Tuesday, January 27, 2015

A Festival and a Shopfession

MAGFest was last weekend. As I predicted, I was bad with my shopping freeze. How bad you ask?

-Sparkly purple dice for upcoming Pathfinder campaign + two 6 sided dice        $14
-Super Art Fight program (autographed by several featured artists at con)                     $15
-Portal Tee with Cave Johnson’s rant about lemons                       $20
-Plush puppy cow (created by a Super Art Fight artist)     $10
-Mystery box (I kept the hairbow and candy)                                 $5
-Several charms (made by Super Art Fight artist)               $24
-‘Don’t Panic’ hand towel                 $14
-Fabric bracelets                                 $2

That equals a grand total of $104 spent at this con. I kept getting dragged into the dealer’s room where it’s hard not to spend money. I got a great birthday gift idea for The Boy but I spent way too much time around temptation. On the plus side, most of what I spent was cash instead of charging it so no interest. I was also putting money toward local artisans instead of some massive corporation.

I have no guilt over any of my Super Art Fight Artisan purchases. It’s one of my favorite things about some of these cons and all the stuff I’ve seen has been great. I’ve even turned some of my friends into big fans. Most of the folks I saw were small entrepreneurs making some really great niche products like the customized nerd towels. I have a birthday coming up in about a month and no major cons again until April so I should do better in February.

It was interesting to speak to one of the artists having just finished New Domesticity. She just quit her ‘real’ job to go full time at her crocheted coolness. It sounded like her husband still had the standard gig but she’s in such demand that she won’t need him nearly as much as some of the moms in Matchar’s book. 

Craftigurumi is doing so well that when I inquired about a custom order she said she probably wouldn’t get to it until March. Her impressive work ethic combined with her unique material and consistent con presence should keep her business booming for quite a while. She said she crochets at about 3 feet per hour for the scarves and she’s doing it for about 8 hours a day. I recommended 4 podcasts I absolutely love since she listens to TV a lot.

The con itself was great. Most of my friends were there and I got to see all of them for at least a little bit. I played my favorite arcade game, saved the earth from aliens with The Boy, checked out some indie games, and sat in on a panel about Girls in Geekdom. This con is always fun but this year it was especially great. Being with friends really just made the con for me.

I did a Con Bingo list of all the crazy costumes I saw. I was able to check off:

-A furry
-A brony
-A punny costume (Teenage Mutant Ninja Bros)
-The Doctor (4, 6, 7, 11)
-A member of the Disney Princess franchise (4 total)
-Guy with a Japanese body pillow
-Person on stilts (full Groot costume)
-At least 3 Deadpools or one with a twist (2 with twists, 2 women, and at least 2 standard)
-A pregnant woman who worked her pregnancy into the costume (Season 1 Khalessi)
-Unnecessarily slutty costume (Charmander)
-Waldo & Carmen San Diego (separate counts but bonus points if they’re together)
-A crazy expensive screen accurate costume (Master Chief)
-Gender bent costume (Princess Peach followed by Ash from Pokemon)

I missed:
-Man in anime girl outfit
-Hot guy in shirtless costume to show off abs

I found a few different cartoons that I might have to adjust and make an actual Con Bingo for my friends and I for Awesome Con in a few months.

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