Supanova Sydney 2011

Spritza and I in our costumes

Supanova 2011 has come and gone, and it was awesome. There were parts about it which weren't so awesome, and those will be mentioned, but in general it was pretty good. Photos were taken, much geekery was around, and I spent money.

Lots of money.

When Spritza and I arrived at the venue, we found that they had split the attendees up into multiple lines. Two lines for the people who were exchanging their pre-bought tickets for stamps or wristbands (split according to where the ticket was purchased from), a line for people who had their entry stamp/wristband, and a line for the people who hadn't bothered to pre-purchase their tickets. This system worked well enough for before the convention opened, but I can't help but feel it would be fairly overkill once people were getting inside.

After queuing for what seemed like an eternity, we were finally allowed in the building to... wait for it...

To queue again! They opened the building, but only to let people in the first room - which contained a total of one stall, and all the booths for people to get autographs. Of which none were there yet. This was ridiculous! Eventually, they opened the gates blocking the rest of the convention, which caused a minor stampede for the actual convention stalls. Why they didn't open those gates at the advertised time of 10am I'll never know...

Inside there was a plethora of people hawking their goods. Geeky goods, of course. Plenty of generally geeky figures, DVDs, random art prints, and the like were being sold left right and centre. Except for centre, I supopose, because they had put a huge freaking wrestling ring in the middle to accommodate the crappy Australian Wrestlers that noone actually cares about. Well, I say noone cares about them, but when there was a match on the central area got ridiculously packed, making it hard to move and purchase things from the stalls in the area.

Which leads me to the first problem with Nova – space. The convention seems to grow yearly, and they've clearly outgrown the space that The Dome at Olympic Park offers them. It was quite difficult to move around – especially during the aforementioned wrestling matches, but in general it was quite difficult as well. On Sunday it was much easier to move, mainly because there were far fewer people. Hopefully the organisers will see this and move somewhere bigger – or organise the spaces better. 

There were many stalls that were positioned in places that caused massive traffic jams – for example, one particular stall had the guy who was selling the stuff (dressed as Duke Nukem – awesome) on the outside, since his section was a wall with shelves of stuff. Every time I went past that section, there was a massive traffic jam due to people checking out the wares and buying things. While it took no more space than the stalls that actually had desks and people behind them, it seemed kind of out of place, and more difficult to maneuver past, since generally the desk ones had a defined area where you could tell if someone had stopped to look and spend money, or were just passing by.

As per usual, the cosplay was quite good. I didn't get a chance to watch either of the competitions, but simply walking around you get a good idea of what was there – as well as being part of the cosplay chess game! There were multiple Minecraft creepers walking around, Captain Falcon, Hercule (who I'm sure was the same guy as Hercule, done on separate days), many, many Miku's (including two male Mikus – one being THE TALLIS OHMYGODNO), a few Haruhis, etc.

This is the tamest Tallis I could find. I refuse to look at the others.

Of course, I spent a lot of money, though this convention holds the distinction of being the con I have spent the most money at in a single event. I won't go into details of how much I spent (it was much more than I expected to, but not more than I took with me), though the loot I got was incredible. This includes the Shiva Bike figure I've been eyeing for over a year!

On a related note, while shopping for things, there were some kinds looking at the stalls – as you get at these events. There was a stall with a bunch of phone straps of nicely geeky things – anime characters, game characters, weapons, etc. These kids saw a particular phone strap, and immediately dismissed it with “Ergh its just a Minecraft block, why would you buy that?” This “Minecraft block” was the POW! Block from Mario. These children have clearly not been educated properly. I blame the parents.

Pictured: NOT a Minecraft block

Also, as you can see, the costumes turned out awesomely. Admittedly there was a minor disaster on Sunday – I knelt to get into my bag, and at that moment, the crotch of my pants ripped. I hid myself in my cape until an emergency sewing kit could be borrowed, then headed off to the restrooms to stitch myself back together. Imagine my dismay and panic when I opened this kit to find there was no needle! In the end, I simply pinned it closed and went the day constantly checking myself to make sure I hadn't come apart. This had happened in the line in the morning before we got in – quite funny in retrospect!

Obligatory loot photo!