NYAF - Part 1 of Whatever

As a preface, the Shards of Alara prerelease was this weekend, which I had to unfortunately miss to staff and attend the New York Anime Fest. The Shards prerelease was Wizards of the Coast's first attempt at having "local" prereleases, held at individual and localized gaming stores rather than larger event-grounds that sometimes operate as state-wide prereleases (such is the case in New Jersey, where events would usually be held in New Brunswick or Elizabeth; New York had a city event that was usually held at Neutral Ground and "NY State" events were held elsewhere). Because of this, I can't report on how the first local prerelease event went over with my local crowd over at Time Warp Comics and Games. C'est la vie.

This weekend was the New York Anime Fest, a 3-day gathering of anime, video game, manga and various other like-minded nerd cultures at the Jacob Javitz Center. Most prominantly featured at these types of events are the cosplayers, the fans who dress up as their favorite characters. The link will probably be dead in a few days or so, but 4chan's /cgl/ board has a thread up with pictures from the con that has been relatively drama-free here.

Day 0 - The set up day. Volunteers (blue shirts) and Reed Expo staff (red shirts) run about the convention center trying to get everything organized in relative haste and order. Blue shirts mostly spend the day bagging the free swag ("swag bags" for those without a sense of rhyme scheme), though I was "lucky" enough to be enlisted in aiding one of the dealers who was having trouble setting up his booth.
The people at BEST LEFT UNSAID AS I AM ABOUT TO SAY SOME VERY UNKIND THINGS ABOUT THEM::MENTAL EDITORIAL MANDATE asked the chief of the blue shirts to send some blue shirts over to help unpack their van before it started raining (which it never did). When another blue shirt and myself got to the van in question, the person in charge of the booth, another gentleman and three ladies were standing around while the blue shirt and I unpacked ~7' metal grates (which would form the back wall of the booth) from the van onto a handtruck and cart it from outside the con center, through the lower-level doors, to the elevator, downstairs into the main con hall. This was no small task, as each one was large, unwieldy, roughly 30 lbs and one of twenty five or so. This was in addition to large but considerably lighter boxes of manga and anime dvds.
The process involved roughly 4 back-and-forth trips before our supervisor noted the purveyors of the booth were standing around doing NOTHING to help us move thier things free of charge and asked that the foruth trip be our last. With bleeding hands, a thrown back and a decent enough sweat, I was tossed as Last Exile vol. 1 DVD with OST as payment for my work. Thanks ANIME SELLER WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS, I have no idea how you can possibly set up for any other convention with a useless staff and low asthetic for payment.

Seeing the convention floor unestablished and mostly a skeleton of its final form is an almost chilling experience. The center, to dip into the cliche resivoir, literally comes to life once all of the booths, displays and what have you are finally set up and seeing the gargantuan structure of what would be the Bandai stage empty and still incomplete compared to the a/v spectacle it became during the con was startling.

The day ended around 6. Javitz Center staff and dealers were still carting in the building blocks that make the event what it is.

Tomorrow: The beginning of the first day... And hopefully some pictures to go along with everything.