Megacon Orlando 2025: A Prelude (and how I almost died at Megacon 2016)

 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 went to was in 2012, but I got my first taste of Megacon back around... 2007. 

7th grade me!

I didn't attend it myself, but I was at the Orange County Convention Center as an attendee at 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 the 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 had 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. 

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? My friends wandered around trying to find something fun to do. I mainly enjoyed seeing all the people and interacting with others. Working in the dealer's room was fun because of that. 

2014: I wrote about it here! 

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, and 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 :V

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.

Instead, I got so bored I ended up almost dying.

Really. I followed some friends I barely knew to a stranger's hotel room at night and well, I'll just put it bluntly: I had my first weed brownies experience out of sheer curiosity driven by BOREDOM. That meal at Denny's afterward was one of the most torturous experiences of my life. I felt like I was going to float up to the ceiling. We walked back to our hotel and I still felt like I was gonna float up to the moon. I literally had to hold onto my friend's arms/hands. Eventually, when the evil lettuce demon decided to let go of me, I threw up over 10 times in the bathroom. Thirsty, so thirsty, drinking so much water to quench my cotton mouth only to barf it up all over again. Was this the end? Would I have to jokingly blame Megacon for being so boring I had to end up in the hospital?

After maybe over an hour, somehow, I felt like I was okay.

The next day, I passed out 1000 printed flyers to random people I saw at the convention to promote the music show I was helping organize and perform at. whewwwwwwwww

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)

If anyone is disappointed in me and my past behavior... my history should NOT be a surprise :V

ANYWAYSSSSSSSSSSS

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 general interest in learning about Japanese idol culture. I could promote myself as an idol as-is, but I think in order 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 intereactive 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.

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 back 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~