Gallifreyan Travelogue
Mar. 15th, 2010 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lhskarkaSpent a weekend on Gallifrey at the end of February, selling the Doctor's game. Yes, it took me this long to post about it. Apologies in advance for the general lack of photos. My links are refusing to work.
Thursday, we:
Arrived in L.A. hours before the hotel would let us check in.
Took a trolley-bus-thingie to Manhattan Beach for the afternoon.
Ate lunch at Wahoo's Fish Taco. Which was very tasty - the closest thing I have actually had to it here is probably Chipotle, but this was better. It also amuses me that the only state where Wahoo has expanded is Colorado. Apparently it's surfer food no matter what kind of surfer you are.
Finally checked in to our hotel - our room had a balcony overlooking the courtyard/pool!
Swam and lounged in said hot tub and swimming pool. I think that my new definition of luxury is swimming under the open sky in February. *sigh*
Friday, we-
Set up the booth. GallifreyOne has to have the most relaxed dealers room I have ever worked. Although only having two products to display probably helped us with the relaxed feeling somewhat. And the con staff had very kindly arranged a table for us to run demos at right next to the sales booth, which worked really well!
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gmskarka went to meet up with a local friend of his for lunch.
I stayed to run things. Which was lovely - we had a great first-day response to the game - so much so that we were able to start making jokes about selling out by the end of the day.
Had a very nice dinner, and later watched the costumed attendees of a room party across the courtyard from our perch in the hot tub before heading off to bed. Because seriously - GIANT HOT TUB!
Saturday, we...
Wished that we had one or two more people to help run the booth so we could leave the table occasionally. Not that it needed more than the two of us at once, usually with me selling and Gareth running demos.
Met a troop of absolutely adorable mini-costumers. Four twelve-year-old girls, dressed respectively as Jabe of the Forest of Cheem (Bigger picture here.), Romana I, Jayne from Firefly, and a member of House Slytherin.
Did get out and see some of the con one at a time. I attended a lovely live interview with Louise Page, the costume designer for all of David Tennant's Who series, and heard about things like how Ten's costume was made from sofa upholstery and dozens of pairs of pants cut into suit jackets. :)
Got adopted by a very nice family from North Carolina. Mom, Dad and ten-year-old daughter. The game was a total hit with the ten-year-old, and they spent a lot of time just hanging out and chatting with us during the con.
Met a Dalek. A life size, talking, moving Dalek. Built onto a mini-motorized chair. Kinda made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Not kidding even a little. My inner child hid behind the couch when it talked.
Missed most of the Masquerade contest. - apparently, the tradition is to make the audience line up outside in the hallway and wait for admittance to the auditorium. Which can take a while - like over an hour. Gareth and I wandered away for dinner, and by the time we got back, the show itself was over and we only saw the contest winners. One of which was the young "Jabe" - she got best in show, because it was the first costume she had made on her own. So. Cute.
Sunday, we:
Did much the same as Saturday. Sold games, ran demos, larked out to visit panels here and there when we had time.
Missed the closing ceremonies, but for a good reason. Sarah, one of my best friends, lives in Long Beach, and she came up to go to dinner with us (at Ayara Thai), and avail herself of the GIANT HOT TUB and pool for the evening. We also made sure to indulge in a variety of exciting cocktails from the hotel bar. (Purely so they would validate her parking ticket, I swear! :))
Attended LobbyCon! Perhaps this sort of thing happens at smaller hotel conventions all the time, but this was the first of its sort that I had been to. All the attendees who were still around on Sunday night brought all the leftover booze and snacks down from their rooms and set it out around the lobby for general consumption. This included more than a few of the celebrity guests, as well as a ton of other fantastically fun people, all getting pleasantly smashed together and chatting all night.
Monday (aka FedEx can bite me day), was a giant ball of stress, sadly, with two amusing sidenotes:
We had to deal with the world's least-helpful counter-bint in the hotel business center, an encounter which left us carrying our booth display as checked baggage, and paying an inconvenience-fee for the priviledge of using a shipping company that we didn't want to use in the first place.
