NYCC 2013 - Turkey Weekend

NYCC took place this past weekend at the NYC Javitz center, and I was there to document the whole thing. Well, almost. Take the jump for details.

The reason it being Turkey weekend, Canadian Thanks Giving.

For the third time in a row, I enjoyed New York Comic Con, it always seems to be a well-run convention with plenty to offer for many fandoms, from guests, to panels, to merchandise, etc...

My trip started on Thursday morning when the three of us, Alex, Chantal and myself left Toronto for the big apple, it ended up being about an 8 hour drive, fairly decent. For the second year, we booked hotel Carter, which is about half a block from Time's Square, but about 12 from the convention center. This'll also be the last year as the hotel wasn't as "great" as it was last year. We were lucky last year cause we managed to get a room that three beds and it was like a conjoined twin-room of sorts. This year, we were up to 5 people in a small room with two beds that took up 50% of the floor area, and a closet so large and cave-like you'd think you lucked out and received a second room. 

But enough about hypothetical cave rooms, let me talk about about the convention itself. This year NYCC introduced a badge with "tap-in" tech feature. Meaning you had to tap-in and out of the convention by touching your badge to a Nexus 7 tablet held by an attendant. An interesting feature for sure. Something I did not realize when I first left the con area through an undesignated area, and my GF had trouble getting in because they thought she had stolen the badge... WOuldn't have been an issue if there were enough weekend-badges to go around, or maybe offer a weekend badge when someone purchases 1 of each day. I heard there was some drama about twitter-hacking for those who chose to link to their social account, in which NYCC started promoting their event on those registered accounts. Not a good way to start off the con with twitter-jacking. I'm looking forward to other conventions taking a similar approach in the future, it'd be nice if Fanex would be so generous to even offer a badge to begin with, instead of a tagging wrist-band.

I spent half my time doing photoshoots at the con, which I will begin editing very soon, thanks again to all those who booked a shoot with me. Parts of the convention area were still under construction surprisingly. I'm hoping by next year ALL the construction will be complete so walking around the south end and in the tunnell area isn't such a crowded task.

Thursday night I headed over to Shake Shack with people, and oh my, they have delicious burgers. My mouth was so watery chewing on that delicious beef. I ended up getting two on Sunday before leaving; a single, and a double-stacked one. Saturday night we went to Bare Burger which was nearby and was also blown away by the food and drinks they offered. I made sure to keep my water in my glass.

I didn't attend any panels this year as its sometimes tough figuring what I can go to between my shoots. I did traverse the whole dealer's room a couple times. So much merchandise. On Sunday I looked through the entire artist alley, not too much caught my eye there. A section more for the comic fans really. The lines were well handled and it never felt too crowded thankfully.

Checked out Time's Square a few times, went to the disney store, went to a doll store, and ended up at the Nintendo store at one point. This was on Friday which had a line of excited fans waiting for the new Pokemon X & Y games. It was my first time at a Nintendo store and have to say it was pretty cool. Wouldn't mind heading there again next year.

There was lotsof costumes at NYC this year, plenty of non-anime cosplay to keep the variety fresh. Lots of original and great takes on exisiting costumes, always love to see those. I managed to snag a few photos of them.

On the very end of our trip, a noteworthy mention here, I turned the radio on and it just so happened that Get Lucky by Daft Punk was playing. The signal started deteriorating with static coming in, and out of nowhere One more Time by Daft Punk started playing on top of the first one! The radio was literally trying to mix two Daft Punk songs together. Crazy I tell you.

Definitely looking forward to next year, and hoping I get a closer, and more importantly -better- hotel next year.

I managed to meet up with the usual suspects, friends, over the weekend though there were a few regular that were missing. Managed to meet and talk with some new people, cosplayers and photographers alike. I brought my big bazooka camera prop and it seemed to be a popular popular attraction at the con, several pictures were snapped of me holding it.

If you haven't, check-out the photo gallery from the Con and leave a comment below! Gallery Page 1, Page 2.

Thanks for the read!

Mike