Memories & Old-Time congoers

[Kirakins]

Lets all share stories of our K-Con history! Mine is gonna be long so hopefully I dont bore you :}
AHH! ME ME! My group of friends and I have been going since K-Con 2003.  It was in Eugene. I remember that first year I stayed in a hotel 5 minutes away from the con hotel and man.. That sucked. LoL. I remember going to my friends room, and it was raining. Our door to the little patio we had was open, and we see this huge black man in cosplay walking around. (Keep in mind, we were still con virgins and very excited) His sandals made this "click-click" as he walked since they were classic japanese sandals. It turned out he was Chris of Baka-Zoku. None of us knew about the great and wonderful BakaZoku then.. but he was so friendly! And frickin' hilarious! The other awesome thing about first year con was that you got to know pretty much ALL of the attendees. We were crammed in a tiny hotel space and there were a whopping 500 of us ? LoL!
Anyone remember Chris dressed up as "PANTY MAN" and Chii yelling and pointing at him all the time? I believe that Chii was the most adorable ever.. She had to voice down and even drew her own "City with no people" book. DAWH! -tackles- I ALSO MET RON THERE! Yay! My cosplay was a catgirl, and a very crappy Tifa!

2nd year! Wow what a year. Moved to Portland at a REALLY nice hotel.. And it was craziness. I remember the poor starving otaku's would eat all the apples at the front desk.. And before the day was up, the whole shipment they had of apples was gone! Ahaha. I don't know if this problem was just our group.. but our keys kept getting demagnitized. I swear we went through like.. 20ish keys. Ahaha. WHATELSE...
All the bishounen/bishoujo rentings going on! Ahaha. Rent one for 2 bucks an hour or a box of pocky. I indulged.. >_> I rented mehself a bishi.
And the tshirt / sign ninjas! THE SIGNS! Oh boy.
And the love puddle. Anyone remember that? A group of people laid down in the main con area and just began snuggling.
The guys who sang the "12 Days of Christmas" but for videogames.. THe first day was JILL VAL-EN-TINE!
Riding the elevators at like 3 in the morning and playing "snaps" with a kid we met. I think his name is Nick. I still see him and I look forward to seeing him. Kwahaha. I cosplayed as Luna from Silver Star Story Complete, and Freya from Chobits

Last year..
Was very fun. Our group slimmed down a bit to pretty much my boyfriend, myself, my best friend, and her boyfriend. I really liked how my cosplay outfits turned out. I WAS ON STAGE FOR THE FIRST TIME! LOL! 5 minutes before, I was in line and got grabbed by someone because there was another Winry.. (from fullmetal alchemist). We were told that we would be helping Bakazoku explain the rules.. Not to fight with someone with the same costume as you. =D I also cosplayed as a fancreation Kero from CardCaptor Sakura. It was so fuzzy and cute <3
We started a "balcony" party.. there was just like 2-3 balconies then a whole horde of us.. Yelling at cosplayers down below because we were on the side that gave us a view of the entrance to the dealers room/parking lot.

Sorry if that was too long! I am so excited for this year.. <3 <3 <3
Hopefully it will be another FANTABULOUS K-Con
~Kirashii[/list]

[pinkrandomattack]

u remember the first year i went(2004), i only heard about it properly about two days before.  me my sister and two friends of mine went on saturday and they were sold out of passes.  so we went for only sunday. But it did give me a day to throw together costumes for two of the people. a pretty decent mononokehime and the most authentic looking kagome ive seen to date.  i hadent been to cons really before that (well just one star trek con, which i can tell you from that that trekkies  are a dieing fandom). and now alot of my year focuses on getting myself (and however many people commission my sewmurai "skilz") ready for the con.

[superjaz]

i remebers chris was my first glomp i was a pikachu

[Dark_Lady_Kassendra]

I went to K-con on Monday in 2004, it was the only day I could had scheduled off to go after reading an article about it in the Oregonian that Friday at work on my break. The next day I talked to my friend Pat who likes anime nearly as much as I do and would be my only source of a ride into P-town and he was exicted. We went, had fun, enjoyed the game room mostly, lol. That was the first time I played SoulCalibur 2 and I was like, "OMG! There's a character on here with my name (Cassandra), I must play!!!" Then I got the X-box version and got addicted to it at home, that's why I entered the contest in 2005 but sadly got my but handed to me because it was on the PS2 system which I didn't have the foggiest clue about... I didn't do too bad with the team I was placed on for Halo, I think we took like  3rd or 4th or something like that...
2005 was a blast. I met Sephiroth and and Tarok on the first night before the con and we went out for sushi. It was so much fun, I owe it all to them. Even when my friend I took with me  got sick and had to leave early, I still stayed and had fun, not because I'm insisitive but because he insisted that I stay. He may get to come this year, hopefully it will be more enjoyable for him. I may be bringing my cousin with me from Cali. Watch out K-con, two Cali born and raised girls will be sweeping the halls for glomps galore!! I lived in Oregon for four years but I had to move back down here to take care of my aling grandmother. Ok, enought of my life story.
I can't wait for this con, as most all know this will be my first cosplay as Misao Makimachi, I hope you all are looking forward to it, and I'm even entering my first AMV, seriously, this is my first ever attempt and I'm throwing it to the wolves... I don't expect to fare well, but who knows? It's still fun right? Anyway, yeah, I look forward to meeting some of you from this forum, I'll stick out like a sore thumb in my cosplay hopefully, lots of bright blue colors and the huge pink obi!! If you want to set up a meeting place at a particular time, IM me....

