Also: apparently since everyone was funneled into Hall C, I heard from a few Hall D vendors that people were spending all of their money in C and then finally finding other artists in D that they wanted to see but were then broke.
Blobpus actually did pretty well; he was constantly cycling product and had lots to shuffle around so it just looked like he wasn't selling. He actually cleared a lot of his goods out. He brought lots and lots.
This was a great DCon in my opinion as a fan. VIP entry was fairly well-managed. Booth layout was initially disorienting, and you needed a microscope to read the map they gave you. Even though I missed Saturday altogether and missed out on tons of things I was after, I found so many other cool things I hadn't heard of or didn't expect. I met up with old friends and people that I've only known online. I got to shake hands with great artists and share my enthusiasm for their work directly. Space was ample, and it never seemed too crowded. Great as a buyer, not sure how it was for vendors. My initial reluctance to the Anaheim move has given way to acceptance and hope for next year. Lots of Funko and Mondo people looking to learn more about sofubi to cash in; I cant comment about Asian flippers, although I am sure they were clustered in specific areas, like the Medicom booth, or the RxH/Punk Drunkers/Goccodo conglomerate.
This sums up the experience well. It was nice not having to squeeze past people in aisles... but ultimately the way larger convention site was a bit too much imo. Drastic difference in temp between halls on Sat & Sun too. The larger one was comfortable but the AC was blasting in the other making it borderline freezing :/ Similar story with spending the majority of time hanging around certain booths and there were large patches of the con I never got around to checking out. Good to see you Michael. Same goes for all you wonderful people I (sadly) only get to see once or twice a year. Hope the con treated you all well!
So, this was not my only pick up over the weekend, but it is the best toy I picked up over the weekend. Matter of fact, it was the best toy offered over the weekend in my opinion. That includes the one we were showing off at our booth. Everything else just paled in comparison. Bring on the hate. I don't fuckin' care
Yeah the AC was a bit much as my booth was right under a vent. I've been battling against a head cold so that made the experience worse haha. DCon should have pushed their smartphone app more; the vendor map was much better to use on that than the physical one they handed out. Edit: I didn't get a lot this year, but what I did get I really like. DCon 2018 Gets by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
DCon looked pretty awesome (from the pics that I saw). I wish I could have gone to see and meet some of you fellow SBers, as well as old schoolers that I haven't seen since the last DCon I went to (2013 I believe was the last time I was there). At least I was able to get a Sunguts Uraname thanks to 2 wonderful SBers. Hopefully I'll see you all next year!
What a week... Disney being close to me was great, we managed to have a character breakfast, and enjoyed the park for Thursday... Friday went to the con just for badge pickup, but ended up staying for 2-3 hours of preview night. One hall was hot as hell, I had to take my sweater off, but when I crept over to the next hall, I found myself cold, and putting it back on. I did enjoy the wide aisles as it was easier to get past people, and we all like to chat with friends and what not, this seemed easier to do, and not be in the way because of this. I also feel the wide aisles was a downside as well. I'm used to sifting the aisles to see the entire convention. whether thats dcon, sdcc, nycc, etc... i usually sift up and down. knowing where i stopped, because if i don't see it all in one day, i'll get around to it eventually. This wasn't the case this time. i'm not sure if it was due to the wide aisles or what not, but to me it felt like it? Queing up also seemed a lot easier because of the bigger space, So i'll put that on the positive side. I feel I had one great ass dcon experience this year. But it was one of the most wild conventions i've ever been at. it was pretty much go go go from Friday - Sunday. Glad I got to meet some new faces, and chat with a lot of the homies. Belle had a blast as well. So I want to thank you all for stopping to chat it up with us for 1-10 minutes. My body is happy to be home, and angry with me all at once. Let's hope we can skip the Nerd flu.
