Metrocon 2014: A MASSIVE POST

This post was originally published on July 18th, 2014 on my weebly (cherrywallflower.weebly.com). However, I've edited this post on here to make it look like it was actually published on 7/18/14 for organizational purposes. I made convention blog posts in 2013 on this account, so to keep things consistent and convenient, I've moved posts from weebly to here. I edited a few things and added pictures which makes this just a liiitle bit different from my original weebly post. I've deleted the original post on my weebly to avoid redundancy.

Wowwwwww. So Metrocon really just felt like one entire long day.This year I participated in two contests: anime idol and the cosplay skit contest. I know I already talked about things in my vlog but I really wanted to go into detail here so I organized everything into sections. HAPPY READING LOL.

MY SOLO DANCE PERFORMANCE THING?

This year at metrocon, there was a stage set up in the vendor's room for people to perform throughout the day. I was soo happy to have my performance approved for Saturday. It was basically performing AKB48 covers but I based it off of the anime AKB0048 to draw in more people since I think the anime is more popular here than the actual pop group LOL. So I titled it AKB0048 Dance covers and the description was like "watch Maeda Atsuko the 13th perform to AKB0048 songs from the anime and the j-pop group" yadda yadda. I had 14 songs lined up and I practiced a lot in my bedroom. Once I was nearing the stage I was getting sooooooooooo nervous! First, the vendors room stage was set up in front of a bunch of tables and chairs near food places so a crowd could easily be generated since people will wanna sit somewhere while they eat. Plus, people could see the stage from afar because the stage was very elevated. Having this much people watch me made me really scared at first LOL. Second, once I saw that there wasn't any metrocon staff people near the stage when it was the time of my performance (noon), I quickly started walking all over the place looking for someone to help me instead of just sitting there and waiting. It turned out that the staff person go to the stage a little after I left looking for someone LOL.

What I did NOT like about the whole thing was that us performers had to bring our own equipment. I mean, I guess there's a low budget and everything, but if you're going to offer people a stage to perform on for free at least offer speakers and a mic. Am I asking too much? I mean at least ONE speaker and ONE mic would be cool but maybe they were afraid of people stealing stuff?? I luckily brought some old computer speakers that can get pretty loud and the staff lady was thankfully able to give me a long extension chord for my speakers so my performance could finally happen OMG. I performed all of my songs. I messed up on the first dance but no one could tell ...I hope LOL. If you're dancing to an AKB48 song and you forget some of the moves, just skip side to side and it'll look like it's part of the dance. Dancing straight was not possible and I had to drink water in between like every song.

One thing I will remember is if there's no mic, don't even bother talking to the crowd to introduce yourself LOL. After my first song, I was like "Hello everyone blah blah thank you for watching blah blah" and I didn't even know what to say but I felt like I had to say something and you know that's never a good combination. And then at the end I said "thank you so much for watching blah blah this is the end of my performance blah" and it was sooo awkward. Next time, I'll just hop on stage, dance, and then bow at the end to indicate I'm done LOL. I mean, they can figure from the title of the performance what my "show" is gonna be about so I don't REALLY need to say anything. I also was disappointed that I got so tired easily BUT THAT WAS BECAUSE I BARELY SLEPT THE NIGHT BEFORE. I can't stress that enough omg. It was really nice seeing some people who recognized my cosplay :D if you're reading this, hi!

I was feeling extremely beat up and tired after my performance and I was kind of cranky and just wanted to walk back to the hotel by myself (WHICH FELT LIKE HELL) and just refresh myself and blow dry my REALLY SWEATY OUTFIT LOL. If I just had a good night's sleep before, I would have been able to have an amazing solo dance performance and even dance to a few extra songs because I had time left over. I was thinking on skipping the rave Friday night but was like "BUT WHAT ABOUT YOLO-ING?" so I went and I actually enjoyed Friday night's more than Saturday's, but it wasn't worth it to feel the way I did throughout Saturday.

MICROPHONE MALFUNCTIONS AT ANIME IDOL

Since I love AKB48 so much, I created a cover group FLA48 (https://www.facebook.com/FLA48). Two other members and I participated in Anime Idol this year. Anime Idol is a singing competition where you can only sing Japanese or Korean songs. We sent in a recording of our singing and then the finalists were allowed to perform on stage. My two friends and I rehearsed a bit while we waited in line. We were pretty confident except we were getting confused as to which line was next LOL. We we soon figured everything out and it was our time to go on stage.

