I just got back to my room after our first 2 days of GI Joe Con 2018. The first day was quite exhausting. It was mostly just waiting in line. Like HOURS of waiting in line to register, and then shop in the Club Store. The second day was a lot more fun with the panels, and then going through the vendors.
As I mentioned above Day 1 was mostly waiting in lines. And then more waiting in lines.... and then more waiting in lines... you get the point... There were plenty of volunteers around and thank goodness because I had to ask them which line was which, how the system works, where I was supposed to go... Once I finally figured out the registration line, we went in with the "7 PM" group and then waited 2+ hours to get our badge, lanyard, comic, and convention box set. After that, we waited for about an hour for the club store. My daughter was in line with us the whole time and did AWESOME. She was a real trooper. The first day was tiring but getting the exclusives was fun. Man that was a lot a standing! The convention staff has been super nice and super helpful. I bought a few exclusives, but I didn't buy everything. Mostly I bought stuff that looked fun or had some nostalgia attached to it.
Day 2 was where the fun really began. We attended the "The Truth of G.I. Joe...or at least the way we saw it..." with David Kunitz and Kurt Groen and the "‘95 and Beyond!" with James Kavanaugh and Dan Klingensmith. I really enjoyed both panels. I liked seeing where the line was going. I'm a life long GI Joe fan but I've never really jumped into mega fandom so I didn't know a lot of the info. It makes me sad this is the last Joecon because I would enjoy seeing a lot more panels like this. Good conversation, power points with pictures, and some fun.
We attended the parachute drop and that was 100% a disaster. I thought the actual drop was neat. It was cool seeing GI Joes parachute down from a really high height. A few people were watching from the parking decks and they had a lot of parachuting figures float back into the lower decks. Now what would a decent person do? That's right, throw them back out for the kids, but a lot of guys took multiples. Not all of them took them, a bunch of the guys continued throwing them down. Now this is an event for the kids. They let the kids line up in the front, but once the the club said everyone could get the figures it was CHAOS. There were adults running, pushing children down, taking multiples (people were only supposed to take 1). I started to take my 2 year old to try and get a figure, but once the shoving and fighting started, I stopped and backed out. It wasn't worth the risk.
The people at the convention have been awesome. Everyone that we have talked to has been nice, friendly, and having fun. I've seen all walks of life, families, single people, people meeting up with friends, kids, etc. It's been great.
We hit up the vendor hall, and it was awesome. There was TONS of GI Joe stuff (as to be expected) and a few other things. I bought a few vintage Joes and plan to pick up more as the weekend progresses. I didn't get to spend a ton of time in the vendors so we will definitely be going back before the weekend is over. I'll do a post on all my con haul later.
More to report tomorrow!