Final Boss: Get Into Blizzcon

How we persevered and saw Le Sserafim.

Hey folks,

SO much to tell you about this week AND it’s a holiday. So let me break it down efficiently.

Why do you take holidays off?

I get this question pretty much every time we take a DTNS off for a non-Christmas or New Year’s holiday. Especiallyw ith a daily show it’s important to combat burnout. Holidays are a built in way to do that. So I just tied into an existing system. Consider it an object-oriented method fo takign holidays.

I call the “Is it a federal holiday?” package and if yes, we take it off. This way we’re not making judgements about what holidays are good and what aren’t. We let the nation we reside in do that. And we get to recharge.

How was Blizzcon?

OK. So. I told this story on The Morning Stream this week but here’s the full scoop.

1. We didn’t plan well. Most of this was our own fault. I wanted to go Friday and pick up badges and walk the show floor but then Patreon invited me to a Patreon event Friday night, and well, they literally pay my bills (through your support of course.) Then Saturday we were lazy. We didn’t want to get there “too early” and it takes an hour and a half to get form our house to Anaheim. we didn’t consider that this is a two day show and the second day wouldn’t prioritize being arranged for the convenience of people who didn’t show up earlier. That’s all our fault. We should have planned better. OK. So from that ill-advised starting point, here’s what happened.

2. We get to the convention center around 3:30ish. We park in the parking lot behind the convention center because that’s how Waze took us in. There are plenty of spaces. Not a problem. We park. We follow the signs to the pedestrian walk. It’s locked. A staffer comes up on a car and says we should be able to get in the glass door. But it’s locked. So he tells us to walk the other way and ask to be let into registration. we walk all the way to the other end of the back of the convention center to be told by two different people we should definitely not have gone that way. On the way back a well-meaning staffer tells us to ask them to let us in the back of the hall so we can get to registration. The person at the door however doesn’t even stand up. Just shakes his head. He was not having any of it. So we eventually go back in the parking garage with the idea of walking out the front and going all the way around the block. And that’s when we see people coming in through an unmarked side door. We go out that door and find our way to the convention center

3. Here’s where things get murky. We definitely paid for two tickets. I have the digital items to prove it. We definitely were told registration was closed and we were too late. We definitely received some unspecified help from Alex, TheJen, Shane and Matt as well as “glue lady.” we definitely made it into the conference.

4. Our main goal by this point is just to get into the Arena for Le Sserafim, which was just over an hour away. They had already let people in for the Community night stuff like the costume contest, so the line was much shorter than it had been. We had hope. we stood in the line for a good half hour and finally amde it up to the front. And then…

5. Someone at BlizzCon decided that it was a good idea to just tell everyone they weren’t going to let anyone into the Arena for the rest of the night. Several people pointed out that when the Community Event was over a lot of people would leave and the people who wanted to see Le Sserafim should be let in. The official word was “That may be but we’re not letting anyone else in,” something something Fire Marhsal. Fire Marshal concerns are real btu they are also something you can say to stop arguments. So everyone left the line except a handful of us who went and just hung out.

6. Community night ended and hundreds of people left. Not most, but certainly enough to accommodate the 100 or so of us still hoping to get in. There was a back and forth about how we were free to stand there but we weren’t getting in and we needed to make room for the large amount of people leaving. There was one combative guy but someone told him to chill and mostly we just stood there letting the fact that they had to move us out of the way for the people exiting make our argument for us.

7. Finally they announced they would let “70” people in to the obstructed view section. They ushered us in and up to a section that had a side view that you couldn’t really see the stage form. Except they only ushered us to the door. Once in people just started to filter over to the open seats of which there were many. It was kind of stunning tot he people sitting there as we traipsed through their row on to other seats.

8. So through many obstacles we were in seats before the concert started and had a wonderful time.

I understand the issue BlizzCon was having. The Arena is set up for a ticketed event. It’s not a big open area like the E hall where they used to have the concerts. So you can’t just let people in as people leave. If you let people mill about switching seats it would be a mess and likely a fire hazard. But you can’t treat two separate events with overlapping but different audiences as the same audience. Or you get what happened. I don’t have a solution myself, but what they did, wasn’t really it. And yet int he end it worked out.

How was Belgium?

It was great! Big thanks to the StiboDX folks for inviting me out to talk at CUE Days. I had a great time and they seemed to value what I presented. This newsletter is getting long though so I’ll save most of my stories for next time. But the short version is, great people, fantastic conversations, wonderful beer and waffles and thanks Rico for coming out to meet me and so sorry you got sick Louis, hopefully I make it back sometime!

I think the CUE Days folks may make some of the presentations public, but int he meantime I adapted one of my talks into a shorter version for Top 5

Thanks all! Have a great weekend.

Tom