First Visit To GEEK.KON

I can’t believe its already November! soon the snow will be flying and it will be bitterly cold.  Last weekend I traveled to Madison Wisconsin for the convention known as “Geek Kon” this was the third year it has been going on.

Unlike past years though Geek Kon was being held in a hotel, previously it had been held at the university of Madison.  Now like the title states this was my first ever convention so to anyone reading this my point of view may be skewed. I’d love to get anyone’s feed back though as some of the points I’ll mention I want to know if its universal or the con’s planning.

So the convention was held at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Madison. In June I scored a great deal $69.00 a night compared to the coc special of $109 a night. My hotel room had been paid in full and I didn’t share my room which was nice as I’ve heard from other people tend to cram in a room for a weekend to help on costs forget that mess.

The room was nice had an LCD TV and Directv with a lot of channels I was surprised on that fact. But lets move on to the convention it started Friday morning with registration. First off there was ZERO signage to indicate where to go I ended up following a crowd of cosplayers to the registration table .

After getting my press badge I wondered around quickly I realized the plan layout was less to be desired, directly behind the reg tables was the artist alley  maybe seven or so tables in a terrible layout litterly a small area even 5 or 6 people were “stuck” and had to be polite so we didn’t mow each other down and if you wanted to stop and look at the art you were being bumped.

I purchased a really nice Halo painting for my younger brother’s birthday after that I checked out the dealers room. I was actually one of the first people in the room once it opened and honestly I was excited to see what would be there. I guess there would be some really nice stuff that you can’t find typically or interesting items for purchase.

The room was again not very well laid out there was only one entrance and exit (same door) and it was just a double door. it was laid out in squares like the outer tables went around the room and then in the middle there was another square of tables. I don’t know if this is common but I’m guessing it is.

Being one of the first one’s in was nice because there was nobody to walk around or anything like that again the isles were way to narrow and not enough room once it got busy (as I learned Saturday afternoon). As for the unique awesome anime items I was hoping to see sadly just alot of figurines, messenger bags, wall scrolls and a lot of swords. Speaking of swords there were 5 different dealrs selling nothing but swords.

Youtube video by matilda860

There was even a full blown DVD dealer who ran a local shop in Madison and my god the prices were HORRID with a capitol H. I understand you have to cover your costs and you need to make a profit of some sort but charging $70 for a Code Geass boxset is terrible. All the DVDs were licensed shows and it was a large selection of stuff don’t get me wrong but nothing you wouldn’t find at Best Buy. The person running the booth excitedly said “10% off some DVDs” I wanted to laugh at him.

While in the dealers room I purchased a replica halo sword (the purple one) for my younger brother other than that I spent a whopping $2 dollars on myself a cute Haruhi poster. Oh and I bought a Raumanade  as everyone I’ve talked to say they are so good. I bought the cherry one and it smelled like a cheery Popsicle and the taste was so-so nothing special and a waste of $3.

After that I went to my room for a few hours and waited for the opening ceremonies to start. The room was large and a potem was setup the chairman of the convention addressed a room of maybe 45 people at best and then he introduced a few people and basically said “have a great time” was rather lackluster in my opinion.

I then checked out the gaming room which Geek Kon has a reputation of having a good selection this I can confirm is true it was rather big and several different options from NES to PS3. I found an open Genesis with Road Rash on it. I quickly went back to my childhood remember spending hours playing the game and wonder how I did so well as I kept crashing on corners or running into cars.

A lot of the panels were not in my tastes there were 15 panels by the same person about COSPLAYING, there were some on religion, steam century, creating  a web series or a web comic and really nothing about anime. Finally late in the night I went to a Fruits Basket panel and all it consisted of is discussing the show and manga it was very disorganized the but host tried to keep the discussion going as best she could.

It seemed like a lot of people either knew a lot or a little about the series and many people didn’t want to talk when the entire panel (if you could call it that) was about talking about the series if nobody says anything then nothing happens in the panel.  After a half an hour I excused myself and went to the viewing rooms.

an unrelated pic

I saw part of a show called “Nerdcore rising” in the “Geek” viewing room I then went to the “otaku” viewing room and caught the tail end of Lucky Star episode 4. The person running the viewing room was really nice, him and I discussed our home life, anime and any convention in Minnesota (as we were both from Minnesota).

Speaking of people I must say many of the people there were so nice I was able to just stand next to people and was included in their conversation or for example early in the con before anything opened I was wondering around and bumped into a small group and I hung out with them as we all wondered around together getting a feel for the hotel layout it was lot of fun being able to argue with people about the merits of what makes “Hitman Reborn” so good (don’t get me started lol) anime fans or I guess you say in general convention goers are nice and willing to talk to people outside of their usual people or the people who came with them. was very refreshing.

This is getting long so I’ll just hit the big things from here on out because if your reading this far I applaud you! The layout was good and bad the main headache was the main lobby, as it was big but a lot of people congregated in that area, blocking doors, standing in large circles and people taking photos or shooting videos. There was no place to go and it was very much a pain in the ass. because people refused to move several times I had to push my way though not forcefully but having to put my hands on anyone it terrible and you’d think kids would be smart enough to get out of the way of people walking though.

The main attractions the dealers room and artist alley was horrible cramped and when lots of people entered either one it was hard to leave I went to the dealers room Saturday afternoon and spent a few minutes just waiting to get out. The other problem was the staff, now don’t get me wrong the staff worked hard and were visible  and helped out when possible but they didn’t assert their authority.

For example there was a video crew interviewing people in really good cos-play well these idiots would set up their camera in the most stupid places. In front of the registration tables, in front of the dealer room door, in front of the hotel entrance. Hell I even tripped over their microphone cable, I felt bad for walking in their shot but being in front of the dealers room what a terrible place to do interviews. Not once did I see the staff tell them to move or do their interviews else where it was a mess.

overall I found the convention to be fun but with a lot of stuff that didn’t suit my pallet I didn’t do too much and I actually left Saturday afternoon and actually losing money because I didn’t use my final night of my hotel. I also think I would of had more fun if I went with someone else.

Pros:
+ Enjoyable people
+ Helpful staff
+ Great gaming room

Cons:
- Bad layout
- Dealers room had way to many duplicate dealers
- no areas to just hang out of the way.

Will I return next year? I honestly don’t know .