Hm yeah you’ve probably heard a fair bit about what a mess it was. I actually had a decent time with reg, it was about a 20-30 minute wait. The temperature of the hotel was definitely an issue as a suiter, fortunately I was able to handle the escalators better than expected. My main frsutration was with the schedule, stuff I wanted to do was all clustered together than then there were massive dead spaces (and then Sunday didn’t have much at all so I just went to explore the area and do some museums). I think the real sticker for me probably not returning next year is that dance comp and floor wars prelims were during prime panel hours vs earlier in the morning/later in the evening as Megaplex does. Not gonna go into detail to not stir up drama but I’m also pretty pissed that I feel like I’m technically better than ever and improved my mobility in Asterisk by changing the tail belt design but got snubbed for the the least competitive dance comp I’ve ever tried out for seemingly due to several factors outside my control (and they didn’t even give me prelims feedback). So missing out on most of the panels I wanted to do only to not get in anyways is a huge damper on me returning until they can straighten/fill out their schedule better. I do plan to film a dance video to the song I planned to do just to stick it to them once I get a free cool morning to do it. I picked a really weird cool song that fit the theme and anything and I think it was partly just too weird for these guys.

That being said, they had some neat musical stuff there that really motivated me to get practicing that again. There was a person showing people some basics on guitar/bass on Rocksmith in the game room that was a cool hidden gem. I do think the con has potential and a big market but it was so frustrating and just not that fun that I’m probably going to try ANE and possibly Megaplex by train next year if I can modify Asterisk’s head to be more compact for travel. If FD improves I’ll look into doing it in 2024 though.

I was in a better mood outside the con issues though and I’m happy to say I’m more connected with Asterisk as a suit again, I’ve done some tweaks on it that improved comfort and mobility a lot and belly dance classes have given me a lot of fun new movements to use with the character. The horse armor at the art museum also really makes me want to complete my industrial hippogriff I’ve had in stasis for two years even if I’m wary about it not being compatible with con spaces like FD with the platform boot based feet (not having headless lounges on both levels was another irritant)