This was one of my favorite Dcon years. Definitely better than the last two for me. I was also really apprehensive about the move to Anaheim, and really irritated about the whole expansion. Since the last couple years had been less and less enjoyable in Pasadena I didn't want it to blow up with all of the extra exposure it was getting and being in such a large venue. I was going into it expecting a shit show, but I'm actually really happy with how it all went! It was great seeing everyone and meeting new people, getting to talk to people and not getting stuck in the con crawl.. I didn't get everything I was after but I managed to get some toys I'm really happy about! I think springing for VIP and a room nearby was completely worth it (to me). The whole funko presence at first irritated me, but then I found that a large majority of that crowd stuck to the funko booth and other things I wasn't interested in so that worked out fine for me too! I probably don't go for a lot of the flipper heavy toys, but I did run to the RxH section first thing every day and managed to get the mini cats I'd been hoping for! Speaking of realhead, I heard a partial story about some crazy shit happening Saturday when he started selling the adult figures? Anyone have that story? Something about the flipper army running and security and maybe police getting involved!? what the hell happened!? Overall a great year! Looking forward to next year already! A couple of my grabs:
[QUOTE="Speaking of realhead, I heard a partial story about some crazy shit happening Saturday when he started selling the adult figures? Anyone have that story? Something about the flipper army running and security and maybe police getting involved!? what the hell happened!? [/QUOTE] I too heard of partial story, but since I was way in the back of the line ( arrived at 8:15 am) I dont have the full picture. Apparently there was line cutting by flipper army with vendor badges that was inside the halls even before the VIP was allowed in, and by default basicaly fucked everyone else that got there early from the VIP line, some of which was there as early at 4 or 5am. I do know that by the time I got to the line, it was wrapped around the corner and Mori himself was standing at the end of the line, maybe trying to keep things in order or identify the flipper army, im not sure.
I too heard of partial story, but since I was way in the back of the line ( arrived at 8:15 am) I dont have the full picture. Apparently there was line cutting by flipper army with vendor badges that was inside the halls even before the VIP was allowed in, and by default basicaly fucked everyone else that got there early from the VIP line, some of which was there as early at 4 or 5am. I do know that by the time I got to the line, it was wrapped around the corner and Mori himself was standing at the end of the line, maybe trying to keep things in order or identify the flipper army, im not sure.[/QUOTE] Yeah he looked extremely stressed out as he was talking with one of the con employees in the yellow vest next to me while I was waiting in line.
Glad to hear that finally some action was taken against flipper gangs at this event - great to hear that the organisers/security were involved (even though street justice would have been cool too)
Street justice? I’m not gonna lie, if someone swung on a flipper for simply flipping I’d be inclined to swing on that person for being so over dramatic. There’s plenty legitimate street justice to take part of, and this would absolutely not qualify. Call ‘em out and embarrass ‘em like Ed loudly and lovingly did last Five Points, and get the artists to ostracize ‘em instead.
I think calling out the flippers is definitely the right move to do, as much as I don't agree with flipping, there's really no need to get physical unless of course it's self defense and the flippers swung first. At the end of the day, most of us are here to have a good time.
Whoa whoa whoa I forgot it's 2018 and the world is a delicate flower.. "street justice" could be a simple as calling them out if we are going to get into real world details here. Mad Max wasn't a documentary about Australia just to be clear.. we don't swing around spiked clubs down here!
Where I grew up and what I was involved in, there was nothing delicate or submeaning for street justice, and definitely not in the form of calling out or shouting. So that “2018 snowflake” yada can see the door! But I’d still invest in some bad ass spiked clubs. For fun.
Ok ok fair call - maybe I should have said "Sofubi Justice".. that's where once a flipper has been indentified, you stop liking and commenting "nice score" on their pics on Instagram.
@TattooDougHardy Sorry for the tardy reply, I've been away! Great set up, very clean and wonderful colors too! Thank you for sharing your photo!
Well I feel better knowing I was not the only one getting lost in there. I already have no sense of direction and without aisle markers, like SDCC, it was hard to find certain smaller booths. Plus the booth decorating covered their numbers and that didn't help. We were worried about the move as hotel and parking will take some funds away from the toy purchases but we found ourselves enjoying the roomy aisles, the AC and that everything was in one building. However, I spoke to a few vendors and the smaller booths indicated they did better last year. Moving to Anaheim made the event less accessible. It's their first year at this new location so they might be a loss of casual attendees but the core collectors will always follow close behind. As for the flippers/re-sellers I've seen toy makers like Gargamel and Refreshment in particular do what they can by limiting sales so that everyone has a chance at their toys. As long as there are people willing to pay the ridiculous mark-up there will always be people who will provide for those type of collectors. -Maddie
I had an excellent experience. @eckotyper nailed it. It was truly go, go, go non-stop from morning til' night.
