MediaWest*Con 28 -- Day 4

[the_other_sandy]

BF and I made one last pass through the dealer room this morning, turned in our ballots for the songvid competition, and hit the road. My least favorite part of MediaWest is when it ends.

This was a really slow year for the con. There were way fewer door decorations, room dealers, and songvids than in previous years. There seemed to be just fewer people in general. It was kind of disappointing, but even a slow year at MediaWest is more fun than I have just about anywhere else.

In summary:

• I attended 12 panels, the gen and slash competition vids, the movie trailer block in the film room, and 1 room party


• I met jensenrick for the first time (the poor guy had no idea that I do most of my talking on LJ; I'm actually very quiet in RL), and got to talk to wraithfodder, Holy Mother Grammatica, and lots of other fans


• I bought 16 zines in 3 fandoms (Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, and Supernatural) along with 1 crossover, 2 buttons I had made ("Its uncredible how well at grammer I am" and one of my LJ Drama icon, which I wore to all the LJ panels I went to), 1 Stargate Atlantis tie-in novel, 2 keychains (both of Jensen and Jared), the season 2 Supernatural base trading card set, 2 luggage tags (1 Jensen and Jared and 1 Col. Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis), 4 magnets (3 Jensen and Jared and 1 Jared), and 5 photo charms for my Italian charm bracelet (Sheppard from SGA, the Petrelli brothers from Heroes, the Winchester brothers from Supernatural, the Man from UNCLE logo, and the Due South logo)


• I discovered 2 artists I like very much: Nigel Sade, and Mimi-Na, who draws the most adorable Doctor Who caricatures ever


• I had ridiculous amounts of fun

Counting down the days until next year.

Comments

[mrstinkles.livejournal.com]

Sounds like grand fun. I wasn't sure where the con was so looked it up. I went to grad-school at Michigan State, so going back to Lansing might be fun. And this time of year is generally lovely in central Michigan. Especilly the MSU campus with all its flowering trees. (I remember being able to smell spring.)

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

For as many times as I've gone to MediaWest, I've actually seen very little of Lansing. We only venture outside to forage for food. The drive up through Michigan is beautiful though.

If someone rummaged around in my head to find what I thought the perfect con should be, MediaWest would be the end result. It's small (the attendance cap is 900, but the con doesn't always sell out); we literally take over the entire hotel, so every guest room, conference room, and public area is all fans all the time; it has tons of programming choices and activities, so there's always something to do whether you want to shop, go to panels, watch songvids, watch new shows in the video room, look at door decorations, check out the fan art, go to the masquerade or art auction, attend a room party, or just chat up random fans. It also has a strong focus on fan fiction and zines, which I love.

Like I said, even a slow year at MediaWest is great fun. It's always hard to come home again.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

In talking with fans, it seems one reason attendance was lower than usual was well, the economy. Too many fans are getting hit hard by energy bills (heating oil, gas, etc.) or have family health issues to attend (aging parents, or their own health). However, even with the smaller than normal attendance, it was still great to meet friends :)

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

That's what BF and I were guessing. Between the economy and gas prices, which turned the cost of driving into something comparable to an airline flight, fewer people were able to make it this year. It's just kind of sad compared to the days of 5 hour vid shows, 90% of the doors decorated, and a room dealer in every third room. But like I said, even a slow year at MediaWest is more fun than I have anywhere else. It would just make me very sad if this con went the way of ZCon and some of the others that have folded in recent years.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'd take a slow day at MWC any day over the pro cons. Alas, many of those are full of fans who have no idea what cons really are - they just want to buy autographs and photo ops and not much else :( Z'Con's gone? Hadn't realized that!

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I never really got the whole autograph/photo op thing. It's certainly not as much fun as sticking velcro Scrabble tiles to someone's hotel room door.

I went to a Creation con last November solely to see Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles's panels, but there was a girl in line behind me who was mad that she had to buy an admission ticket to the whole con. She just wanted to buy an autograph ticket, get the autograph, and leave. Ten bucks says she had no idea who the actors were, but their autographs would've been on eBay by afternoon.

Z'Con's gone?

Yeah, the last ZebraCon was the last ZebraCon. They had a party where they gave out plastic champagne flutes with the con's name in black letters with a little black ribbon tied to the stem. The running gag throughout the con was to tell the con organizer that we were all going to be showing up at her house in 2 years.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Creation has created a generation of fans whose goal is simply to buy items and then re-sell them. It's sad. Also, some fans will pay ANYTHING to see their gods, er, actors ;) and thus, the dumb tiered seating system was devised in which Creation rakes in a ton of cash.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I hate the tiered seating system. I can't believe people are okay with paying 10 times the amount of a weekend at MediaWest for one of those tickets when you only get one track of programming for your money. And have you seen that Creation is auctioning gold tickets on eBay now? People are paying $1000 for them. Is it still called scalping when it's done by the event's own organizers?

The sad thing is that if a lot of those fans attended a con like MediaWest, they'd be bored silly and not understand the appeal of a bunch of fans sitting around being fannish for 4 days.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I did it once, and while it saves you time in the authograph line, I'm at hte point now I'd rather get a photo (shorter line) than autograph. AUctioning gold tickets? gads, I saw them auctioning "VIP" tickets for $500+ - you get 'behind the scenes'. Yeah, that's scalping, no matter how you look at it.

GOing to MWC is also a matter of interacting with other fans, talking creative pursuits, etc., and not playing trivia contests or watching actors talk, which yes, is fun, but Creations are so one-tract if you don't want to see that actor, there's nothing else to do.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

My first Creation con was a Stargate con in Chicago the year before last. Joe Flanigan was scheduled to be there, but he had to cancel. I wasn't interested in most of the other actors or in doing the autograph/photo op thing, and the dealer room consisted of 4 tables of licensed Creation merchandise in the back of the same ballroom where the actors were speaking. I literally had nothing to do for hours on end. That's never happened to me at a con before, especially not one that expensive (and I paid the cheapy price). I spent most of the con hanging out in the lobby with people I knew from MediaWest.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

ONly 4 tables? Guess I won't complain about the only 6 tables at the Creation I went to.

Mediawestcon 08

[ashgirl2.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for blogging about the con. I enjoyed reading about it so much. I attended for over 20 years in a row but i haven't
been able to attend for about four years now. Sigh.
I'm glad you had a good time. Do you know of anyone else who blogged about this years con?
Patti

Re: Mediawestcon 08

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I was going to point you at wraithfodder's con round-up post, but then I saw you already commented to it. I'm afraid those are all the con reports I know about.

Re: Mediawestcon 08

[ashgirl2.livejournal.com]

Yes, right after i read your lj i ran across Wraithfodders lg and the links she has to other
lj about the con. I really enjoyed yours though.

Re: Mediawestcon 08

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Thanks.