Ohayocon Plan of Attack

Despite delays in Chicago - yes, i flew from LA to Chicago, then jump on another plane to Columbus, OH, I managed to make it here alright.

Though the website says pre-reg starts at 6 pm, it doesn’t really until 9:30ish (it did say -ish) so I had time to wander around… dang, this place is like a maze !

I think I got the lay of the land - luckily there’s a PDF of the program book so I’m gonna go and wander around again so I know where everything is.

Now, i don’t know where I’ll be yet. I see some good spots but I won’t know until there’s people all around and I see how everything goes.

That said, dealer opens at 2 pm on Friday so I probably will wander around in the AM to figure out where I’ll be, set-up probably around 11 am and shoot till 5 pm - I wanna go check out the dealer before they close at 6 pm. Then I’ll probably re-set up again and take photos until 10 or 11 , put my stuff back, then wander around again.

Look for this set-up and that’ll be me !

SATURDAY - I’ll probably setup around 8 am to shoot till the afternoon. I’m flying out Sat. night back to LA.

Probably best thing is to follow my twitter -> @cosplayamerica or my Facebook -> http://www.facebook.com/cosplayinamerica 

So for new followers, here’s the story of Cosplay in America.

In 2008, Anime Expo moved to downtown Los Angeles. I had been out of the con scene for around 8 years. My first con was A-kon in Dallas, TX back in the 1990s and when I graduated, I kinda got busy with the career part of my life. I moved to Los Angeles to chase photography.

I took some photos at AX 2008 using the same set-up as in the book. I showed it to a few friends. One guy in particular, Bill urged me to make a book. He ran a small bookstore in downtown Los Angeles and I used to drop by and took through his books.

In 2009 I decided to give it a shot. I used Animecons.com to figure out a list of cons to go to. My idea is 10 cons. My thoughts were if I didn’t like what I was doing, I would stop. Fanime was my first con to do for the book. It was located in San Jose, Ca and luckily I had friends up there to crash with and visit (they were originally from the South).

Man, I LOVED IT !

I kept traveling. By the time I got to my 6th con - Anime Weekend Altanta, my credit card was maxed out but I was happy. I managed to photograph 1,600 cosplayers from coast to coast and figured that was enough for a book.

I had a backer to front the cost of actually producing the book. It was a small publisher but they were willing to pay the cost but at the last second they pulled out - the economy wasn’t that great and risking money on a book about cosplay probably was too much for them. 

I could have tried to search for another publisher but I knew that this was such a niche thing - I mean, it is about cosplay, how many cosplay books do you know were produced here in the US ?

In the end, I used three more credit cards and took out a loan from a bank to finance it myself. 

And that is how I started me traveling around the country selling a book in artist alley. In 2011, I hooked up with Epic Cosplay wigs - they loved the book and it helps to cut down costs of cons if you travel with someone else.

So even though my website, facebook, twitter and tumblr is called Cosplay in America, it is only called that because I made a book about cosplay in america. I do promote other cosplay from around the world because to me, cosplay is cosplay no matter where it is from.

My book will be in comic book stores and other retailers coming in Feb so I’ll be closing down my online store at end of Jan, Until then I’m running a special - $5 off the book and free shipping (for US only, sorry rest of the world) which will save you $10 bucks.