Review NYAF 2009

[Michaelangelo]

Hiya all,

This is for those who get to go to NYAF, please post reviews and photos here

[Amicitia]

Wow - that was the most laid-back, undramatic convention I've ever been to. I didn't bother with a costume and spent a fair amount of the time just wandering around alone.

I only went on Saturday. I got there soon after it opened, called my friend, and found out she would be a while. So I went in and started exploring the dealer's room. Nothing much caught my attention there. After passing a sufficient amount of time, I made my way over to Disorganization XIII's Fanfic panel. I enjoyed this a lot. The panelists were objective and non-self-advertising; they validated some things that I thought and said some other things that were very informative.

After that I was intending to go check out Artist's Alley, but on the way I found Mystic and Crittle, who were already staking out the Voice Actor panel. I loitered with them for a while, and then my friend called to say she had actually made it to the con. (The original plan was that she would show up at my house on Friday night, so she kind of was fifteen hours late, but these things happen.) I went, located her, and decided to try this thing called "being assertive". I told her that I was going to the Voice Actor panel whether she came with me or not. So a few minutes later we wound up there together (although she left halfway through because she had to rehearse for the masquerade.)

This panel was also a lot of fun. An artist called Miyako Rocks! (?) brought some drawings of characters, and the panelists - Rachel L, Jamie M, and Veronica T - showed us how they would start to create voices for the characters. Miyako also did some quick sketches of scenes involving the characters, and the actors did a little improv for them. Then they invited up some audience members to create voices for these characters and read short scripted scenes.

After that I probably should have started standing in the already-long line for the Masquerade, but I really didn't want to, so I followed Crittle and Mystic to the Charity Auction. Which was kind of surprisingly entertaining, even though I didn't want to bid on anything. Jamie M was a good host. Also, Mike S eventually showed up, and some possibly-accidental entendres were made, and it was very much worth it.

Then, after an unsuccessful search for food (apparently everything in the Javits closes after a certain hour), I went to see about the Masquerade. Seeing that the line was ridiculously long, and remembering that the hall has kind of a lousy set-up anyway, I decided to hedge my bets and join the very short line outside one of the overflow rooms. The line was so short that after a while I decided that the food situation was desperate, and I just went and got some ice cream. (Yes, ice cream counts as dinner.) Then I rejoined the line and waited.

Unfortunately my strategy didn't work well. Instead of letting the people outside the overflow rooms into them, the con staff waited until the main hall was full, and then diverted that whole huge line into the overflows. Uh-oh! My friend was in the masquerade, and she was my ride home, so if I couldn't get in I was just going to have to sit someplace until it ended. Which I really didn't want to do. I kept standing by the overflow room as this huge line went by, and I explained my situation to a staff person, and after a little while he let me in. Inside, they were looking for singles to fill empty seats, so I actually wound up getting a fantastic aisle seat very close to the screen. (There weren't even any tall people in front of me.) The video and sound were very good (though the syncing was a little off), and I enjoyed the whole show very much.

Afterwards, I saw that parts of Artist Alley were still intact. I hadn't really gotten to see it earlier, so I went to look. I found an awesome Mother 3 print, but unfortunately the person it belonged to had gone home for the night. I took a business card that seemed to be associated with the print, and hopefully I will be able to contact this artist.

Then I went to find my friend. We walked to her car, and after an excitingly perilous drive through Manhattan streets in the rain, we made it back to my house. And went pretty much directly to bed.

We both had a great time!

(Shredder, if you're reading this - was that you with the camera in the Voice Actor panel?)

[Shredder]

Figures

The one day I go and Mike isn't slotted to do anything .  Did get to see Veronica after the giant Transformer robot walked by and talked to her before the panel though....and some advice from Mr. Tom

[Amicitia]

That robot was awesome! I thought it was better than the other one that came out at the end of the masquerade.

[Shredder]

Somehow I missed your reply earlier.... Damn, I should have stuck around for the auction, could have gotten my interview with Mike afterall...
Yep, that was me.....For some reason I Thought a group of people looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't place where...

[Leonardo_Mystic]

I had a really fun time with Crittle. I enjoyed it very much.