[Pie Row Maniac]

Kumoricon 2004 was me first K-Con. I remember at Bakazoku's panel, I asked them if they wanted my cookies that I got from Subway. Chris leapt down from the steps, ran over, grabbed them then proceeded to feriociously glomp me.

I put in a video for the AMV Contest that I made specifically for the con. I put it in the Comedy section, which was a mistake. If I had put it in Action, I think it would have come out winning. I guess a video about the Japanese government attacking one guy who's unknowingly stinking up the whole country is more adrenaline-pumping than hilarious.

I also rememer Brad DeMoss' panel, Guy's AMV 101 panel and snagging all of Blue Submarine No. 6 at the dealer's room. I went by myself, so I hardly remember much of it.

Good times none the less.

[Eternal Yamcha]

I'm a vet from 2k4 and went in 2k5. 2k6 holds much potential for being the best out of the three due to the fact that the hotel has the most... Amazing... Bathrooms. Automatic soap dispensers? Seriously, that's totally classy... And at such a stark contrast, the restaurant named "Shenanigans." Boy will shenanigans be declared so many times this year. I'm also going to be staying AT the hotel, so no need for transportation back and forth. To add onto that, I'm going to be on the Yojimbo team... Will be cosplaying something OTHER than the White T-Shirt Ninja (I may not even do the White T-Shirt Ninja this year, unless I hear requests.) And no, I'm not going to place any clues on who I am going to be cosplaying as, but let's just say this... I'm buying a dozen boxes of Pockey (hopefully) and will be handing one of them out to anyone who can guess who I am (I'll give anyone two chances to guess who I am with only ONE vague hint.) So I'm pretty stoked about that. If I could get my video editing program working, I'd make a con exclusive video that I'd submit to the AMV contest as my debut video... But alas, I can't seem to get the footage I need, which makes me a sad meteorologist.

K-Con 2k4 so far is the better (I believe) of the two I went to. I fell in love with the game room (playing Dynasty Warriors 4 on hard with a base stat Xiahou Dun and then getting complimented by a Pang Tong cosplayer because I was facing Lu Bu made my life.) But there was more, the entire experience was awesome, with Zhalfirin and I holding signs taking the cake (I mean, getting fed pockey and having people sit there and laugh at your signs was great) along with the whole T-Shirt Ninja thing we went crazy on... Which culminated in a poor, 1 hour prepped skit for the cosplay competition that had the T-Shirt Ninjas and Street Fighter cosplayers mixed together ("There's No Such Thing As White T-Shirt Ninja") that won no awards, but tons of cheers as our resident Dan Habuki in his pink garb hopped up to his feet after pretending to be dead and did Dan Habuki's victory pose.

Speaking of which, the "Resident Evil 12 Days of Christmas" was beyond awesome. I went to school with the guys who did that and they have had that song for years now... They also have a number of other songs and I believe that they should put a record together and see if they can get it produced and released.

There's probably a ton of other things I am missing, most have now become inside jokes to my group.

K-Con 2k5 was awesome too and I enjoyed the dance that year more than the previous one (seriously, Nine Inch Nail's "Closer" was played in its unedited form, that is glorious) and I pretty much "danced" for about two or so hours straight. The "glomp line" became too big last year and the T-Shirt Ninja thing fell out of our (Zhalfirin, my friends and I) grasp... And we ended up doing very little with it which was a serious disappointment in my opinion. Though having my girlfriend cosplay Asuka Langley Sohryu more than made up for that (and this year, Tiffany Grant coming?! I mean, I'm going to have a joygasm.) I really didn't do much at the con last year, but I give props to the location (not so much the hotel) because it was in a prestine location... The confluence of many different bus routes with access to a mall, restaurants and shops. It was amazing last year, but it just didn't stick out like 2k4 for did... But it has left me hungry for more K-Con.

I've went on long enough, I've been in a weird mood today making several long posts on multiple forums *shrugs* maybe I actually have something to say.

