Steve and I went with some friends of ours, a married couple who had gone a couple of years prior. The trip down was a lot of fun, including a sign at Smithfield Farm advertising "Used Cows". Insert *several* jokes (mostly off-color) here.
We brought some movies with us, along with my laptop, and various cables and such so we could MST3K some movies if the Sci-Fi channel wasn't as obliging as it generally is. We shouldn't've worried however. "Merlin's Apprentice" was more than adequate fodder - one reviewer even called it "a horrible flaming poop-fest". I love my boyfriend - he has such a way with words :). But I'm getting ahead of myself - this post is just going to be about Friday.
There were the usual issues with convention-going that we've come to know and (ahem) 'love'. Hotel patios the size of postage stamps, and Pre-registration lines taking about an hour, hour and a half for us to get to the front of the line, only to be told we weren't in the pre-reg system. However, the last batch of pre-registrations were found and we were taken care of in the next 15 minutes.
Let me just say here, that having worked conventions before, and experiencing Murphy's wrath, that considering the length of time that this was taking, most people seemed to be dealing with it rather well, on both sides of the desk.
The next hurdle came from the badge printers. The badges were hard plastic with full artwork, "Prometheus Unbound" by Michael Bielaczyc of Aradani Studio.
The badges were sturdy, and beautiful, but apparently the printers were stuttering and it took another 30-45 minutes to get them. Time well spent in the very comfortable chairs of the hotel bar adjacent to Registration - good planning Ops! ;)
We ate at the hotel restaurant - which has a great buffet with a nice range of variety, all for $10. I'd never seen the Chattanooga Choo-Choo hotel, but I thought that the train-car rooms were cool.
Though the map we saw had the programming, dealer's room, consuite, and art show all spread out, the distance wasn't nearly as far as it seemed it would be. The map was even kind enough to mark where the Mundanes were.
And of course, after traversing 4 days of GenCon, NOTHING else seems like it's too far at a convention.
The Consuite was actually a large building with a curtain dividing the several tables for gaming, a stage area for the robot wars (not the best pairing to be honest, IMHO) and the food/drink area, also spread out over several tables. They had a few different beers, including Killians and Shiner Bock (both quite good), and they always had some kind of food there (real food - chili, hot dogs, Little Debbies). Due to State Law, there was no beer between 2am-10am, but there was soda.
The parties were creative and fun, and there were a lot of bids there, including Raleigh's for NASFIC in 2010 http://www.RaleighNASFiC2010.org.
I had the pleasure of meeting writer, editor, and one of the original Girl Gamers: Lee Martindale http://www.harphaven.net/ there, and had we not been pressed for time in heading back home, I would have been able to attend the reading of her latest sale and gotten an interview. Though I hope to contact her and arrange a phone or Skype interview soon.
There was a PJ party Friday night (which became the Willy Wonka party Saturday), but more on that next post. It had been a 6 hour drive, and though a great deal of fun, we were TIRED, and the night ended a bit early for us.
Part 2 coming soon...
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