Travel Journal: FL Supercon '14

Downtown Miami on the 4th of July

My time at FL Supercon was spent almost entirely behind a booth but I feel that the adventure is no less worth of being written. The adventure starts on Wednesday, the day before the convention. While on a break at work I took a few minutes to refresh myself on the exhibitor code of conduct and was surprised to see that the event started on THURSDAY, not Friday, as I had previously thought. In a panic, I contacted my partner in crime Peter Pepper (whom I would be sharing a booth with) to inform him that we'd have to depart a full day earlier than expected, called out of work for Thursday, finished out the day at work, and rushed to prepare for the journey. The following morning at 6am Peter and I loaded up the tour van, got gas, caught a quick breakfast, and departed for Miami before 6:45am. The typical problems I've associated with the tour van were not present, save for a cluster of spiders guarding the fusleodge. We arrived at the con, timely at 10:10am, unloaded, and moved dozens of boxes to our booth, #314. Notably my wheeled tote broke, making the loading process more difficult than it should have been. In a flash we set up the booth and were ready for business by con opening.

As I started to play accordion, which is what I do when I'm at these conventions, an awesome cosplayer immediately ran to the booth, face full of recognition and a huge grin. After a few awkward moments of big hugs and greetings where I had no idea who I was talking to she finally identified herself as Destiny Faith-Hope, a close friend, battle-sibling, a former neighbor, roommate (who had moved to Mississippi years ago), and a former member of Random Encounter! It turned out she and her S.O. Rob Smith III (who is also a former roommate, neighbor, battle-brother, and close friend) were not only in Florida, but were the booth next to mine! Neither of us had recognized each other at first, until I started playing music. There was a lot of catching up throughout the weekend. I've missed them both and it was really cool to run into them.

Throughout the day I played accordion, sold CD's, introduced people to my band, and got to chat with some really interesting folks, including 2 members of the band Hypnotic Tones, which i'd never heard of but now like. The first evening, after the con closed at 7:30pm, Peter and I caught food with some of his friends at a German (actually Austrian) restaurant, joined them at their house later, and I got to play with a quasi-Egyptian short-haired cat which was extremely playful to the point where I'd compare its behaviors to being dog-like... It even enjoyed playing fetch and fell asleep on my lap!

The next morning we were back at the booth by 10:10am (traffic), and played music. When Peter left to go hang out with the cast of the Walking Dead a number of people asked if I was Peter Pepper, which greatly amused me, and later in the day a messenger with a short blue wig and big glasses stopped by to give me a mysterious hand written note, sealed with an octopus pin. When I looked up from the note the messenger was gone and I was left with an anonymous letter of admiration. It was really elegant, written in cursive. It talked about my "ashen locks" and how my accordion playing, seen from afar, had tugged at the heartstrings of the author, and how s/he did not want to talk to me for fear that I would steal his/her heart. As I'm the one in the band most easily described as "the one with the hat and the broken nose", and with the other bandmates being more good looking than myself, such a politely written letter of admiration caught me quite off-guard. Peter suggested that perhaps I got it because I was approachable, but I was quick to point out that I hadn't technically been approached.

The day went on, more people were met, and I spoke at length with the makers of Sanctum Polis, a new retro RPG i'm interested in. Peter, friends, and I caught a 4th of July dinner at an Asian diner in downtown Miami called Bonding, and we shared food as random people shot of fireworks in the streets, oddly close to and the skyscrapers we were near. We missed the big fireworks display and caught a silly 80's movie about a boy who gets kidnapped by aliens and travels at the speed of light for 8 years. Before I fell asleep I noticed a business card one of our friends had that matched the artwork on the pin from the aforementioned letter and used my phone to find the location of the artist's booth at Supercon.

The following morning we arrived a little bit early so I stopped by the booth of the artist who made the pin (from the letter), casually said "I got your letter", handed her a CD, and walked away. The letters were really flattering, so I thought no harm in it. It was only an hour later that I realized that the woman's expression was more confused than the face of someone trying to hide the fact that they'd been found out. So, I went back to the booth and explained myself to her. She said that a Frenchman had given them (her and the guy at her booth) a 2 page poem about their art as well, albeit not anonymously, and suggested that perhaps the Frenchman liked my work as well... But the handwriting from their note (which they wanted to show me) wasn't cursive and was signed completely differently. Odd... The three of us laughed about it and I went back to my booth to continue the day. Throughout the day I saw familiar folks from Sanshee, fellow vendors and artists from cons past, people who i'd met at Megacons and Shadowcons of years past, people i'd never met before who knew of Random Encounter from Spotify/iTunes/Youtube/or the general internet, and a lot of people who had seen our performances with Video Games Live. At one point I met a guy who had seen us back in 2007. The conversation went something like
"Holy S***! Random Encounter! I remember you guys from 2007, you guys were awesome!"
Me: "Then I have some extremely good news for you... we got a lot better."
Hilarity ensued. Towards the end of the day the blue haired guy stopped by while I was in the middle of a conversation and said "message for you" while dropping something. Before I could stop him he'd already run away and I had a second anonymous letter of admiration, this one describing that this person liked the music I was playing, specifically the Game of Thrones theme I'd remembered how to play earlier that day. It seemed that perhaps this wasn't a blast-letter series made by the Frenchman after all...