We almost missed our flight because when we got to the airport our airline had only one station open at check-in, and the brilliant-f-ing-airport employees decided to line us up both inside and outside the building without checking with one another, and then tried to tell the people leaving on the earlier flight that they had to check in after the people on the later flight.
Electric Boogaloo called us just before we shut off our phones on the plane to ask if she could go home from school sick, and we had to nix her plans to get a ride from the boyfriend and call my parents instead. *headdesk*
Amusing sidenotes...
The plane was delayed from take-off because one of the overhead compartments wouldn't close, so the flight crew had to ask for a roll of packing tape to close it with. If they had actually let us know that was why they were delayed, I could have given them mine, which I had in my bag right there in the cabin. This amused our flight attendant quite a bit. :)
And, I got to take my shoes off at airport security with this guy:
For those not in the know, that's Kyan, who was one of the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" hosts. I believe his speciality was "personal care and grooming", and I can vouch for the fact that he was certainly well-groomed. Including nicely upkept feet. ;)
Stuff to remember for next time (Because there will be a next time, oh yes!):
It would have been nice if we could have attended the "opening ceremonies" of the convention. They were held an hour before the dealer's room closed for the day, which struck me as odd, and included messages to the crowd from the likes of Peter Davidson and Steven Moffat.
We must remember to attend the theme party that some of the long-time con-goers hold on the first night. This years theme was The Titanic, complete with window dressing to make their room look like the side of a White Star ocean-liner. And when we met the lot of them later in the show, they turned out to be a lovely assortment of people whom I really would have enjoyed spending more time with.
This show has favors! It took me a day or so to figure out what they were, but the regulars all have these little ribbons made up with amusing sayings on them that are designed to hang off the bottom of the badges, and hand them out as, well, favors. :) I ended up with ribbons like "The original British version of this ribbon is much funnier.", and "Look, it's a shipper!", and "My, how Ood!" But that was nothing compared to Tommy Knight, who was given so many that he made himself a kilt out of them to wear to the closing ceremonies.
And finally - remember to bring return shipping labels with us! It would have saved so much time, money and stress!
Thursday, we:
Arrived in L.A. hours before the hotel would let us check in.
Took a trolley-bus-thingie to Manhattan Beach for the afternoon.
Ate lunch at Wahoo's Fish Taco. Which was very tasty - the closest thing I have actually had to it here is probably Chipotle, but this was better. It also amuses me that the only state where Wahoo has expanded is Colorado. Apparently it's surfer food no matter what kind of surfer you are.
Finally checked in to our hotel - our room had a balcony overlooking the courtyard/pool!
Swam and lounged in said hot tub and swimming pool. I think that my new definition of luxury is swimming under the open sky in February. *sigh*
Friday, we-
Set up the booth. GallifreyOne has to have the most relaxed dealers room I have ever worked. Although only having two products to display probably helped us with the relaxed feeling somewhat. And the con staff had very kindly arranged a table for us to run demos at right next to the sales booth, which worked really well!
gmskarka went to meet up with a local friend of his for lunch.I stayed to run things. Which was lovely - we had a great first-day response to the game - so much so that we were able to start making jokes about selling out by the end of the day.
Had a very nice dinner, and later watched the costumed attendees of a room party across the courtyard from our perch in the hot tub before heading off to bed. Because seriously - GIANT HOT TUB!
Saturday, we...
Wished that we had one or two more people to help run the booth so we could leave the table occasionally. Not that it needed more than the two of us at once, usually with me selling and Gareth running demos.
Met a troop of absolutely adorable mini-costumers. Four twelve-year-old girls, dressed respectively as Jabe of the Forest of Cheem (Bigger picture here.), Romana I, Jayne from Firefly, and a member of House Slytherin.
Did get out and see some of the con one at a time. I attended a lovely live interview with Louise Page, the costume designer for all of David Tennant's Who series, and heard about things like how Ten's costume was made from sofa upholstery and dozens of pairs of pants cut into suit jackets. :)
Got adopted by a very nice family from North Carolina. Mom, Dad and ten-year-old daughter. The game was a total hit with the ten-year-old, and they spent a lot of time just hanging out and chatting with us during the con.