Friday- We arrived kind of late. We didn't get into the city until 4:30ish in the afternoon after some crazy navigation from my GPS and a little error on my part and then there was the matter of finding a place to park and check into the hotel. We had to drag our heavy luggage a loooong way. XP It was about 6 when we finally walked down to the convention center to pick up our badges.

We wandered around to scope out the place and found an autograph signing. There was Rachael Lillis, Veronica Taylor, Tom Wayland and Jamie McGonnigal. Mike was supposed to be there, but he wasn't at first. Then he finally rushed in about five minutes later. There's a funny story attached to that and Crittle can tell you if she'd like.

We hadn't really brought any of our stuff to sign because we didn't think anything would be going on so late. So we had our con books that had autograph pages and we got those signed. After the autographs, we left the center and got some dinner before returning to the hotel to retire.

Saturday- We left the hotel around 9:30ish and stopped to get some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. We got to the center around 10:30. We looked around the dealer's room a while to see what we liked we would come back for before finding a place to sit on the floor near the meeting rooms. The voice acting panel we wanted to attend didn't start until the middle of the afternoon, but we saw a lot of interesting stuff in the meantime. We'd started counting how many Narutos there were. XD

We later moved closer to the room the panel was in and there Amicitia found us. We all hung outside the room until it was time to start. We grabbed some good seats in the front row. I didn't get to take any pictures because my batteries had died.

Mike didn't show for this panel and it wasn't until we went to the charity auction did he finally appear halfway through it. He'd gotten stuck in traffic. After the auction, which was really crazy for a while (a bid for a chance to audition for voice acting ended between two people at $5,000 each ), Crittle was able to ask him to come outside to talk and sign some stuff she had that he'd wanted to see too.

I had gifts for him that I was able to give him then and had him sign the Leonardo card I wanted him to. It was a good thing too because he never showed on Sunday at all. He'd mentioned Friday night that he had somewhere to fly to on Sunday, but didn't say when or where and we didn't ask.

While waiting for Mike, we said goodbye to Amicitia as she went off in search of food. Once we saw Mike and he too left, we headed to the dealers area to buy the stuff we wanted. We took the free shuttle back to the hotel since I had bought a sword and it would be awkward to carry ten blocks to the hotel. We dropped off our stuff in our room and then went out for dinner. We were trying to find Times Square, but ultimately went the wrong way we later found out (Error on my part again). We did make it to Times Square after dinner, but in the meantime we came up on Ray's Pizza and we decided to eat there. That is some damn good pizza too.

When we made it to Times Square, we first stopped at a Sanrio boutique. Very classy, but also very expensive. We walked up to Toys R Us afterwards and went inside there. I've never been into the NYC Toys R Us, so this was a special treat for me. I felt like a little kid again. All those life size statues, the Barbie Dream House and the T-Rex.

The ferris wheel was the icing on the cake. That was so cool. We decided to ride it. I had a great time in that store. I also bought some candy and a keychain with Tinkerbell against a backdrop of NYC that said New York.

We headed back to the hotel after leaving the store because it was getting kind of late. It'd also started raining a little. Which in the morning would make for a rather soggy trip as we checked out to take, or should I say laborously dragged, our luggage to the parking garage to stow in the car until we were ready to leave.

Sunday- After a long walk and a hot breakfast and doughnut at Dunkin's, we headed to the center. It was about 11:30ish by then and this time there was only an hour to wait until one of the panels, another voice acting, we wanted to see began. We stayed for another panel in the same room around 2. That ended around 3 and we hung around a little longer and wandered the dealers' room again.

We decided to leave around 4 and we grabbed a snack at one of the vendors outside the convention center. That was a good hot dog. We walked back up to the parking garage and made the long drive back to Crittle's house. Monday morning I left Crittle's for home and I very literally just got in last night at about 11ish. After a quick shower, I fell into bed, but I had to get up to work this morning. Fortunately, only for four hours, thank goodness. I'm still tired. Even when sitting still, I feel like I'm still moving. I have the car equivalant of jet lag. XD

I don't know when I'll be able to get to do this again because I'm done traveling for this year and I'm going to Disney World next year, but I would definitely do it. It's a lot better when you're with friends.