Posts Tagged recap
Bristol Comic Expo 2009… the one without a job
Posted by Rockjaw in Events, Nerd Alert, Personal on May 12th, 2009
This weekend was another Bristol Comic Expo – my fourth, not my fifth, as I got confused about before.
I’ve gone every year since 2005, except 2006 (when it clashed with a trip to LA for E3), but every year I attended to officially represent NCsoft. What started in 2005 as a couple of us stuck in a corner trying to flog City of Heroes (without actually selling it) culminated last year in a big ol’ stand with practically an artistic production-line to handle the pencilling, inking, scanning, colouring and printing of player sketches. Without a doubt, in terms of our professional ambitions, Bristol 2008 was our high point. As a fun weekend away for me personally though, this year is the hands-down winner.
Despite that, we definitely fulfilled our primary purpose: to help out Andrew Wildman once more with Draw the World Together. Mat and I couldn’t be happier to help, but as always, there were a lot of people who made things happen.
First and foremost was Mike Allwood, Expo organiser, who gave us the space and time we needed to sketch in. It was no easy feat, as with this year’s Expo being squeezed into the Ramada Hotel (with overspill at the nearby Mercure) it was hard to swing a cat, let alone get half-a-dozen artists to sketch in one room. Mike also ensured that our most generous supporters could get into the Expo, even after tickets were officially sold out. As always whenever I saw Mike over the weekend he was a picture of relaxed calm amongst the chaos, and went above and beyond to help things run smoothly.
DTWT doesn’t really work without Andrew Wildman at the centre of things though – even though he’d say he’s not the most important part! As always Andrew pulled strings, stroked egos and generally hustled to get a great group of artists to sit and sketch. He’s a diamond geezer, as anyone will attest to, and of course he sketched more than a few things on the day too.
Mat and I? We just turned up, really. So let’s kick back with the traditional, chronological, rambling retelling….
Read the rest of this entry »
UK Games Expo: Day Zero
Posted by Rockjaw in Events, MMO-related on May 30th, 2008
Late Friday. Not a helluva lot to say, but egads, why not post about it right after it’s happened eh?
Today started with forgetting something; my driving licence, to be precise, but as my flat is five minutes from work it just meant a slightly longer walk for the three of us from the office to the care hire place. With van duly hired, we returned to the office and loaded things for a couple of hours, taking special care not to forget anything else.
We were off almost exactly at midday (which is becoming a pattern, I noticed), and made good time to the M25… then crawled intermittently as a mysterious ‘obstruction’ slowed us down (which never revealed itself to us). Pulled into the Clarendon Suites car park a tad before 5pm, and ended up unloading and setting up the stand until about 7:30pm.
Not much has changed about the Expo since last year, although our stand looks a bit more swish – if you ask me – and also we of course have space for artists this time, where we didn’t last year. We’re all looking forward to a couple of days raising cash, but also selling loads of games. Bring your wallets, people!
Strolled across the road after setup to book into our hotel, then wandered around for a bit through a maze of corridors trying to find our rooms. Then off out, a decent enough meal at TGI Fridays (What can I say, it was in walking distance) and a nightcap in the local pub, The Garden House.
That’s that. Pretty standard fare so far. Tomorrow it gets interesting. Night!
Comic Expo: addendum and etcetera
Posted by Rockjaw in MMO-related on May 21st, 2008
Whoops! Almost forgot I had this in my Drafts. So, here we go; a few things to add and… etc
Lessons learned
Hmm. Don’t eat loads of chocolate cookies about a week before a dental visit? That’s common sense, surely… alright, slightly more important stuff: Read the rest of this entry »
Comic Expo… last part
Posted by Rockjaw in Day Today, Events, MMO-related on May 17th, 2008
The last day of Comic Expo started easily enough: out of bed, down to breakfast, back to the room, pick up everything I need to, realise I can’t possibly carry all of it while also wheeling my luggage out… okay, maybe not so easy.
With Mat’s help I got everything downstairs, checked out, jumped in the van, and nipped over to the Commonwealth Hall to park for the day. We were inside in good time, and cleaned up the stand of the usual detritus, ready to face Sunday shoppers.
As well as the dynamite team of Neil, Mike, Jason and Kat we also had Andrew Wildman joining us, so we knew it was going to be a productive day. All we needed now was people. Read the rest of this entry »
Comic Expo… Part 2
Posted by Rockjaw in Day Today, Events, MMO-related, Personal, Weird self portraits on May 15th, 2008
Apparently I am an elephant, because an elephant never forgets.
As I dropped off to sleep on Friday I remembered that in the same hotel in 2007, I’d overslept thanks to an alarm call that never came. That lingering knowledge probably kept me half-awake through the night, and I woke a little groggy on Saturday – but on time.
Still. Show to get done. No rest for the wicked… Read the rest of this entry »
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