Met a Dalek. A life size, talking, moving Dalek. Built onto a mini-motorized chair. Kinda made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Not kidding even a little. My inner child hid behind the couch when it talked.
Missed most of the Masquerade contest. - apparently, the tradition is to make the audience line up outside in the hallway and wait for admittance to the auditorium. Which can take a while - like over an hour. Gareth and I wandered away for dinner, and by the time we got back, the show itself was over and we only saw the contest winners. One of which was the young "Jabe" - she got best in show, because it was the first costume she had made on her own. So. Cute.
Sunday, we:
Did much the same as Saturday. Sold games, ran demos, larked out to visit panels here and there when we had time.
Missed the closing ceremonies, but for a good reason. Sarah, one of my best friends, lives in Long Beach, and she came up to go to dinner with us (at Ayara Thai), and avail herself of the GIANT HOT TUB and pool for the evening. We also made sure to indulge in a variety of exciting cocktails from the hotel bar. (Purely so they would validate her parking ticket, I swear! :))
Attended LobbyCon! Perhaps this sort of thing happens at smaller hotel conventions all the time, but this was the first of its sort that I had been to. All the attendees who were still around on Sunday night brought all the leftover booze and snacks down from their rooms and set it out around the lobby for general consumption. This included more than a few of the celebrity guests, as well as a ton of other fantastically fun people, all getting pleasantly smashed together and chatting all night.
Monday (aka FedEx can bite me day), was a giant ball of stress, sadly, with two amusing sidenotes:
We had to deal with the world's least-helpful counter-bint in the hotel business center, an encounter which left us carrying our booth display as checked baggage, and paying an inconvenience-fee for the priviledge of using a shipping company that we didn't want to use in the first place.
We almost missed our flight because when we got to the airport our airline had only one station open at check-in, and the brilliant-f-ing-airport employees decided to line us up both inside and outside the building without checking with one another, and then tried to tell the people leaving on the earlier flight that they had to check in after the people on the later flight.
Electric Boogaloo called us just before we shut off our phones on the plane to ask if she could go home from school sick, and we had to nix her plans to get a ride from the boyfriend and call my parents instead. *headdesk*
Amusing sidenotes...
The plane was delayed from take-off because one of the overhead compartments wouldn't close, so the flight crew had to ask for a roll of packing tape to close it with. If they had actually let us know that was why they were delayed, I could have given them mine, which I had in my bag right there in the cabin. This amused our flight attendant quite a bit. :)
And, I got to take my shoes off at airport security with this guy:
For those not in the know, that's Kyan, who was one of the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" hosts. I believe his speciality was "personal care and grooming", and I can vouch for the fact that he was certainly well-groomed. Including nicely upkept feet. ;)
Stuff to remember for next time (Because there will be a next time, oh yes!):
It would have been nice if we could have attended the "opening ceremonies" of the convention. They were held an hour before the dealer's room closed for the day, which struck me as odd, and included messages to the crowd from the likes of Peter Davidson and Steven Moffat.
We must remember to attend the theme party that some of the long-time con-goers hold on the first night. This years theme was The Titanic, complete with window dressing to make their room look like the side of a White Star ocean-liner. And when we met the lot of them later in the show, they turned out to be a lovely assortment of people whom I really would have enjoyed spending more time with.
This show has favors! It took me a day or so to figure out what they were, but the regulars all have these little ribbons made up with amusing sayings on them that are designed to hang off the bottom of the badges, and hand them out as, well, favors. :) I ended up with ribbons like "The original British version of this ribbon is much funnier.", and "Look, it's a shipper!", and "My, how Ood!" But that was nothing compared to Tommy Knight, who was given so many that he made himself a kilt out of them to wear to the closing ceremonies.
And finally - remember to bring return shipping labels with us! It would have saved so much time, money and stress!