[kylite]

the year was 2004. It was a dark and rainy night.  I had wandered around lost downtown for about 15 minutes before I found the hotel. My goal was to pay for pre-reg that night so I wouldnt have to face the evil of waiting in line on con morning and miss opening ceremonies. Little did I know that the con had something FAR more sinister in store for me...

I walked on in and noticed they were in need of some help movin stuff around and I like to be helpful so I offered to help.  Then a voice rang out.. "Who here is volenteering to be staff?" well I had no idea what staff meant as I thought it meant I got to help set up the con. WOOHOO! ME ME ME! Then I realized as the night wewnt on that staff meant staff all con long. *blink blink*  My feet were sore, my legss were stiff, but I had the most fun Iv ever had at a con!

KUMORICON FOREVER!!!

[leashy]

I'm a "con virgin" that's so sad to say! ;-;  Should I be scared?

[Pie Row Maniac]

I'm a "con virgin" that's so sad to say! ;-;  Should I be scared?

Don't worry, we'll be gentle.

[yukimizu]

I've been attending since 2003. <3 I couldn't be there for both days, and I was really scared on Saturday, so I didn't really do much other than hang out in the game room, and occasionally wander into the dealers room. ^^;;
In 2004 I had the most fun of my life, I was there for opening ceremonies, the masq, sang in the karaoke, and also saw part of the closing ceremonies.
2005 was a bit hectic, so I had alot of trouble enjoying myself at the con. After Meg helped me into the karaoke(because of my bf nagging and a few drop outs) I really felt like this was my new family. XD I'll be going this year too! I'm hoping to be in the masq, and karaoke. (if it's possible)

When do we find out how to sign up for said events(cosplay masq & karaoke)?

[kekame]

2004 was my first (and so far ONLY) Kumori-Con. (But I'm in for 06!)

Just me and my best friend drove down from Seattle area by ourselves. We stayed at a relative's house in Gresham because we were somehow even poorer then than now.

We were cosplaying Sasuke and Naruto, back in the days of that show being pure, undubbed, and unwasted on filler. We immediately found many other people cosplaying from Naruto that took us in. (It was my cosplaying virginity, so I was nervous!) My friend, I, and two cool people we met entered the cosplay contest and won a judges choice award for the novice category. Does anyone remember skit with Naruto doing Sasuke's hair and the McUchiha's 4 chicken sandwiches for $4.44??? I'd be touched if you did.

I remember the other person who mention the ninja/street fighter skit. Its not about winning. I mean, the people that won just copied the ninja of the night video... kinda cheap, but everyone had fun, it was great. ^_^

I went to sewing panels, karaoke, and the amv contest. All spectacular!

After the con we chilled down by the river with some of our new friends. It was a wonderful first con experience.

[TomtheFanboy]

I was pulled into 2003 by Pezkitty about 2 weeks before the event happened. It was great. I threw together a Goemon costume and borrowed the notorious Fuku (when it was a long skirt). I got to help out with the clean up and was lucky enough to be included in the afters dinner. I learned my golden rule of volunteering. help out as much as possible before and after the convention.  :twisted:

My favorite memory from 2003 is the debut of the fuku onstage.

2004 my favorite memory was during setup Friday night when I was working the regdesk/info booth. the radios had just arrived and we were told to test them for battery power on channel 11. I grabbed one and set it faster than the others and immediately snapped off "TK421 why aren't you at your post?".

It took me 11 seconds to lose Kumoricon radio priviliges FOREVER.

2005 my favorite memory was being the Pocky Club member who glomped Aeris and Tifa during the Final Fantasy cosplay photoshoot. Squee!

And one of my favorite Kumoricon traditions is getting my picture taken with the always awesome and always beautiful Sushiglomper!
...I just wish the picture from 2005 had turned out.  :cry:

[Kimiski]

I started going to Kumoricon the first time it came to Portland at the Marriot Hotel... My first convention too. It was like I stepped into another world... the world of anime conventions... it was great.... I still remember the HUGE AMV contest turnout.... and how the Trigun video people had play again at the closing ceremoney. Then when the last AMV came on, the one with elvis to anime... everyone started screaming when it showed their favorite anime... and of course... the popular duck duck goose game that happend right in the middle of the hotel lobbby. We didnt stay at a Hotel that year.... we were oly gonan come for one day but I remembered that my sister and her friend coudnt get in cause they had no idea this many people were gonna come... so they had to get turned away but were guarnteed in the next day. Lunkily me and my friend pre-regiostered which we didnt know allowed us in all 3 days... so we got to go in while they just stayed in the dealers room... then we drove back to salem... and drove back to go again. It wasnt tell next year when we learned about how con goers who stay in hotel rooms live.... NO FOOD, NO MONEY... lol

[Negima]

I'm a veteran from '03.  I have the scars of experience and the know-how of living in hotel rooms.

