[Jas] Con View – Katuscon

Katsucon 19, this past weekend in National Harbor, MD! Let’s start by saying that this isn’t my first time at Katsucon. I went last year for Katsucon 18, although I took a Megabus last year (which wasn’t the best of trips, but that was a monster of it’s own).  Last year was Yu-gi-oh year for our little cosplay group, and it was a blast! I had a lot of really fond memoriesfrom Katsucon last year and I was super excited for the convention this year!  This year, I drove to a friend’s house for a group carpool to the con center itself, which is none other than the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center. It’s LOVELY there, really!!

Photo c/o James Wu

Yellow Jeep road trip time!

Pre-con. I actually only debuted 2 new cosplays for this convention: Riza Hawkeye and Kiki. The other two I had already done and just fixed certain parts of them for the con: Princess Peach and Alibaba (Magi). It ended up being a kinda squished line-up. I had 3 costume changes on Saturday!! @_@ I’ve never done something like that before! Normally I only do one cosplay a day, so I had to try and plan things out pre-con even though there wasn’treally a lot of sewing to be done.

Katsucon! We got to the convention relatively early on Friday morning and since our room wasn’t ready, they gave us a king bed room with a cot instead. Now, this is where the convention drama began. If you’ve been following the tags on Tumblr or Twitter, then you probably know all about the situation that happened the con weekend.

*photographer friend posted photos, started screaming, forgot about this post, oops*

[JT's note: Jas sort of glides through some details that might make things a little confusing.  To get the full reasoning behind her mentioning certain events, such as the gazebo, check out Twitter and Tumblr.]

AWESOME hall cosplay!!

So, anyways. Long story short, the Gaylord was double-booked with two rather large conventions. B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) and Katsucon. There was a redic amount of miscommunication between the two cons about space in the hotel, and there was also a lot of hate that got thrown around on each side. Katsucon isn’t innocent by any means, though I don’t think BBYO is totally innocent either, and the Gaylord itself has to share in the blame as well. I didn’t have any bad experiences and everything I have heard is second hand, through posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Blogs, and Facebook. While I was taking pictures on Saturday, we met a large group of BBYO kids and they were really nice! They wanted to take pictures with us and we told them about what we were doing and they all complimented our costumes. They were really sweet! I don’t think barriers were really needed, and since I never really take pictures in the gazebo, I wasn’t going to complain too awful much about losing that space. The gazebo is ALWAYS crowded anyways, it’s nearly impossible to get photos there without a crazy wait. Although, in the end BBYO ended up splitting that floor with us and allowing us to use the gazebo to take photos, which was very considerate of them to allow the shared space. I heard bad things happened to others, but nothing personally happened to me, so I won’t comment about those things.

look at my gay porn yum! :3

The artist alley and dealer room were both awesome! I didn’t buy as much as I do at other cons, and I actually didn’t get ANY blind boxes this time around! :OTHAT IS SHOCKING I TELL YOU! (They actually didn’t have that nice of a blind box selection sadly…nor was there that much food/snacks…DEPRESSING!) OTP was there though, and that was where I spent the majority of my money XD NO REGRETS!! There were a lot of amazing artists in AA and I knew a few people who had tables, so I spent a while in there as well!

I didn't attend any panels this time and instead I spent my time hanging with my friends, roomies, meeting new people, and having photo shoots! I never even really had to drag DSLR around, because I never had any time! So instead…I let Sarah borrow my camera for all of Sunday!!

Although ,I tried to take some pictures out the window while driving of the sunset…needless to say that didn’t work out too well. >_>;;

Cosplay lineup:

Friday: Alibaba, Kiki a little at night

Saturday: Alibaba, Princess Peach, and Riza Hawkeye

Sunday: Kiki (Kiki's Delivery service)

Me, as Alibaba Photo c/o Karina the amazing god-like photographer

Look a pineapple! (inside joke)

Post-con/Conclusion (Katsucon term paper) It was tiring (all them costume changes) But I got to hang out with friends I haven’t seen in AGES and got to meet some awesome new friends as well! I got to work with some AMAZING photographers who put up with all of our crazy nonsense requests and who started cranking out photos before I even unpacked my bags! SO THANK YOU EVERYONE! The drive home was tiring and I HATE TOLL ROADS, DAMN YOU I-76!!! Also, jeep wranglers don't mix well with wind, and I don't like being sandwiched between semi-trucks. (Do you hear all their lovely mating calls? Look at those ones mating right out in the open! THERE ARE PIGS IN THERE PIG BUTTS RIGHT BY THE WINDOW!) And also, spur of the moment storm clouds (What is that? A pineapple.) Aka. You never want to ride in a car with Sarah and I. (We meowed along to about 4 K-pop songs.)

Katsucon2014? Will probably be seeing you then, but, until then…Tekkoshocon is next comingup April 5-7^th in the lovely city of Pittsburgh, PA!!