Convention True Horror Stories?

[Shika]

Reminds me when I was on security back in 08 when we where at the Eastland. Although almost all that year was a nightmare, I asked a guy who was cosplay Al from Full Metal Alchemist to see his badge. He checked everywhere but didn't have it, he had to go back to his house to get it. I felt kind bad but you should always remember your badge.
Another story from the Eastland I was watching people looking for badges and this girls walks by with her badge pinned to her chest, I noted it and moved on. She turned and started yelling at me about looking at her chest. She tried to make a scene put of it. About how all the staff was looking at her chest. I told her not to pin her badge right onto her breast and she wouldn't have that issue. I tried to tell her to just pin it an inch above the hem of her shirt. She just kept yelling at me, I was on duty so I couldn't walk away. She continued to yell at for about a minute. She eventually turned her attention on some guy walking by who didn't even look at her.

[nephilistic]

I've got a handful. I can wrap most of them in 1 short phrase.  Jess is a great guy but dealing with him @ cons is a bad idea.

[Soul Tsukino]

I think a lot of stories are going to take place at the Eastland. The room Emerje and I shared was not the greatest. The desk lamp light was blown out and the wall outlet next to my bed? Completely exposed. Wires and everything. Not to mention the size of the bathroom. oy.


Last year during Otakon I happened to be "lucky" enough to be in the dealer's room Saturday afternoon. I look up and see the lights flashing and noticed a woman come up to a staffer asking if we should do something since it was a fire alarm. He told her no so I starting eating my lunch. I happen to look over and see the crowd coming in reverse flow and go streaming out and knew something bad was gonna happen. Suddenly a Convention center staffer came in yelling for everyone to get the heck out. We were all herded out the doors and instead of letting us go to find the doors they herded out one door to the crosswalk leading to the office complex next door and a stairway to the street. The ota staff kept screaming at everyone to keep moving and to get away from the building, but we were being herded towards stairs that were gated off with a large metal gate. If there had been a real fire someone would have gotten killed right then and there. I stormed my way back to the hotel furious and had to cool off for a while before going back but made sure to tell a few staffers about what had happened.

[Rose Riku]

Another story from the Eastland I was watching people looking for badges and this girls walks by with her badge pinned to her chest, I noted it and moved on. She turned and started yelling at me about looking at her chest. She tried to make a scene put of it. About how all the staff was looking at her chest. I told her not to pin her badge right onto her breast and she wouldn't have that issue. I tried to tell her to just pin it an inch above the hem of her shirt. She just kept yelling at me, I was on duty so I couldn't walk away. She continued to yell at for about a minute. She eventually turned her attention on some guy walking by who didn't even look at her.

  I would have smacked her. xD

[Shika]

I would have smacked her. xD

Being on staff I couldn't do that. I wouldn't have done that anyway but if I wasn't on duty or not on staff I would have just walked away from her.

[Lacksagoo]

1.  I was stuck in a panel room a few years back in some stand-up comedy contest (my friend was the host of the event).  Right in the middle of the travesty, a girl with a terribly obnoxious voice went to the stage and painstakingly recounted her recent anime-viewing experience (fresh in her mind from some god-awful convention viewing room piece), repeating each bit several times for comedic measure.  I wanted to attempt suicide with the pin on the back of my badge, but the PCM staff didn't give partial refunds (and still don't, for this very reason).

2.  PCM 2002 was at USM.  Yikes.

3.  About five cons ago, I attended Whose Line Is It Anime in Lighthouse B.  Big mistake.  While most of the participants tried to keep the humor semi-clean and halfway funny, others felt compelled to remind us all that we were at an anime convention.  Naturally, this reminding was done through trashy, attention-seeking, over-the-top geek humor.  The worst of these schmucks was a punk no older than 12 years of age.  His improv schtick began with poorly delivered, unfunny garbage and quickly devolved into a frank discussion of rape scenarios (in Dragonball Z!) and violent sexual deviance most 40-year-olds wouldn't have a clue about.  Based on what was coming out of this ass-wipe's mouth, he had seen every video on Efukt.com several times and watched Eastern European mutilation porn rather than attend school.  You think I was shocked? How about the parents sitting in front of me with their 5-year-old kids?

[HeyItsLindsey!]

1.  I was stuck in a panel room a few years back in some stand-up comedy contest (my friend was the host of the event).  Right in the middle of the travesty, a girl with a terribly obnoxious voice went to the stage and painstakingly recounted her recent anime-viewing experience (fresh in her mind from some god-awful convention viewing room piece), repeating each bit several times for comedic measure.  I wanted to attempt suicide with the pin on the back of my badge, but the PCM staff didn't give partial refunds (and still don't, for this very reason).

