Back to Quebec, Otakuthon in Montreal.

This was my first time at Otakuthon, which took place at the Palais de Congres in Montreal. I haven’t heard too much about the con prior to this and I’ll admit right off the bat that it wasn’t quite as big as I thought it would be and perhaps was in some cases a little underwhelming. That doesn’t go to say that the con was bad, far from it. I feel like its still a juicy fruit that has yet to fully ripen. The location is ideal as its centralized between old Montreal, the port, downtown, Chinatown, the highway and many great locations in all directions. The convention center itself is amazing and spacious, so no uncomfortable cramming. I’m a bit interested to see what it’ll be like when Otakuthon will need the entire building for the convention.

My drive was just over 6 hours from Toronto with Alex giving me the directions once again. We roomed with 3 other friends at a very nice 4 ½ star hotel, Le Dauphin. A very nice looking establishment with good breakfast, a gym, TV, computer, glass-wall walk-in shower, etc… Parking was right across the street from the hotel, which was about a hundred meters from the convention so everything was nice and close, I love it.

For the convention itself I went to a few different panels but spent most of my time taking photographs and some videos once again. I had about 5 shoots during the weekend, two night ones which proved challenging to say the least. I took a couple clips of some Spartans on Saturday which I showed to Steve Downes later on (Voice of MC from Halo) during an autograph session and gave him my card so he could maybe check it out later.

Dinner on all three nights that I was in Montreal was awesome, especially on the Saturday night at a fancy restaurant enclosed between buildings, a great atmosphere and a live band playing right beside the four of us, the food was amazing. For lunch I had some sushi during the days which was all right. I’ll keep an eye out for more locations next time I attend Otakuthon.

I did some touring before and after the con, I’ve included some photos in the same gallery. Later ones were taken in a museum with my cell phone since I didn’t bring my Nikon with me, hence the drop in Quality.

So feel free to check the con photos and photoshoots I did during the weekend. Video will be posted at a later time.

-Mike