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Well I had fun at the wintercon and even though we were up till midnight the night before putting everything together and me having problems with my computer that night every thing came together and moved seamlessly through the day my AMV panel was well attended along with all the others panel, along with Dead Fantasy and all the amv hell amv minis were enjoyed by all as you can see by this post from one of the people at 8-bit fix that i had the opportunity to meet
Cross-posted from 8bitfix http://www.8bitfix.com/profiles/blogs/wintercon-09
December 13th was a great day for me, not just because of the 8bitfix Christmas party that weekend but also because of Wintercon. Wintercon 09 was a small anime convention in Socorro Texas and I have to say for being a small convention and it being their first year as well as the location being a bit out of the way, it was good. The El Paso Collective (El Paso's Japanese Fashionistas, the El Paso Otaku Society, El Paso Sci-Fi, and the Anime Appreciation Society of El Paso) did a great job of keeping things safe as well as fun. Additional sponsors were Happi Robot, who had a booth, Nicecube, Funimation and Gamestop. From the scavenger hunt to the game room and the cosplayers wandering around (I enjoyed seeing the Klingons) there was a lot to see. Though I did get a fish slap from Mitsu early on in the day it was a lot of fun, and no fish were harmed in the slapping.
We arrived a little late, around 1:00, so we did miss some things like the AMV construction panel and some of the anime shown earlier, K-ON, Dennou Coil, Hana Kimi, and Nyan Koi. I also wish I had made it there in time for Anime Bingo. One of the most entertaining things I got to see was the Sumo Suit wrestling, Toxic couldn’t resist and jumped in line right away, he actually beat his opponent, though he didn’t get to teabag him like the two had agreed to before the match.
There was not a lot of room, so there was only one video room but the anime shown was great, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Air Gear, Mushishi, and Macross Zero to name a few. In the main room in between panels they also showed random AMVs such as AMV Hell, and also the Dead Fanatsy series, which I really enjoy watching but had only seen up to part two so seeing the other three was great. They also had anime trivia, but we spoiled it for ourselves and knew what the prizes were before the game started, we ran into the one who got the prizes at Nicecube so we saw what he got for the prizes. The artist alley was also great, alot of talent and great items to choose from from drawings to crafts.
I usually don’t enter tournaments, but Toxic had signed up for the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 tournament and he needed a partner, so as we breezed through our first round, only because we had no one to play against, we knew we would get beat in the second. We were, and I have to say that losing to an 8 or 9 year old never gets any easier, but I don’t really ever enter tournaments so this was new for me, it was still fun though. They also had a Halo 3 tournament and a Tekken Tag tournament.
What anime convention would be complete without cosplayers? None I say, and Wintercon had its share of them. The cosplay contest was short but entertaining and we got to see some really great cosplay. There were Klingons as well as Kingdom Hearts, FLCL, Full Metal Alchemist and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya just as a few example of what we saw. All of the cosplayers were great and didn’t mind the pictures.
The band was great, Nausicaa is a more heavy sounding rock group, but they got my attention right away. Seeing a band live is almost always better than hearing them over speakers and Nausicaa’s energy was great. They had shirts and also passed out demo CDs during the convention, which we listened to on the way home. You can check out Nausicaa’s MySpace page HERE. At the end of the convention they also had a dance for the last two hours, but the drive was long so we left before it really got started, if anyone was there for it let me know how it went.
All in All I have to say that Wintercon was better than I expected. It was a little out of the way and being on a Sunday it was different but worth the drive. The turnout was pretty good, not a huge crowd but a decent sized one for the size of the hall and for it being the first year. If there is a Wintercon 2010 I’m sure it will have an even better turnout and will do even better than this year. At times it seemed like things finished a little early and you would be waiting for the next event to start, but even during that time music was played or videos were shown, so it worked out. I know that I will be attending next year if they have it and I’m sure Toxic will as well. Did any of you make it this year, if you did let me know if you had a good time as well?