We were the only group, so it wasn't guaranteed that we would each get our own mics. This did not make me happy so we decided that if we ended up with only one mic, we would put it on a mic stand and then just sing really loud omg. However, before we got on stage, we were given our own mics. YEY. To let the sound people know we were ready, we were told to point to the sound people which were at the back of the room basically. I did that once we were settled on staged (after I slightly tripped over something but acted like it was no big deal LOL) but they didn't start the music because my mic wasn't on apparently. I fiddle with the switch, it lit up, we get the "Ok" and the music starts. We sing, but uhhhh I felt like I was in a bubble surrounded by noise and I couldn't hear myself. One of my friends felt the same way but my other friend was fine and we could hear her voice perfectly. That was when we realized that our mics were effed up LOL. I'm now thinking that may be our mics didn't have the volume up? We were told that this year the mics have a sock on them or something and so we had to sing into the mic and hold it at an angle??? It just seemed too complicated even though I felt like I was holding it right. In the two years past, I was able to sing and I didn't even need to hold the mic super close to me because it was sensitive enough.

Basically, the crowd could only hear one of our members. It wasn't terrible, but her voice cracked at some parts and it was due to nervousness because none of us were really comfortable with singing that song by ourselves. Somehow, we won the first award which was the director's award. It must have been because our outfits matched and we had minimal choreography that flowed well. One of the people told us that it was just because our performance was overall pleasing to watch. I mean, I guess. I honestly feel like we got that award because they felt bad for us. It felt like we were *THAT* group. But, I don't think our performance was entirely a train wreck. I just WISH that all of our mics worked because then we would have been AWESOME I JUST KNOW IT. Because I couldn't hear myself and I couldn't tell if it was me or my mic, it felt like HELL being up on there. Having a mic check is REALLY important and we should have had that before the show, but I think things were too hectic to even do that. The event coordinator told us that we were going to be given clear ear plugs to wear next year to help us balance out the sound on stage. That would probably help me survive through the weird sound bubble thing I felt like I was going through LOL.

I am really happy that I finally received some kind of award since I participated in anime idol in 2012 and 2013 but it still sucks because I still haven't been able to do a performance I was really really proud of UGHH. In 2012 I was just a noob. I picked a song that really wasn't meant for my voice (Illuminati by Malice Mizer LOL). In 2013 my allergies made me really self conscious because my voice was scratchy and I was trying to hide it. I'm seriously not going to stop participating in this until I get best in show. I KNOW IT'S POSSIBLE???

I will not be making a video of our performance public since one of my friends was just really embarrassed by her voice cracking and it wasn't a good performance that represented us well @_@

COSPLAY SKIT CONTEST REDEMPTION!

Even though my friends and I know we didn't do an amazing job at anime idol, the fact that we won an award made us feel pretty good so that helped us gain some confidence for the cosplay skit contest that was happening like an hour and a half after anime idol was over with. WE WERE GONNA KILL IT BECAUSE WE KNEW WE NEEDED TO REDEEM OURSELVES. We practiced before the show. One of my friends didn't learn the dance in time so we had to teach part of it to her xD We also never rehearsed in person before Saturday so if you're wondering why we're out of sync during a few parts, those two reasons are the reasons why LOL. We kept with the akb0048 theme and danced to a mashup of River and Beginner. I think we did pretty awesome, of course we all messed up at some point due to nerves or just blanking out. We weren't supposed to be the first performers, but the first person didn't show up, so we had to go LOL. It was cool because then we were able to just relax for the rest of the show.

We thought it was funny because we were imagining what the audience may have been thinking while we were performing. First of all, I feel like barely anyone knows about the anime AKB0048 let alone the the actual J-pop group AKB48 so once people heard the title of our skit they must have been like "huh?" When they saw us walk on stage they might have thought "oh this is probably going to be something overly cute." But then once we started stomping our feet on stage, I bet they were even more confused xD Gosh, we were stomping on that stage so hard, IT FELT GREAT.

One thing I learned to improve my dancing is that I need to seriously calm down. I screwed up the timing by going too fast and I was rushing through the moves. While I was doing a move, I was thinking about the next one and mehh I AM SUCH A PERFECTIONIST, but I'm glad I realized this because I never thought about it until now (well I never noticed it until now really lol).

