Derek’s Emerald City Comic-Con 2019 Recap – Thursday

If you want a quiet, calm, and efficient convention experience… make sure that you go on the day that falls in the middle of the week.

Mikaela and I are so happy to be back in Seattle for another Emerald City Comic-Con (with our friends and Geekscape / Geekscape Games alumni Courtney and Jake), as six months after our last convention experience (our phenomenal first time at Seattle’s very own PAX West), we’ve been hankering to explore another show floor, experience some unbelievably cool cosplay, and spend way (way) too much freaking money.

Naturally, prior to hitting the convention itself, we had to make it to Seattle first. I typically like to soak up as much of each convention I attend as I possibly can (for those that were following along for last year’s ECCC, I even took a bus down to Seattle at five in the morning, with Mikaela meeting me in the city that evening because she had to work during the day), so Mikaela, Jake, and I set a completely reasonable departure time from Vancouver, BC of 7AM (actually Mikaela complained that this was far too early), grabbing some quick caffeinated beverages for the road before heading for the border. The weather was clear (a stark contrast to the somehow frequent snow, and almost everyday rain that we’re used to), traffic was light, and the border had absolutely no wait time, so aside from a quick exit to refuel the Kia Soul (which we didn’t fill up prior to departing purposefully as fuel is far, far cheaper in the US), we made it to Seattle in no time.

Courtney was not travelling with us as she lives in Washington, and she ended up slightly delayed due to traffic, so the three of us ate some freaking delicious sandwiches at a small cafe called The Blue Heron (after first parking at and deciding against a sketchy looking cafe near there) before meeting Courtney at our Airbnb. We spent a few minutes getting settled in our AirBnb after taking some time to obtain the door code (we were checking in pretty damned early, so this didn’t feel like a problem), and Courtney and Jake were kind enough to drive Mikaela and I over near the convention centre so that we could start our Emerald City journey (Courtney and Jake only had passes for Friday and Saturday, so they had planned to pick up some snacks and hang out at the Airbnb for the day).

Interestingly enough, the entrance procedure for ECCC has changed this year, with the main entrance now being on the opposite side of the convention center (on a street fittingly titled Convention Place), and with the typical convention entrance on Pike street instead becoming an exit only. This seemed to be causing some confusion with convention regulars, even though ECCC sent out multiple and frequent emails addressing the changes. Another major change to this year’s offerings is the movement of the ECCC Main Stage, where some of the biggest entertainment guests at the show are hosted for interviews, reunions, demonstrations, and other escapades. In prior years a large area of the main expo hall would be curtained off for the main stage, where as this year that space has been reclaimed for additional booths, and the main stage (along with photo opportunities and autograph areas) has moved just a couple of blocks away to the nearby Hyatt Regency hotel. Based on some of the feedback (mostly Twitter) I’ve seen about these changes, it seems as though these changes are a little controversial, but I think that moving the main stage to a dedicated location, rather than a hard-to-secure curtain in the middle of the busiest area of the convention can only be a positive move, and the removal of the insanely busy Pike St. entrance felt incredibly decongested, and far less confusing for everyone in the area. It also left more room for the ‘Free Hip-Hop’ dudes to try to pawn CD’s off on people, but I still think that the changes are a net positive.

We finally hit the show floor after staring at the convention exclusives forever — we ended up grabbing the exclusive glow-in-the-dark cover first issue of the Stranger Things comic from Dark Horse Comics, but couldn’t decide on any of the subtle and well-designed ECCC-themed shirts at that point so only picked up the one item. As I mentioned above, Thursday is the freaking day to go to this thing. The massive main convention hall wasn’t crowded at all, the temperature was perfect (often at a packed convention, the air will flip between sickeningly cold and blisteringly warm as the air conditioning system struggles to keep up with the mass of patrons), you could walk through the small aisles at a leisurely pace without needing to worry about being in anyone’s way, and the floor was so quiet that you could simply speak at a regular volume and not worry about being heard — this was a welcome calm that can’t even be felt at far smaller conventions like Fan Expo Vancouver.

