Overview of Otakon 2012

Outdoors

This is my first encounter with the Baltimore Convention Center while driving by in the blazing heat. Thank goodness for air condition! What you see here on your left is the Hilton Baltimore pedestrian skybridge connecting to the convention building and a portion of the front entrance exterior.

While walking to the convention building, I come across this huge “Like” advertisement from Liberty Mutual. I thought the timing of the truck was perfect, because it was Thursday, which was when the Otakon attendees were permitted to pick up their badges.

At night the weather is much cooler and you will definitely continue seeing attendees, including the cosplayers, roaming around outside the building.

Indoor

The Registration booths were not only where I received my badge, but I had the opportunity to choose the design as well.

The booths here were for other services relating to the convention, such as the artist alley or general badge inquiries.

In the Dealers Room there was a water cooler and nice plastic cups for our dry throats.

An overall view of the Artist Alley.

A warning to the artists in the alley.

For some reason, the video game room had a huge empty space.

On Sunday, I saw this sign outside the Maid Café. I thought the sign was placed there after its last hour, but reading it makes me think that it was never open at all, “we regret to say we are closed for this year.” I swear I thought I saw random people walking in the same uniformed maid outfits…unless they were cosplayers…

Badges

Here are images of the badges that attendees were able to select from:

Crowd

Everywhere you turn there was a gathering of people. Whether it’s during an event or in the hallways, you cannot avoid the crowd.

In the Dealers Room, there was food and a sitting area for people to eat and relax their tiresome feet. This one was near the front entrance next to the FUNimation booth.

I was taking the escalator to go up to the next level and I spotted this gathering. I think there was dancing going on…I do remember seeing people moving around in that space though.

This was outside of the exit threshold of the Dealers Room. People were just THAT tired. Any space they can find, they sat.

What Was Happening

I saw this Friday morning and I believe that was the line for picking up your badges! Geez it was long! I recall Thursday being like this as well. However, I didn’t wait on line to pick up my badge. Because there was nothing happening that day, I went later in the day to pick up my badge. It was much quicker than waiting in line during a blazing heat wave!

Here is one of the guest panels of Otakon, Gen Urobuchi, except we couldn’t take pictures of him. (T_T) This picture was taken before anything started. As you can see it was a very simple basic set up with two projection screens and a table with chairs. When he entered the stage, he was quite the clown. He had a hoodie that covered his face, walked in the most awkward way to the table, then sat down and reveals his face and Kyubey t-shirt. Fans had the opportunity to ask him questions and learned a few things about Gen, his writing career and his work on anime.

Fans of Gen and his anime series had the opportunity to get his autograph on items such as this figma and the Otakon program book. Once you entered the room that he was in, it was pretty orderly. Each of us went up one by one, told a staff member of the autograph session our name, they wrote it down on an index card, passed onto Gen and he personalized what we brought up to him with our names.

There were other autograph sessions happening throughout the weekend. Here is one with Jason David Frank at his booth in the Dealers Room.

On Sunday, the Aniplex Booth had an autograph session with the English cast of Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Christine Marie Cabanos as Madoka Kaname

Sarah Williams as Sayaka Miki

Lauren Landa as Kyoko Sakura

The convention was nearing to a close and my friends and I were chilling before we were ready to leave Baltimore. All of sudden we hear the song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.” Pictured above are the people parading while singing the song. I believe they turned around and went straight to the registration area. They kept marching along while singing the song. Yes, that is how the day ended.

© 2013 Linda Thai Photography by Linda Thai

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