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Colossalcon 2005
Of all the conventions this year, I must say that Colossalcon is by far
one of the most boring. It seemed that even with a musical guest, a
voice actor and a few panels and video rooms there was absolutely
nothing to do. There was just little going on around the convention. To
be straightforward there was just not enough to entertain the crowd.
While there was little
for the attendees to enjoy it seemed there was at least plenty for staff
to do, frequent miscommunications and lack of communication seemed to
plague Colossalcon. From “missing” staff members, to events either
running late, not running, or running without the other half of the
staff knowing it was evident that there was not enough cooperation on
behalf of the staff.
Of the few things that
were going on, artists alley seemed to run very smoothly, aside from the
jackass with the stereo equipment set up making it impossible to hear
anything in that general area, there was a nice variety of merchandise
for those waiting in lines and registration to browse. One thing I must
credit the Colossalcon for was the placement of the alley; it was in a
nice centralized location for the artists.
While there was little
going on ran by the convention there was one “event” that seemed to hold
a decent sized crowd all day and that was the “random battles” held in
the main lobby of the hotel, participants would engage in a Final
Fantasy esq. random battle displaying their attacks, skills, spells and
what not in as entertaining a way as they could.
Another of the larger draws
included the game shows ran by Corey of Zephyr game shows. His
entertaining mannerisms and enthusiastic personality as well as the
innovative games made these events more then worth attending.
In a huge and distant
contrast to the game shows and random battles, which had crowds
entertained and enthused, were the concert by PeelanderZ and the dance(s).
Neither event seemed to hold anything even remotely entertaining for
this writer at least, except going to make fun of the 30+ odd kids who
sat there and head bobbed to crappy music. Sorry folks, just because you
can hit play on Win Amp does NOT make you a DJ.
Gaming for Collosalcon
was sketchy at best. It seemed like it was something that was thrown
together very last minute. Lying about both extremely poorly guarded
game rooms were everything from systems to controllers to games and
everything in-between. The Smash Brothers, DDR and Soul Caliber
tournaments seemed to run quickly and smoothly for things put together
on the fly. While things around the game rooms were generally
disorganized they seemed to at least run well enough.
As for the hotel
itself, the Embassy Suites, I am torn. While the hotel was very amenable
to the con goers during the day, providing the “managers special” which
was free drinks between the hours of 5:30 and 7 pm as well as a very
large and diverse breakfast buffet, there were definitely issues to be
had.
The largest issue
being the threat to shut down the convention Saturday night. Apparently
the hotel received a number of noise complaints and in turn decided to
threaten shutting down the convention if they did not keep their noise
levels down. In a deal struck with the hotel, staff members cleared the
atrium and main areas of the hotel, herding attendees into the back
rooms and in turn telling them they are not allowed to stand or talk in
the main lobby areas of the hotel. I cannot even being to describe what
is wrong with this. However at the very least the convention set up
Karaoke and a movie for the remaining few attendees who still were
hanging about the convention.
All in all,
Collosalcon was a big hang out convention. A good chance to meet up with
people you only get to see a few times a year, chat and enjoy a nice
laid back atmosphere and have a little fun. However it would be nice to
see things be a bit more organized and perhaps see their event list a
bit more filled out next year.
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