WHOOOT! Going outta town for a con! It has been eight years since I left Texas to do a con. I am excited about this one. I will be attending Anime Central in Chicago this May by request. I had no clue what ACEN was until cosplayers on Cosplay.com requested my attendance so they can get professional level photos of their cosplay work. I am truly flattered and surprised that my brand of photowork has made it that far up North. I felt obligated to attend this con at that point. It’ll be a great opportunity to get my name slung around up there and meet fresh faces and cosplay. I’ll be flying there which already has me stressed out because of the hassle it is going to be to move all my camera gear up there. It is such a major pain in the butt to fly now with anything but a suitcase. The plane ride is going to be sweet. Going to Chicago in a luxury 777 Boeing. WHOOT! For information regarding ACEN you can head on over to their main site here. One last bit of cool news. I was accepted by ACEN’s Press staff to get press status and get a cool badge and have bonus privledges like being on the front row of the cosplay contest to do photowork. WHOOT! EXCITING TIMES!
Screwed again… Ikkicon… Another lesson learned. LIE when you check in. I reserved a room at the con rate but when I got there to check in they asked me a simple question; “How many people will be in your room?” I said four total. They slid a bill in front of me that no longer said $119 but $149 per night. I thought there must be a mistake so I called the manager over. No mistake. They were charging me extra for having more than one adult in the room. “Where is that posted!? The rate is for $119 as posted by Ikkicon on their front page of the website.” The manager smiled at me all smug. “That is the rate for a single person.” My left eye twitched. “Why the hell would I reserve a double queen suite for myself!? I want my $119 rate as posted.” The manager still had a smug smile. “I am sorry sir. The con should not have posted that rate without showing further information about multiple occuptants.” I wanted to beat him with my camera bag at that point. ”I have never had a hotel charge me extra because more than one person was in the room. What kind of scam are you running?” He smiled again. “No scam sir. It’s just in the rules.” “WHAT *(&(*%&@ RULES YOU GIMBOID GIT SMEGHEAD!?”
So I get the room and march up pissed and dump my stuff and then it gets better. Friends of mine have the same situation as mine with multiple people in their room but they got their room still for $119 a night. Now I am madder than a wookie that just lost at a game of space chess. In the end the manager would not budge and my first day of shooting sucked because I was not focused and full of rage. So lesson learned…. when they ask you that question; “How many ya got in the room?” Tell them me, myself and I and demand 4 keys anyway and tell them the Doubletree Hotel chain sucks giant goats. *rage*
Horrors of horrors! My first piece of camera gear broke on me while doing work at Ikkicon down in Austin. The cable that allows me take the flash off the camera and mount it to the top bracket has broken. I am lucky my flash wasn’t destroyed because when the shoe mount cracked and snapped at the base the flash tumbled off the bracket on an express path to the tiled floor of the hotel lobby. Luckily I had the speed of a cheetah and bungied the rig and was able to yank it back up before it hit the floor and I caught it. The cosplayers I was shooting were quite impressed by the sweet ninja moves. *sigh* $49.99… My own fault and lesson learned. Don’t carry the camera on the bracket like a briefcase. The plastic fatigued over time from gravity pulling at it on it’s side. Must not be lazy in the future and carry the rig upright at all times… T_T