That evening we ate at a really nice French place we found on Yelp (I wish I'd remember the name). They had amazing cheeses and a Belgium chocolate moose that's the best I've ever had. I think Peter went off to party with the GoT cast or something. I went to sleep. The next morning, I alone went back to the booth, arriving an hour or so early. Somewhere mid-day my friend Jennifer (one of the con organizers) stopped by and chatted for awhile about how the convention was going. She also brought up the fact that I'd apparently met her sister and sold her sister an album solely on the fact that she (Jennifer's sister) had said "my sister will really like this", not knowing that Jennifer had backed that album on Kickstarter. Awhile later I got a really horrible photo with really good Khal Drogo and Peter Baelish cosplayers I won't post (it's REALLY bad), and played accordion some more. I gave a personal concert to some kids who had all of our albums but had never seen the band in person, and mid way through the day a girl stopped by with a mysterious note for me. I quickly asked her not to run and she said that she actually had no idea what the whole thing was about, but that she (bored) had been asked by a stranger if she could deliver a letter to me. The cover of the letter clarified "I seem to have lost my other courier" and once again the contents were sealed with a pin from the shop i'd visited the day before. The courier was just as amused as I was at the situation, which I fully explained, and agreed to try to counter-deliver a CD with the message "got your letters" (and mysteriously vanish like a ninja). The courier also verified that a woman had indeed given her the note (not that i'm against men admiring me, though I'm not bisexual/gay, I was just curious). It was only after the courier left that it dawned on me that she very well could have been the author.

Later in the day a man playing a saxophone, dressed as the Sexy Sax Man, stopped by and we totally jammed out on Careless Whisper. It's extra silly because my name is Careless and it was about mid way through the song that I realized that it was THE Sexy Sax Man! Peter (who had appeared with his camera at the last moment) caught a bit of the jam on camera and also verified that he was the real deal. It was pretty awesome and totally unexpected.

All in all, I pride myself most on making people smile, living up to the archetype of "entertainer/storyteller" and this weekend I brought smiles to dozens of faces of people who were clearly having a bad time (without telling them to smile, which I see as being rude). By playing my accordion (and making silly faces) I got three babies to flat out stop crying, two really distressed ladies to cheer up, and a guy who looked like he was going to fight someone to switch his mood a full 360 by the time they walked away. That was the real victory of the weekend. At the end of it all, still having some semblance of a voice not yet lost, I gave my best rendition of -72 hours- and while Peter, myself, and two friends were all packing up the booth, chatting about the weekend, I noticed a scrap of paper on the table that wasn't there a few seconds prior... It was a fourth note! This ninja had somehow solo-delivered a really nice thank-you card (for the CD, which she'd received) without any of us noticing its delivery! All of us were pretty impressed with the mystery admirer and loaded up the van in under an hour. We caught dinner on the rough side of town and drove back north well into the early hours of the morning, chatting about a fictional group of bad-land bandits we hope to write a silly story about one day.

Like I said before, though I spent 9 hours each day sitting at a booth FL Supercon was still quite the adventure. Here's to you, Supercon!

Con Review: Megacon 2014

Fun Fact: The chair is also balancing on top of something...
Photo by Brittany C. Horne Photography!

About 95% of my time at Megacon this weekend was spent from behind the table of my band's merch booth but I still feel like I have quite a lot to share. Let's start with some stats: This year Megacon grew exponentially from a normal, state-sized convention to a nationally epic 85,000 person super-convention! There were countless guest artists, special guests (including Stan Lee), and vendors which occupied the Orange County Convention Center's South Concourse (a move from the smaller West Concourse). To clarify: the line to get in on Saturday was so incredibly large that people literally wrapped around the convention center (exceeding a half mile of total line, but more likely a literal full mile of line i'm told!), cell phone reception in areas of otherwise good reception slowed and ceased altogether due to the extra 85,000+ people, and the halls were literally packed so tightly that it was neigh impossible to walk through without constantly touching or bumping into someone. The costumes were amazing, the people were friendly, there were cool things in sight every step of the way, and Megacon was better than ever this year!

Waking up at 4am on Friday

My story begins on the Friday morning of the convention at about midnight, packing my car full of my band's merchandise. With the assistance from my good friend Peter I was able to pack the car with over 1000 cd's, shirts, hoodies, stickers, posters, and all of the other merchandise that a band would need. This weekend I would be representing my band, Random Encounter. I slept for about 4 hours, woke up around 4:40am on Friday, and drove to meet with our guitarist Konami to pick up a few hundred copies of an album he forgot to bring to the last band practice (or just didn't have room for). We met at a shady gas station at around 5:20am, exchanged packages, drove our separate ways, and by 7:30am I found myself at the Orange County Convention Center loading docks. Moose (our drummer) arrived at around 8:15, about the time the doors opened and exactly the same time I got my exhibitor badges from the loading gate. We loaded in, set up the booth, he headed out, and I took a few minutes to look around the convention center.

