Articles
Report: SakuraCon 2007 part 1 - 19/04/07
By: Jesse Betteridge
Thursday
After making sure to grab a Peanut Butter Twix before our departure, a candy which I'm happy to report is now widely available in Canada after they had made such a huge impression on me during last year's trip to Seattle, my cohorts and I headed off for SakuraCon 2007 early on the Thursday before Good Friday. This year we were wise enough to avoid renting a van, instead opting for two vehicles to transport everyone. Since it saved us about $200 each, this is a decision which I strongly condone towards the rest of you. After a few minor delays and wrong turns, we were finally on track in heading to the border by late afternoon. Determined to arrive before badge pick-up ended that evening, we decided to make only one stop for food at a Subway right near the border. It was that I made a rather unseemly revelation.
My good friends Thea and Jing, whom you may know as the "webmistresses" (as they prefer to be called) of the cosplay gallery website OhSNAP! had managed to snag press passes for themselves this year. Discussion of this subject led to several off-hand comment about receiving various forms and press-only information through e-mail, mainly concerning schedules for press panels and the ridiculously strict photo policies being enforced by Avex Group. My friend Jevon, representing CJSF radio at SFU, also mentioned receiving such forms. However, despite having received a vague acknowledgement about being approved for a press pass in a slightly off-topic e-mail, not a single piece of this exclusive information had crossed my path.
Upon realizing this, I knew that it was imperative that we make it down to Seattle before 9pm. There would be hell to pay for this mistake, and mass quantities of it indeed.
The wait at the border was about forty-five minutes; decent for a long weekend. What made up for it, of course, was the fact that "America, Fuck Yeah!" kicked in on Jevon's road mix right when we crossed the border. While I had been looking forward to the custom mix Jevon had been putting together for the trip almost as much as the con itself (dubbed "Man Mix 2007", in honour of the chromosome distribution found in our vehicle), this had just pushed it up to a whole new level level. While nothing in the playlist quite topped DJ Keoki's "Speed Racer Porno Remix" which he had slipped in last year, good times were still assured by selections such as "The Surrey Song" by Scott Davidson and "Even Hitler had a Girlfriend" by The Mr. T Experience. Both are highly recommended.
We had to pretty much pull off a straight run along the I-5 from that point on which, on at least two or three occasions, we were given a rather rude introduction to some intense vibration grooves along the sides of the road. Take that, narcoleptic truck drivers! Unfortunately, due to the rush, we weren't able to pick up any of "Stephen Colbert's Ameri-Cone Dream" ice cream along the way. We intended to make a run to grab some over the course of the trip, but sadly this would not be a weekend in which I'd get to sample that sweet taste of freedom. Regardless, we had made it to our hotel of choice in good time, and thanks to light packing, managed to get unloaded pretty fast. Unfortunately, we didn't score that free-breakfast we had gotten last year (which was basically the entire reason we had chosen this hotel again), but I now suspect that the only reason we had even gotten it at all was because we had accidentally been placed in a handicapped room that didn't offer a proper bathtub or fridge. But at the very least, we did get both of those this year. A pity, too, since the fridge would've been perfect to contain the succulent liberty which that ice cream would've given us.
Seattle definitely gave us a warm welcome as we arrived, and I have to say that it was good to be back. We all made off-hand comments about how great this city was even though we all know it's not really any different from Vancouver. Yeah, they did pick a pretty nice and clean area to hold SakuraCon in downtown, with just as many Subways as ever might I add, but there isn't much that makes it stand out from Vancouver. The big difference is that, in Seattle, the bums and poverty zone seem to get more prominent the closer you get to the water, whereas in Vancouver its the opposite. Not that I'm bashing the city or anyone's opinions about it, just noting that littleobservation.
We made it to the convention centre in reasonable time, and there I was able to pretty much confirm my fears. It isn't difficult to qualify for a press badge, but the unpleasantness that usually surrounds getting one almost seems like something of a deterrent, and that fact that I was not on the list for one despite having registered (twice!) well in advance certainly hadn't left a good taste in my mouth. If you happen to think that I'm the type of person who wouldn't be enraged by something like this, then I must apologize for giving you that impression. Because I am.
After some slightly hostile negotiation, I did manage to get a badge. To make things even more absurd, my far less important panelist badge was sitting right there for me. This made things exceptionally more complicated since the standard procedure was for the regular badge to be exchanged for the panelist badge. Of course, since they technically couldn't take the makeshift press badge I had fought so hard to get, I sent them scrambling for several minutes before they made the logical, but clearly unusual, decision of allowing me to keep both badges. Honestly now, are my circumstances really this bizarre?
Of course, having people like me devote a chunk of my report to complaining about the process that goes on behind distributing press badges sort of defies the whole point of giving them out to begin with. So enough of that.
With that incident brought to a close, I decided to start playing around with my camera a bit, determined to amass as many photos as possible. I'll admit that it's an area I've gotten a bit lazy with in recent times, especially since about 1/3rd of the photos you see now on the Anime Evolution 2006 page were actually taken by Sam. However, this year I decided to splurge on a new Canon PowerShot A710 to play with. It was a surprisingly well balanced camera, and the image stabilizing feature was really great to have. I suppose I could've gone with an SLR camera, but dragging that around would've made me feel like a... ugh... journalist. In the end I took about 400 pictures. I was proud for a while, until Thea told me that she alone got over 800 pictures for her website. I found this slightly emasculating.
After 9pm, they wouldn't let me in to take photos of people standing in line, but trust me when I say there were a lot of them. Instead, we went for drinks. Too bad I'm not legal in this mad country yet.
After getting settled, I allowed myself to be subjected to ludicrous roaming charges in order to get a hold of nerdcore rapper extraordinaire Karl Olson, with whom Jevon wanted to get a radio interview with at the con. After a bit of a delay, we all caught up and grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant, where we discussed various matters of nerdy industry jargon. We had intended to bring him a peace-offering of milk in a bag, but as I was horrified to discover, you apparently can't get it in lower mainland B.C. anymore. Talk about eating away at our heritage.