Youmacon 2012 Report

Hi everyone! Now that I'm finally starting to feel my legs again after this weekend, I decided I should post a report for you all! (Though I don't know what legs has to do with this haha)

This was my firs time going to Youmacon in Detroit, MI and it was also my first time traveling alone with my girls (Sachie and Genniieeee), last time didn't count because we were being escorted by Ackson. We took the Greyhound bus early Friday morning from Toronto and arrived in Detroit around mid-afternoon. Sachie stayed over the night before which was really awesome since we can never meetup outside of conventions due to school.. it was nice being girly and getting primped for the con the next day! (Next time you can have the bed, Sachie!)

When we crossed the border, we had no idea that the con was so close! The bus dropped us off a few blocks away and we ended up taking a taxi over to the Renaissance Center. For anyone else going, please be careful with taxis! We got scammed because we were Canadian and the driver started loading our bags while we tried negotiating the price of the trip. We could have haggled more, but we were all a little nervous because there were some sketchy folks behind us calling out to us. It was just an uncomfortable situation in itself... please be careful!

The convention itself was... interesting to say the least. Luckily we were rooming with some AWESOME people (I miss you guys already!), but we had some difficulty with the hotel room as the Marriott introduced a wristband policy to monitor how many people were in the room. We didn't want to take the risk, so a whole lot of us crammed into our friend's room...

The layout of Youmacon this year was a little confusing (certainly for a first timer like myself). The building goes vertically, so escalators and elevators galore! The walkways are all circular as well, so it's very confusing trying to get where you're going. We must have walked around that place a billion times. Some locales are nice for photos though, and it's very urban.

Cool ceiling near on of the escalators in Cobo Hall

What confuses me the most though is why they had the dealer's/artist alley in Cobo Hall. Obviously space is an issue, but it separates a major part of the convention from everything else! I spoke with a couple of artists who were disappointed and stressed, as it's a lot of effort to sell your work at these events.

CourtoonXII as Saki Morimi from Eden of the East

As for my cosplay lineup, it was a fairly relaxing weekend!
Friday I went as Maid ver. Ritsu from K-ON! with Sachie as Mio:

Saturday I went as Howl and interviewed LittleKuriboh, as well as others, as part of press for Crunchyroll:

Photo by Sachie

And Sunday Sachie and I went as Matryoshka Meiko and Miku.. we also met up with Berndor who cosplayed Gumi! We were the most moe together haha, I loved it! We also ended up being included in the Detroit News which was nice!

All in all, I feel it was the people I was with that made the event great. I`m really thankful that Inner Mind Theatre and everyone else looked out for us Canadians! I hope we can see each other again really soon! xoxo.