Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Dragon Con 2014 - Saturday

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30130379@N07/15122087795
This is the 3rd post of my Dragon Con 2014 recap series. Click the links to read about Thursday and Friday!

Saturday was another early day for us. I donned my newest costume, The Haunted Mansion's Tightrope Girl, and we headed downtown. Usually Todd will walk me to the parade staging area, but he had a panel he wanted to go to so I walked myself.

It was really easy to find the Disney group and I talked to several people as we waited to go. As we started to march, I decided to take off my glasses and slip them in my purse. My eyes are really bad but I could see where I was going. It made the parade a unique experience.

Once I was done with the parade, I donned my glasses again and went to the Kaleidoscope track room because I was on a panel at 11:30. It was the Disney Princesses & Heroes Panel and I had a lot of fun talking Disney with the other panelists and the audience for an hour.

After that, I hustled over to the Sheraton to meet up with Todd. We did a panel on the Paranormal track that showcased psychic fraud. The panelist were Aiden Sinclair, a paranormal magician, and Patrick Doyle, one of the paranormal investigators from the show Ghost Mine. It made for an interesting mix.

Once our panel was over, we went back to the Marriott to get to the food court. And that's where we got stuck. Below is an illustration I made to show the worst traffic jam in Dragon Con.


The big red X is where the jam ends up being. It's a junction to get to a lot of places so tons of people end up there. We were stuck there probably 10 minutes trying to get to the food court. At this point in time, someone brilliant decided to route a line through the hallway that leads to the food court into the Marriott. 

Finally we got out of the jam, grabbed the first two open seats we saw and got some lunch. After a long lunch, we headed back to the Sheraton.

We were planning on doing more panels at the paranormal track later in the day but we fled to the Sheraton to escape some of the madness and crowds.

The first panel we did that after was the ESP one. This was the least interesting panel to me the whole weekend - mostly because I have no ESP abilities. We left a little before the end of the panel to get in line for the next panel.

Next up was the real story behind the Exorcism of Emily Rose which was extremely interesting because it ended up not being a real case of possession but mental illness on the part of the girl and a crazy ass priest who really wanted to exorcism someone.

We left that panel early too so we could get in line for Aiden Sinclair's show. We had gone to his show in 2013 and it was excellent. This  year's show had some similar things but some differences as well. I was picked to participate for his first trick. It was a lot of fun! 

I had a panel right afterwards in the Marriott and the show ended a little late. So Todd and I ran the several blocks in between. The crowds were still heavy even though it was now 8 pm but we didn't run into issues until we got to the big red X from my map above.

This time, two ladies were sitting side by side in wheelchairs. I'm all for people in wheelchairs to be able to come and enjoy the con, but they were in an area that has traffic jams regularly and isn't very wide. They were basically blocking the entire way and going slow.

Todd darted in front of them and almost got ran over. He was annoyed, I was annoyed and the dumb people causing the jam were annoyed and yelled at him. He basically ignored them and we got to my panel in time.

The panel was on Theme Park Travel but it ended up being all about Disney. My fellow panelists and I had a great time talking with a smaller audience about Disney Parks. Todd even offered his two cents in every once in a while.

Once we were done, it was 9:30 pm and had been at the con over 13 hours. It was the longest day we'd ever done (not counting the first couple of years when we stayed at the Marriott before Emily was born). It was a great day but way too long.


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