The first booth that caught our eye was the massive Bakugan: Battle Planet area. I remember seeing a press release about it a few weeks back, but largely ignored it as I only really remember Bakugan as a kid’s anime series and toy line from years back. I had no idea until it was explained to me by a booth employee, but apparently Bakugan actually disappeared a number of years back before being recently revived as a new anime and TCG by Spinmaster Toys. Long story short, an hour had passed and we were still at the Bakugan booth – we had a quick explanation of how to play, and then ended up playing an entire game, asking questions to various coaches along the way. Mikaela kicked my ass, was invited into an eight-person tournament (she said no unfortunately) and we watched some more experienced players start a match before eventually moving on. The game is a mix of skill, strategy, and luck, as players craft a deck around their three Bakugan (each being a different colour or type, with the cards in the deck needing to correspond with those colours) and battling it out by rolling the spherical Bakugan figures towards each other in the play area. The Bakugan will ideally spring open, attaching magnetically to a ‘core’, a small hexagonal piece that gives your Bakugan either a power or damage bonus, and the Bakugan with the highest power (labelled BP) wins. The loser has to discard (typically useful) cards equivalent to the winner’s total damage, and you lose the game once your deck is empty. The game felt totally all-ages friendly, and after an hour at the booth all that I really wanted to do was play more. Well, and to buy some.

It was also by far the liveliest booth at the convention. Even after we had left the area and were perusing the other aisles of booths, every few minutes you could hear uproarious cheering or sounds of surprise from the booth, and at random times an entire crowd yelling “BAKUGAN BRAAAAAAAWLLLLLLL” at the top of their lungs as higher level players would enter a tiny UFC-style cage to duke it out. It was absolutely charming, and I can’t wait to see the action at the booth this weekend once the convention centre really fills up.

Honestly, today we didn’t do that much, and it felt like an absolutely calming and relaxing way to ease into this convention (feelings not typically felt at a convention of this size). We leisurely walked aisle by aisle, adoring some of the beautiful art (Spoke Art Gallery at Booth 1133 cannot be missed), becoming distracted looking at board games that we had never heard of (and trying our best not to buy them until we had seen everything that the convention has to offer), only picking up a few cool books — Mikaela has been obsessed with reading novels lately, and picked up an intriguing-sounding book from HarperCollins called Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, which also included a cool Neil Gaiman-themed tote bag and another free book as a convention special, while I also grabbed her a graphic novel called Rosalynd by Dark Planet Comics’ Stephan Franck, which is an origin story for Rosalynd “Sledge” Van Helsing, told from the perspective of her childhood journal. We also played Jelly Belly’s ‘Bean-Boozled’ on our way out, and Mikaela oddly enough seemed to like the flavour ‘Dirty Dishwasher’. There were also artists making gigantic artpieces entirely out of jellybeans, which was absolutely stunning to watch.

We met back up with Jake and Courtney, and the duo prepared us all an incredibly cheap and super delicious meal of Ramen and Sashimi while Mikaela and I worked on our write-ups for the day. We chatted, had a few beverages, and played a couple of the of the too-many games that all of us brought with us, like Courtney’s still-unplayed PAX purchase Cantankerous Cats, and the new sequel to the always-fun party favourite Monikers, fittingly titled More Monikers. I also definitely yelled out BAKUGAN BRAWWWWWWLLLLL a few too many times (even though we didn’t actually buy it, so we couldn’t even play Bakugan).

Tomorrow I expect the just-empty aisles to be packed with people, and for today’s calmness to be all but forgotten as 98’000 people descend upon the Washington State Convention Centre over the next few days. That said, tomorrow should start with a full night of sleep and without a four hour drive, and as we’ve only explored one floor of ECCC in the nearly six hours that we attended it today, I can’t wait to see one of America’s very best Artist’s Alleys, the fantastic gaming areas, the upcoming ECCC Western Championships of Cosplay, and so, so much more.

Thanks for reading about today’s adventures, and I look forward to sharing more of my journey tomorrow.