I am soooo glad I went to AB this year!!! That was the most fun I've had in a loooong time! I'm definitely gonna try to keep going to anime cons~! I gotta wrangle all the photos I took and post them soon, but for now, here are my thoughts on my experience:
THURSDAY: Driving towards Boston was absolutely wild because of the tempest. Like, WOW, did it rain!! It was so windy and chilly and WET! Badge pickup was pretty smooth except they ran out of plastic badge holders, but thankfully I was was able to pick one up first thing on Friday. It was fun seeing some cosplayers in the Pru!
FRIDAY: What a delight! :D I chatted with so many awesome cosplayers and picked up a few things from the artist's alley. Was feeling a bit weak so I spent a lot of time resting on the comfy seats near Cosplay Repair (which, unexpectedly, meant I saw some really impressive cosplayers walk by on their way to Masquerade pre-judging!).
I attended the Gravity Falls photoshoot with my partner, who was cosplaying 80s Stan, and that was a lot of fun! Even though I've only watched most of S1 of Gravity Falls, I laughed a lot ^^
Tried to attend a Pokemon quiz show panel but it was full :P
SATURDAY: I cosplayed as Adeleine from Kirby 64! :> Tried to attend a panel on cosplay wigs for beginners but it was closed, ough :P Went to the Fire Emblem photoshoot because even though I haven't played much FE, I LOVE a lot of the character design and 2 of the closest people in my life are FE fans, so their excitement has reached me. Like the GF photoshoot, I also had a ton of fun & laughs. It was awesome!! (Unlike the GF photoshoot though, there were, like, 2 solo photoshoots happening at the same time in the same area, so that was weird. Meant that the space was a little cramped and there's a Miku in the background of half my photos, lol)
I got a few more things from the artist's alley & dealer's room. Attended the Masquerade for the first time~!!! (As a student in the 2010s, staying late wasn't an option for me, but I always wanted to see the Masquerade really badly.) It was a blast!!!!!! I laughed SO hard and I was stunned by many of the dance performances! I'm gonna be thinking about it for weeks~!!!
SUNDAY: Unfortunately, something came up so I ended up not attending on Sunday. I would've loved to attend the Yume Nikki/Indie Horror Panel and the Idol Showcase, and wear my Sabitsuki cosplay, but alas. I hope recordings pop up on Youtube for all the stuff I missed.
Overall...
The crowd levels weren't as bad as I feared (tho shopping on Saturday was pretty hard, I had to wait so long to get close enough to dealer's/artist booths to see if I wanted to buy anything). But even tho I didn't buy a TON of stuff, I love what I did get! I was very puzzled to see the big T-mobile truck in the dealer's room... that doesn't belong there! >:(
Coming in by commuter rail everyday kind of sucked, hopefully next time I can either stay at a hotel nearby or at least somewhere on the subway lines. Would make cosplay easier, too. Next time I will try to line up for panels a lot earlier, too (or just accept that at a con as big as AB, the panels fill up quick :/).
Haven't been to Boston in a while so finding food was annoying, too ><; I brought a lunchbox with me so I had plenty of snacks, but dinner was a bit of a challenge. Proud of myself for staying hydrated, getting enough electrolytes, and not getting headaches! (Not that every headache is preventable, but the last couple cons I went to in... 2017 or so? I got a TON of headaches and the pain definitely lessened the fun.)
I was very impressed at how quick it was to get through security. That is a HUGE improvement over going to the con in 2015/2016, I remember the lines being awful.
Throughout the con, I LOVED asking people how they put their cosplays together. Lots of interesting answers & I picked up some great advice! Being surrounded by cosplayers and interacting with people was probably the highlight of the con for me. People are so cool!!! It was magical, I'm so so happy I decided to go~! ^^
