Midoricon 2013 Coverage Pt. 1

“What other convention can you just stop in the middle of the road and talk to someone you just met?”

That sentence perfectly described Midoricon 2013. I’m not sure what the guy’s name was that said it, but it came up in a conversation  with him while we were literally standing in the middle of the road by the Midorimura Festival. This year, instead of Midoricon being held at the Salt Fork Lodge in Cambridge Ohio, it was held at Shawnee Lodge in West Portsmouth.

Friday lacked interesting events, so we just walked around. It was just us guys; the two girls in our group had to work at the D20 Girls’ Maid Café (which, by the way, had AMAZING food AND pretty girls serving it, what could be better?)  at Midoricon’s Midorimura Festival. The Festival was held in the cabins; anyone who had a cabin was able to open up a shop. At the Festival, there was everything from the Maid Café , a Bubble Tea Stand, a sweet shop, and even an electronics “repair shop”, cleverly called “LEaD the Way”.

Saturday wasn’t much different than Friday. We got up early and headed from the campgrounds to the lodge.  We did our normal circuit around the convention area until things picked up in the afternoon when more people arrived.  Most of my time was spent with my friends Tyler and Joey watching them battle with fake weapons. At one point there was a nice war between four Fairy Tail cosplayers and other cosplayers. Because there weren’t any panels or events that interested us until the Slenderman Hike (more on that in a bit), we mostly just hung around the lodge and walked back and forth from the lodge to the Festival.

Around 6 o’clock, Tyler changed into his Slenderman cosplay to get ready to be in the Hike. We wandered around and were stopped A LOT for pictures (some of which while I was giving him a “Slenderback” ride). When it got dark, Tyler, our friend Ryan, and I walked the path leading to the Midorimura Festival. Since the path was not lit, we decided to have some fun. Tyler in full Slenderman cosplay stood in the woods with Ryan and myself sitting at the edge of the path. I set my flashlight so that it barely showed any light. Then, when someone would walk by, I would simply ask “Hey, how’s it going?” which would make them look in my direction, and suddenly notice Slenderman behind me, scaring them.  After a bit of this, we changed our prank up a bit so Slenderman would run out of the woods while I distracted people walking along the path.  While this was absolutely hilarious and con-chair, Shannon, also thought it was funny, we did contribute to the problems concerning the Slenderman Hike. People thought that what we were doing was part of the Hike, causing convention wide confusion.

Speaking of the Hike, all I can really say about it is: it was a good concept; however it crashed badly.  There were to be multiple Slenderman cosplayers. All but one skipped out of doing it, resulting in the convention having to find replacements. When we got on the trail it was only lit by a few people with flashlights.  The trail was covered in roots and rocks and had some holes in it that were near impossible to see if you didn’t know where they were. Another issue with the hike was not a lot happening on it. The trail was about a mile or longer, and there were very few scares anywhere. There was a person in our group that ended up running ahead of us and hiding, just so he could jump out and scare us to make it interesting.

The only good thing about the Hike was the nice touch of hiding pages from Slender on trees. A nice suggestion for the hike next year would be putting dim lanterns along the trail, just enough to be able to see the trail, but not enough so it’s bright. The dim lighting would also add a certain mysterious mood that flashlights just don’t give. Another suggestion would be simply picking a different trail as well. The trail used for the Hike this year was uphill, and with the aforementioned roots and holes, the trail was very dangerous to walk at night. Even with the problems, I hope the Hike comes back next year to be bigger and better.

After everything on Saturday, we were exhausted on Sunday morning, but we had to be up early to host our Adventure Time panel. Sunday morning was the morning from the Nightosphere (any Adventure Time fans will understand my meaning). We get to our panel and…the room is nearly full. The convention ended up letting people in early. We wrestled to get everything set up in a very awkward panel room. When we finally had everything set up, bad luck hit us again, and the projector didn’t want to connect to my laptop. We ended up having to make do with the panel by holding up my laptop to show pictures. Even with our problems, the panel still went fairly well, and we got some notes on what to improve for the next time we do it.

Late Sunday morning brought us the Portal Birthday Party for some food. Everything was AMAZING. There was good food, nice  people, and just pure fun. I mean, who else can say they ate with GLaDOS while Wheatley and the Space Core watched. And yes, the cake was delicious and moist.

The last thing on Sunday was the Closing Ceremonies, where everyone had some nice suggestions to improve the problems the convention had. A majority of the problems could be described with one word: miscommunication. Miscommunication between the lodge and the convention, the convention and con-goers, etc. They weren’t huge problems, but they were there.

We were very sad to leave the convention and make our adventure back to the real world, but my group is patiently waiting for the dates for Midoricon 2014. We’re even working on a few event ideas to become more a part of the convention. As the convention is only in its second year, there’s still plenty of time to improve on everything, and any problems allow the convention to learn. One thing I’m hoping for with Midoricon 2020 is: Midoricon in Space!!!!!!! (I can dream can’t I??)

For more information on Midoricon, here are links to the Midoricon website, Facebook group, and the Midoricon Facebook page. Also, make sure to stay tuned for Part 2 of my coverage, where I’ll be revealing the deepest darkest secrets of everyone’s favorite spooky storyteller, Mr. CreepyPasta!