AYACON 5

20 Aug - 22 Aug 2005, Warwick Arts Centre, UK
Report by: Marc Brownett (badge name: Maku-neko)
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Check out the thumbnail alt tags to see some 'descriptions' and then click on them to open them in a new window at full size. Some photos maybe 'out of day order' just to even things up.

Despite catching a cold the day before the con and having it continue throughout, I enjoyed myself immensely. The con was ace! The only downer was that I couldn’t be in more than one place at a time. I’ve missed a few bits out (due to this report being long enough and that my memory sucks), but here’s my account of Ayacon 5, the best anime convention yet.
If you don’t get what I’m on about most the time, check google or anipike, they are your friends.

FRIDAY: it begins

I arrived about 3pm or so (thanks for the lift Dad and Mum) but didn’t overly miss much even though the event officially kicked off at 12pm. Already I was getting excited seeing so many people in cosplay just roaming and chatting in front of the main building of the university.
Before even finding the registration center I ended up bumping into Edge Grey (who I went with to Amecon) and his friends. After showing off a few purchases from the dealer’s room, they pointed me in the right direction to sign in. It was then I saw a familiar face from the a3s forums sitting on a sofa in reception. Fiona also instantly recognized me and the Kuro t-shirt, and explained that she’d mostly been abandoned. *gives hugs*
After getting hold of my con pack, ID badge and hall key, I set out to find my place of rest so I could leave my bigger bag (of clothes etc) behind. The rooms (and uni overall) kicked the crap out of the uni I went too in terms of space and facilities, and so I was well pleased with the accommodation.
My first stop was back at reception to see if Fiona’s friends had returned for her yet. It seemed that she’d been waiting over an hour, and so she happily allowed me to ‘kidnap’ her for some exploring. As it was already getting late, we mostly just had a brief look around some of the areas, such as the ‘bring & buy’ dealers room where I ended up meeting 'Shadow-Moses' from the Travelling Man shop in Leeds selling some stuff. My first purchases there were the first two ‘The World of Narue’ manga books and a soundtrack from ‘Hack//Twilight’. At one table there were a lot of ultra cute UFO catcher dolls, like Chiyo-chan from ‘Azumanga Daioh’, which I wanted to buy for some friends but they were so expensive. It was noted however that a lot of VHS tapes were being sold for a mere pound, yet no one was buying them. Guess this means VHS is truly on its way out if not already dead. I would have brought some myself, especially on the last day (as they then dropped to just 50p) but the tapes were just too bulky and I didn’t have any room to carry them.
By the time we got to the main dealer’s room, it was already closing up for the day. We decided to chill in the large but rather packed bar along with some drinks and food. In was then that we fell into the time-trap of chatting and playing Zelda: Four Swords on the GameBoy Advances. It was only when we had finished gaming that we noticed most people had disappeared from the bar and that we’d missed the opening ceremony, doh. When I asked a few people, they said we didn’t miss much though, just a few recommendations from the con committee on what to watch.

Through the night

As Fiona wasn’t staying in halls, and had to drive back home, I saw her off and then started randomly wandering about as there wasn’t much particularly going on bar a few screenings of random shows.
I ended up finding the DDR room, a full machine had been set up and a small competition was going off. These guys and girls were good, dancing at an insane speed to many familiar anime tracks (including one hyper 'Love Hina' track). It was here that I noticed a girl from the Two Side Wide forum, unmistakable due to the kat-hat upon her head (hi Emma). I had a chat with her and the girl she was talking to, who was showing off a rare and very cute looking Naruto hentai doushinji. As there were a few people just dotted around I decided to start spamming and handing out random badly photocopied versions of the A3S promo comic. Never know, might get some more people visiting here.
After realizing this small room with the DDR machine was not the entire games room, I moved on and bumped into a very happy Edge again just outside the other games rooms. We checked out the games room, watching a few playing card games, and others on various PS2 and Xbox games.
Edge and I decided to catch one of the last anime showings in one of the theater rooms, but there was a technical problem with the laptop that was playing the shows.
Gopher on walkie talkie; “Hi can you send down… anyone competent.”
The crowd laughs.
Random person in silly voice; “What’s com-pee-tent mean?”
Me in same silly voice; “Isn’t that when you can’t go to the toilet much?”
The crowd laugh before more random quotes and jokes were thrown about.
We ended up giving up after waiting so long and decided to call it a night (to get up as early as possible the next day). My cold was starting to kick in again anyway so after only getting a little lost, I found my way to my room again.
Trying to sleep was a bit of a task, and not just because I was having a hard time breathing. The walls were as thin as the ones I had at my old uni and therefore I could hear everything next door. They were watching music videos and funny clips on a laptop and I was tempted to just knock on the door and see if I could hang out, but my cold would have proved that troublesome. So I decided to just read the con book and The World of Narue to try and drop off to sleep. It was then that the few people next door slapped on a random hentai, and from their laughs it was probably more amusing than erotic (thank god). What I found personally found amusing was one of the quotes from the lads; “What is that…? Hahaha! That’s it, when I die I’m coming back as an eel.”
I could only guess what they were watching.
I drop to sleep looking forward to the next day.

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