We ended up winning "best drama" out of the 5 entries. I still felt like that award didn't mean much because no other skit could be considered something "dramatic" except for I guess the skit that won "best in show which" was someone dancing to "Let it Go" dressed as Elsa. It did feel really nice to hear from several people that we were "really good" and "awesome." I remember three judges telling us that after the show when we were getting off stage. I guess it would have felt better if the competition was more fierce but as someone told me on facebook, "a win is a win" LOL.

We won a REALLY NICE trophy xD I got to keep it for my group and I split the prize money between my two friends...which was 25 dollars lol. So I divided 25 by two. Erm, I guess that's better than nothing but if a group had 5 people, each person gets 5 dollars lol xD. However, I know these things depend on the sponsors of the contest and how many people enter the contest as well. We also got to choose from prizes that were donated from some vendors and artist alley people. I ended up getting a cute knitted hat and then some anime keychains of this girl who I don't even know but everyone else said that was an awesome character so I'll be sure to do my research and watch the anime LOL.

Hotel Stay

My group and I stayed at the Sheraton Riverwalk. It was one of the hotels where you could get a discount for being a Metrocon attendee. That was cool. The hotel staff was VERY nice. When I arrived there and we were all settled in, I received a phone call in the room from people from the desk asking if everything was okay and if I needed anything. Everyone was seriously so nice. My friend had a personal problem with the hotel, but overall I found the staff to be helpful. If you lose your room key, you need to have the person who's name is under the room present when you get your key otherwise they won't give you a new key. This pissed off my friend, but it makes sense that the hotel does this because they want to keep everyone safe. The valet parking people were really nice and friendly.

One thing I feel bad about was packing 7 PEOPLE IN THE ROOM. I know, you're not supposed to do this at all, but we all just really really wanted to save money. I could tell the hotel staff figured us out and I just felt really bad. I really don't want to do that again unless if it's at a place like the embassy suites (which is where I plan on staying next time). It also just was not convenient at all. I mean, depending on the type of people in your room, if everyone gets along, 7 people is fine, but if you have some people who are really messy and some people who are really REALLY tidy, then there's gonna be some conflict. No one was fighting in my room but things weren't perfect. Plus, not everyone knew everyone well so there was that awkwardness. We survived though, but I don't recommend cramming 7 people into a room unless you ALL know each other and you're ALL really tidy people LOL.

The walk from the hotel to the convention center was reasonable. There was a shuttle service but it ran on a 20 minute basis and I didn't want to have to wait for that LOL SO WE JUST WALKED. There was also A LOT of non-metrocon people staying at the hotel. It didn't bother us but of course it kind of makes things weird walking into the hotel in cosplay and seeing regular people in formal clothes stare at you xD also, you have to keep in mind of your surroundings so you can't be as loud as you want in your hotel room because you don't know who's around you. That's kinda of why having a convention at a hotel can be more fun because 1: you don't have to walk LOL and 2: you don't have to worry about non-convention goers because everyone there is there for the con and if there are regular people, there will only be a few and they'll be outnumbered xD

And to conclude...

In general, I had fun. I liked how the vendor's room was moved to a bigger room and I loved how the special events room was also moved to a bigger room. The vendor's room was seriously HUGE, and I thought it was cool how food vendors were in there as well. Oh speaking of food, I thought it was cute how there were food stands that had anime themes to them. One of them was naruto themed and I thought that was just way too cute. I wasn't able to personally check the game room for DDR but someone told me it was there (I think) so that automatically gives the con major points in my book LOL. I wasn't able to watch any shows so I can't judge that, but I can say that my experience in the contests was enjoyable. Everything was planned out well. Things ran late, but honestly, what can you do? I wish things went better at anime idol (reason why this isn't 10/10), but it wasn't horrible.

Metrocon seriously offers so much. If you want a big convention that has a pretty good party vibe, go to metrocon. The rave is the best anime con rave in Florida and since the con takes place in a convention center you're bound to see a lot of people in dance circles or people walking around with boom boxes. If you want a convention that offers a lot of shows, go to metrocon. There's the fire show, human chess match, some wrestling show, the metro star party, and of course the contests. I usually don't watch the shows, but definitely check those out if that's something you're into. If you just like hanging out with cosplayers, go to metrocon. No one checks passes at the con center unless you're going into a show, gaming room, dealer's room or the rave. If you want to walk around the con center without a badge then you totally can. Should I be saying this? idk, but it's the truth LOL.

If you've made is this far and read everything BLESS YOUR HEART YOU BRAVE SOLDIER.