C O N R E P O R T
 | MarsCon 2007
When: March 2nd-4th 2007
Where: Bloomington, MN
What: A fan run Sci-Fi Con in Minnesota where we ran a room party. |
So, we decided to go to
MarsCon again this year, to promote
NoBrandCon by running a room party. Before I go into the full story, I'll point you to my vlog entry about it if you want the visuals and the highlights:
Vlog #21 - MarsCon 2007Anywho, let's get on to the full, gritty details, shall we?
So, as we did last year, we decided to head to MarsCon on the Saturday, skipping the Friday portion of the convention. Last year, we took four cars - this year we decided to just take three instead. Liz (blue.gonturan) and TheHerald headed over to the cities in the morning as they wanted to go to the convention. We learned from last year that the rooms wouldn't be ready until later, so those of us just going to run the room party gathered at the OA house in the early afternoon.
We ended up leaving later than expected, but were on the highway eventually. Bears^3, Crysta (itsatrap) and I rode with Belkie - while Stan, Bikkle, Mike (RedPracticeNinja), and Joey the Passion Hitler (worst. nickname. ever.) rode with SeanOrange. Thankfully, the blanketing white snow that had been hammering our area for a week decided to take the weekend off. We arrived at the hotel... and found out that getting our room was going to be more complicated than thought.
You know, the rooms reserved in our name?
Well, apparently the hotel needed MarsCon staff to okay the rooms... which they did... eventually... we spent a good twenty minutes waiting around for it though.
On the way to get stuff to bring to the room, I ran into a familiar face I hadn't seen in a very, very long time - Brian Graupner. It turns out that his band,
The Gothsicles, had played at MarsCon the night before. Talk about small world syndrome, eh?
Anyway, after we got up to the hotel room, we began setting up for the party. We had two rooms reserved that were adjacent to each other (1301 and 1302). We had decided to make one side the party room, and the other side a NoBrandCon staff only side. 1301 was slightly larger (and had a couch) so we made it the "party" side. We had also decided that our room party was going to be 21+ this year, to avoid other problems. Because of this, we decided to create a NoBrandCon themed drink, so Liz came up with something called the "Greenboy" (after one of the con mascots). The Greenboy is effectively a Screwdriver, with some Creme de Menthe and Lemon Juice.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Some of the staffers went out with flyers to plaster the hotel with advertising our party, while I hung up the banner (seen at the beginning of my vlog to see what it looks like). We also thought Mike had brought an RF Modulator to hook up a DVD player to the TV. Mike didn't.
I hit my head against the wall repeatedly in my mind.
Since some people were going to the Mall of America for dinner though, we just had them pick one up. TheHerald went down to the con, while everyone but me and Bears^3 went to dinner. I got everything else into position for the party, got into my Gardening Ninja Costume, and put up flyers around the room party floor.
Our room party was also going to be Ninja themed... so when everyone got back to the room, I helped most people make T-Shirt ninja masks (not everyone has full ninja costumes sitting around like I do). Liz set up the "Booze Window" (we put a table in front of the adjoining doors to control alcoholic output), and we got ready to open. I hooked up the RF Modulator that Mike bought during dinner - at which point, ironically, it would turn out that SeanOrange had an RF Modulator with him the whole time.
Head. Against. Wall.
I hooked up a PS2 to the TV though, to function as a DVD player, and put in our first movie: Kung Fu Hustle (Yes, I know, that's a Chinese movie... but we were taking the theme liberally, not literally). That night quite a few things happened - one, we found out that the Greenboy was an INCREDIBLY popular drink. We became slightly famous on the party floor for it. Secondly, SeanOrange has terrible Karaoke taste (Paradise by the Dashboard Lights? Give me a friggin break man...).
I ended up spending a good amount of time hanging out with Julie, her boyfriend whose name I have now officially forgotten 50 bazillion times (and I feel very guilty about that), her friend Vanessa, and another friend whose name I have also forgotten who disappeared for large portions of time. Julie drew very strange pictures for people - which you can see one in my vlog. I also spent a good amount of time talking to Brian Graupner... who was fairly drunk and in a starfleet uniform. All in all, it was a pretty good party.
I ended up crashing though around 3:30am, as I was sick, and not about to pull my usual con all-nighter. On the bed in 1302 was myself, Crysta, Liz and Belkie. TheHerald grabbed some floor, while Stan and Bikkle took the bed in 1301, Joey the Passion Hitler took the couch, and everyone else went out to have fun over at Karaoke. As the night went on, more people filtered back to the hotel room. At first, almost everyone who came back was over in 1301 (as it was bigger), until Mike (our last straggler) came back and was placed on the bed in 1301.
And he started snoring.
When I say that Mike snores loudly, understand that I am a person who prefers noise when I sleep. Understand that Crysta always tells me to turn down the TV. Understand I slept through a fire alarm once. As Mike's snoring continued (and I woke up), people started to filter into 1302. By the time the night was over, there wasn't an inch of floorspace, and the only people left in 1301 were Mike... and Bikkle, who could apparently sleep through an air raid.
In the morning we cleaned up, we checked out on time, and had a pretty uninteresting drive home. I know, not all that interesting to write about, but it was fun none the less.
MarsCon was awesome, and I hope to go again next year.