LIFE SIZED RANCOR!!!

The amount of traditional vendor booths this year felt about the same as last year, with some natural growth of course. This year saw the return of the giant collection of robots (Literally. R2-D2 style robots, Daleks, etc), a series of star wars set replicas including a Rancor, a giant Lego area, a significantly larger artist alley consisting of up-and-coming artists, a larger guest signing area, and wider alleys for people to walk through. In the final minutes of my only real free time to walk through the convention center (before I had to go back to the booth to relieve Moose, so he could go home) my eye caught sight of a print that looked remarkably like something Charles Vess would make. Since he more or less stopped making prints YEARS ago I was in disbelief and started talking with the couple that owned the booth/company known as Chimera Publishing. We talked for maybe 10 or 15 minutes about art and artists, having a really great time. I learned that the image I saw was indeed a Vess print, and that they also had another print of his as well. Lacking a last minute birthday gift for my girlfriend (a huge Vess fan) I got both and victoriously returned to my booth, comically enough numbered "666." I'm not superstitious, but the number certainly helped people remember which booth to find us at. It also got me a lot of advice from superstitious individuals.

The 8am line on Saturday was said to be a MILE long,
extending well outside the entrance!!!

The doors opened and a flood of people came in. Over the course of the morning I gradually positioned my chair precariously atop the band's merch tote box and played songs while people walked by. I talked with a bunch of people, made friends, made fans, and made people smile. I think that's what I enjoy most about conventions, making people smile. I gave out stickers to kids and played music based on what people were wearing (Doctor Who was huge this year). I talked to pretty much everyone who walked by my booth regardless of ethnicity, age, or attire, and I've found over the years that some of the most interesting and friendly people are those you never thought you'd want to talk to: gruff punk rockers, the extremely Satanically inclined, older folks walking by with scowls on their faces. I really like cheering people up, entertaining them, and it was a pleasure to be the first accordionist ever seen by many I talked to. I caught up with old friends, played music, chatted, and gave my sales pitch nonstop until the doors closed. By the end of the day I was completely exhausted and fell asleep in a room (at a friend's house) that I was later informed contained a half dozen decomposing rabbits.

Among my favorite costumes of the weekend...

Day 2 was similar to day 2. Waking up at 7am to insane traffic; a blur of a day playing music, meeting with people, and selling merch. I forgot the cash box half way through the drive to the convention center and had to go back for it, waking up everyone in the house on accident. At the convention I watched as a "very straight man" hit on a "very cute girl", only to realize when she opened her mouth that she wasn't a girl at all. As Forbes Magazine suggested in their article on Megacon, geeky things are now becoming mainstream and as those people who would not refer to themselves as geeky are gradually introduced into this new world things like this will become more commonplace and "normal" folks will gradually find themselves liking things that were formally thought of as being reserved for the extremely geeky like anime, comic books, and (if I have anything to do with it) video game music. The future looks fun!

My chair only slipped once the entire weekend!

Cave Story: Download it for FREE NOW

Throughout the day I gradually got higher up on the chair, still recklessly balanced atop the tote, sold stuff with the help from a few friends like Peter Pepper, Kat, and Loki, and saw dozens of friends and fans from cons/shows past. Being my 4th year as a vendor at Megacon I've made quite a few friends and was pretty nostalgic at points through the weekend. There were more insane costumes, new friendly faces, and literally THOUSANDS of people walking by the booth every hour. At the end of the day my band played a show (the Ongaku Overdrive Megacon After Party) with Shammers, Sci Fried, and Marc with a C a few blocks away which I felt was a grand success. I slept on the sidewalk before the show started, was utterly exhausted before/after the show, and did my best to give a high energy performance and sing, despite having just played for maybe 8 hours a day for the past two days on no sleep. It was a great night and we didn't get to Moose's place to sleep until 2am, this time in the room NEXT TO the room with the decomposing rabbits.

Friendly faces at the rock show

I woke up on the morning of Day 3 feeling off. Undaunted, I got to the convention center by 8am, but I still felt sick, shaky, and tired. By the time the doors opened I phoned for backup and did my best to sell merch with Kat's help until Konami and Rook arrived. I played one final round of Ren and Stimpy's: Happy, Joy with a man dressed like Powdered Toast Man who stopped by the booth and was utterly exhausted. My bandmates took over the booth from there as I packed up and took the long walk back to my car. None of you will believe this, but I was able to spot Waldo again this year. I just wasn't fast enough to snap a good picture before he ran off and blended into the crowd. I was unable to find him again on my way back to the car. Traffic at 1pm was still pretty bad for Orlando traffic but it was nothing compared to the insanity of the Saturday crowd. 

Voltron anyone?

Megacon was an extremely fun time this year. It's grown a lot and and I feel I've personally grown with it. My only big regret this year is that I could not have been there longer but I am extremely grateful for all of the awesome people I was able to meet, and for having the ability to play a show within walking distance of the convention center this year! I'm already signed up for next year and can't wait. 

Who is awesome? This guy!

Feel free to share your stories from this weekend here or post pictures (or links to pictures/videos) in the comments section below!