor hall to check out the swag.

About this time my daughter ditched me for some friends she'd made so I checked out the video game hall which had classic and newer games and systems. My favorite thing was this stage with Rock Band hooked up. They were running contests on the stage and the guys playing were really, really good.
They had tabletop and miniature gaming rooms, so I popped in those to see what they had. I was a little disapointed that Monsterpocalypse was a no show. I wanted to see that game played since I first read about it and this seemed like the perfect crowd to sell it to. Oh well.

I visited Artist Row. Great artists here.

The costumes were even more amazing than the last convention we went to. Some of the sights we took in...

(These guys were on hand-made stilts with air compressors. Pretty incredible.)

(Salt-bacon man was actually pushing product, not attending the convention.)

(There are even conventioneers in the trees.)

My favorite costume: this little girl in the Gir costume was arguing with her parents. I asked them if I could take her picture and they smiled and said yes. You can see by her face she wasn't happy about it.