2.  PCM 2002 was at USM.  Yikes.

3.  About five cons ago, I attended Whose Line Is It Anime in Lighthouse B.  Big mistake.  While most of the participants tried to keep the humor semi-clean and halfway funny, others felt compelled to remind us all that we were at an anime convention.  Naturally, this reminding was done through trashy, attention-seeking, over-the-top geek humor.  The worst of these schmucks was a punk no older than 12 years of age.  His improv schtick began with poorly delivered, unfunny garbage and quickly devolved into a frank discussion of rape scenarios (in Dragonball Z!) and violent sexual deviance most 40-year-olds wouldn't have a clue about.  Based on what was coming out of this ass-wipe's mouth, he had seen every video on Efukt.com several times and watched Eastern European mutilation porn rather than attend school.  You think I was shocked? How about the parents sitting in front of me with their 5-year-old kids?

Portcon was at USM  I can only imange

[Klahaclone]

-Anime Boston 2007 backstage at the masquerade: After one Kingdom Hearts skit finished, one of the performers/girls didn't see where she was going and fell backwards from the small stairs, landing headfirst on the concrete floor. It was too dark to see if she was bleeding, but paramedics were called in to wheelchair her out of the convention to make sure she didn't crack her skull. All the other performers were pretty shook up by it, but in the end she just suffered from a minor concussion.

-Lost my favorite camera in viewing room A at Otakon about 4 years ago, and never heard from it again.

- The freshest memory of Con horror for me is getting lunch at a local cafeteria-style place during the fire alarm pull at Otakon 2010....annnd then promptly getting mild food poisoning for the rest of the afternoon.

-Also Otakon 2010: Saturday night, at the Baltimore convention center main entrance. I saw a parked ambulance, and ten seconds later some paramedics were pulling out a costumed attendee from the con on a stretcher, loading them inside.

Come to think of it, all my good horror stories either involved Otakon, or paramedics.

[PatrickD]

-Anime Boston 2007 backstage at the masquerade: After one Kingdom Hearts skit finished, one of the performers/girls didn't see where she was going and fell backwards from the small stairs, landing headfirst on the concrete floor. It was too dark to see if she was bleeding, but paramedics were called in to wheelchair her out of the convention to make sure she didn't crack her skull. All the other performers were pretty shook up by it, but in the end she just suffered from a minor concussion.

You'll note that there is now always a railing back there. 

[ladyhawke]

You'll note that there is now always a railing back there.  

Yeah. Because I B!TCHED INCESSANTLY after 2007 until we got a railing for 2008.
('07-'08 was my REIGN OF FAILURE as AB Masquerade director...)

[Zicora]

I think a lot of stories are going to take place at the Eastland. The room Emerje and I shared was not the greatest. The desk lamp light was blown out and the wall outlet next to my bed? Completely exposed. Wires and everything. Not to mention the size of the bathroom. oy.

I did not like the Eastland, not only because of the location. I heard terrible things about the hotel rooms. Anyway, for me I was cosplaying as Yuki from Vampire Knight, and I have painstakingly made this amazing replica of her necklace out of clay and lost it. Losing stuff like that always ruins things for me. Eventually I found it in my car, the clasps I had bought (which screw together) turned out to be crap. I have since changed the clasp and am more careful with my props.

Come to think of it, all my good horror stories either involved Otakon, or paramedics.

Hee hee hee, paramedics. Oh those silly people (though I might be one soon >_>).

[Usagiangel]

Eastland was my first time staying at a hotel for a convention. Never again.

My sister went missing that same year. No warning, just gone. We looked everywhere only to find she had gotten a ride home.I had paid for her and her room. She didnt come back or repay me.

Keep a first aid/sewing kit.

[Zicora]

Eastland was my first time staying at a hotel for a convention. Never again.

My sister went missing that same year. No warning, just gone. We looked everywhere only to find she had gotten a ride home.I had paid for her and her room. She didnt come back or repay me.

Keep a first aid/sewing kit.

Brr, I would be freaking out if that happened to me, and then very angry when I found them.

I plan on keeping a couple first aid supplies in my bag. While I'm at the convention I need go to the EMS store just down the the road to go get some more trauma shears.

[Kitteninstrings]

Keep a first aid/sewing kit.

I always have a first aid kit in the car, plus there are first aid staff if need us for anything really important. Though if you just need a bandaid and can't find one on your own, you can go to info desk and ask. We might have one.

As for sewing kits, every con I go to, I bring a tackle box with me. This year the box includes: safety pins, hair pins, black and white elastic of different sizes, hot glue gun, pins, needles, Thread of various colors. (Definitely the colors in my cosplays plus a couple extras. always black white and nude.) beads, hem tape, gross grain ribbon, string and a few other things that I can't think of off the top of my head.. oh scissors...

[Usagiangel]

Brr, I would be freaking out if that happened to me, and then very angry when I found them. 

I was beyond mad, especially because I ended up getting blamed for it. She also cost me not only the panels I was going to, but also what would have been my husband and I's first date. We ended up trying again several months later, and since we're married, it obviously worked out. She didn't even leave for a good reason; she was just upset she caught me working on a friend's shoulders (I was a massage therapist). Blarg.

Jena: I forgot there was a first aid staff. I really need to make a sewing kit.