I think I first heard about the convention from somone about a month or two before it first happened.  I threw together a simple costume (Seta from "Love Hina") and walked in.  It was so cool being at a con for the first time.  I was amazed by the complexity of some of the costumes there.  My first Kcon was also my introduction to AMVs.  I can even remember the first one I saw: A mix of anime to the Moulin Rouge song "Elephant Love Medley."  I fell in love with those right away.  I don't think I even knew what they were called back then.  It was also there that I saw my first episode of Full Metal Alchemist (fansubbed).

The second con required me to travel a lot further to get there.  Again, I was lazy and reused my Seta costume (which ended up getting the same reaction back in '03 ~_~ ).  I won the "Find me and get a prize" contest they had going from time to time.  I remember buying a few CDs and a couple of Love Hina stuff while I was there.  And then there came... The Dating Game.  Even though I wasn't selected, I had a great time and plan to go to that every year.  That might have also been the moment when I learned who the Bakazoku were.  I also got to see the AMV contest in its entirity.  I watched some karaoke and the skits.  During open mic when about a dozen people were left I got up on stage and sang "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" complete with air-fiddel.

As for '05, personally, I had the best time there.  I wore my Lupin costume and for the first time people knew who I was, my username on the forum, and I was given several glomps instead of sympathy hugs.  As for participation in contests I submitted a manga and for the first time I was part of a skit.  That skit still makes me smile when I think about it.  I bought a plushie, a Final Fantasy Unlimited boxset, some books, and a figurine from Negima (the manga, not myself).  Again went to the dating game and again didn't get selected.  I remember while I was in the line for the Bakazoku panel I said I understood the joke one of them made while they hosted the skits and that helped me get a good seat at the panel. ^_^

Anyway, that's what comes to mind at the moment.

[Dustin]

2004 was my first ONLY because I found out about 2003's the Monday after the weekend that it happend. I got my Animerica in the mail, and saw it, then checked the date, and proceeded to curse fate.

So I saved every cent I had to go to 2004's, and wound up afterwards with alot of leftover money, so I went to Sakuracon 2005 aswell. Couldn't make it to Kumoricon 2005 or Sakuracon 2006. It's looking like I won't make it to this year's Kumoricon either, but I am still trying, and I will keep trying until the very last second.

[BigGuy]

I was in the anime club that formed Kumoricon, I went to Sakuracon 03 with a bunch of people and then started helping in any way I could. I've been to every K-con since and will go till they stop happening.
 
 The fisrt K-con I threw together a cheap Junpei from MegaTokyo and got my pic taken a couple of time and glomped by one nice girl.
 The next year I went as Zabuza and was on the main floor for about 5 min's before Jessica who was dressed as Haku found me and dragged me by the arm over to her group.
 Then in 05 I went as Kurogane ansd was asked to do some Yaoi within 10 mins if a Fai showed up.
 This year is gonna rock, hopefully I run into some DragonQuest fans when I'm in my Yangus cosplay.

[rosaryblue]

2003 was my first Kumoricon.  I didn't hear about it until a week before it began.  Luckily, I had the weekend off and decided to attend.
 
  On the night before day one, I couldn't sleep.  I was too excited.  With only thirty minutes of sleep, I began the drive.  I didn't realize that Eugene, Oregon was five hours away from Seattle.  
 
  The first hour I was okay, ecstatic with attending another convention outside of Sakuracon.  On the second hour, I was tired.  Too tired to drive.  However, I stopped for coffee and prevailed with this thought; how would I explain to my work that the company car, for personal use, is upside down in a ditch in Salem, Oregon?  I got back into the car and continued my drive towards Eugene.
 
  Third hour.  I made it to Portland along with a storm front.  Sheets of rain and water in the freeway made the trek difficult.  At this time, the vision of an upside-down car glared in my mind. 'Got to keep driving', I told myself.  I got breakfast at a McDonald's.
 
  Fourth hour.  The storm front cleared along with the scenery.  The rolling hills of the Willamette valley greeted me.  Coffee, breakfast, and then country music kept me company as the miles tick down towards Eugene.
 
  Fifth hour.  With the ferocity of the well-travelled road, and the scent of gasoline driving me forward, I finally arrived at hotel.  Tired but with a perverse sense of accomplishment, I went to the registration booth and got a badge.  The highlight of the 2003 Kumoricon, for me, was getting a walk-on role on a  Bakazoku skit.
  Later, I realized that Kumoricon 2003 was held in Springfield and not in Eugene!  I love Oregon!

__________

"Coffee for the driver, gas for the car."