Hello Blossoms and random internet passerbyers! 🌼🌻🌷🌸🌹🌺💐
It's been YEARS since I've written a post about going to a convention, so I'm really happy to write these next few blog post entries about my experience at Megacon Orlando 2025.
But before that, I want to provide some background information about my experience with this convention many years ago.
Ah Megacon... (a prelude)
Megacon was one of the very first few conventions I attended when I was 18. In fact, it was the 3rd convention I ever attended. The first Megacon I officially attended was in 2012, but I got my first taste of Megacon back around... 2007.
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| 7th grade me! |
I didn't attend it myself, but I was at the Orange County Convention Center as an attendee for an international Taekwondo tournament to cheer on a family friend. As we walked around the convention center outside of the boundaries of the taekwondo tournament, I saw cosplayers live and in the flesh for the first time in my life! Y'see, back then, cosplay was NOT as common as it is now. Ordering cosplay online that was affordable and decent quality wasn't an easy thing. Most people had to make their cosplays themselves, and let's not even talk about wigs...
What I remember most clearly out of everything I saw was a girl dressed in lolita pushing what looked like a baby stroller filled with ball-jointed dolls. My mom made a big deal about it because she never saw such a thing before, but I knew exactly what I was looking at... a girl in lolita pushing what looked like a baby stroller filled with ball-jointed dolls! Woah! My first time seeing a true J-fashion enthusiast in the wild, or perhaps, I suppose, in its natural habitat. I had only seen such things on internet forums.
Once I turned 18, I started going to anime conventions alone with my friends and surely we had to hit up Megacon. After that first official year attending Megacon, I tried to attend almost every year.
2012: My first year. I was an 18 year old and new to anime conventions. Just being able to be there and see all the different people with my friends was enough entertainment for us. The nature of this vlog is very... the perspective of a high school senior in 2012.
2013: I worked in the dealer's room. It was fun but looking back on it, I was pretty much taken advantage of for practically-free labor LMAO. I wasn't there the full weekend though. I only worked for one day.... I don't even think we spent the night there? Maybe we just crashed on the floor of someone's hotel room. My friends wandered around trying to find something fun to do. I mainly enjoyed seeing all the people dressed up and interacting with then. Working in the dealer's room was fun because of that.
2014: I wrote about it here! Have fun comparing my writing style between now and over 10 years ago.
2015: Skipped because I was studying abroad in Japan~
2016: The last year I attended. It was so boring. Boring as in, I had a really hard time finding anything on the programming schedule that piqued my interest. That's really my fault for not looking up the schedule in advance. Sure, there are guests you can line up to meet and you can go shopping the dealer's room/artist alley, but what I really enjoy the most at conventions are the chances you can interact with others and make a new friend. I think the rave required a separate ticket and I'm not even sure if they brought back speed dating LOL. The halls were heavily monitored so no one could hallway-con: the act of hanging around the area where a convention is held, but not actually buying a pass to access the ticketed areas of the event. While I totally understand why cons are against that from a business perspective, unfortunately, from an attendee perspective, the liveliness of the hallways and the chaos that happens there was what made me really enjoy Megacon in the past, as an early 20s college student. Hey, just being honest!
I think if I attended the same Megacon 2016 as a... 31 year year old adult NOW maybe I would have had a better idea of planning, researching in advance, and figuring out a way to still make the most out of my con experience.
I also did a really fun interview with a very kind and popular cosplayer! You know her? I really need to get back into interviewing people (I tell myself this alllllllll the time)
But seriously, I'm not trying to actually HATE on the con. I'm just trying to explain that unfortunately, my expectations for Megacon being fun was quite low.
Wait, so then why did I even want to try to go for the first time in years to begin with?
Well, since it was happening during my trip to Florida, for my annual vacation from my job teaching in Korea, I figured it would be something interesting I can add to the itenerary of things to do with my family. It had been nearly 10 years since the last time I went, so maybe things changed?
I also decided that this could be a chance to host a panel and put myself out there. Yknow, be a part of the change I want to see in the world I guess. I could submit some kind of mini-concert style panel like I've done in the past, or, what if, I did... a game show. A hybrid between lecture, games and performance.
Since idol anime like Oshi no Ko has become quite mainstream (for better or for worse) and vtubers have gotten exponentially popular, there might be some higher general interest in learning about Japanese idol culture. I could promote myself as an idol as-is, but I think to get people to become my fan, it would help if more people understood the context of idols and how there's so much more you can enjoy from it other than just watching someone perform. So, that was how I came up with my presentation: "J-Pop Idols for Dummies: An interactive show!" After I submitted the programming application form, I felt so proud of my idea that even if it didn't get accepted, I was totally gonna keep that plan for another chance.
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But even if I didn't get my presentation accepted, I was still interested in attending the con. The convention's branding seemed to have improved and looking at past scheduling, there seemed to be a track for anime-related/Japanese pop-culture related programming. Also, just the idea of being there surrounded by people and cosplayers and the livliness of it all after not being at anime conventions as frequently as I once was, well, I feel like I went back to the way I felt when I was 18 and had only went to two conventions prior to Megacon.
Before I got the e-mail notification about my panel being accepted, I suggested the idea to my mom about Megacon and she said she was interested in checking it out because...
she STILL remembers the lolita girl with the baby stroller full of ball-jointed dolls!
Now, that allll of that backstory is out of the way, onto the recap of day one... in my next post~
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