Sunday Sunday SUNDAY! This being just in time for the end of rave or just in time for breakfast you decide. Regardless it’s another day of convention to cover for us to cover. After attending the morning press meeting, we put it into high gear and headed to our room to prep for check out.
Check out for the Marriott was nuts it took 40+ minutes to get it done due to the huge line and lack of staff at the front desk. Seems every year that line gets longer and the staff gets smaller. I have one major complaint about this hotel, and its this; You can’t get a cart for your luggage without a hotel staff member attached to it. The hotel staff member of course wants a tip, and pretty much at point in the weekend most attendees are mostly cashed out.
At this point we are checked out and ready to do work, so our team splits. Half of us head to shoot pictures of cosplay and whatever becomes an interesting subject and the other half headed to small events.
Sunday hallway cosplay was great overall, I managed to get to the end of few photo shoots on Sunday, but I hardly got any good shots due to the swarm of people in my way. So my challenge to NDK for next year is better to better organize the photographers and the subjects at these shoots. I don’t mind shooting over a few people but I can’t get great shots without using my flash to its full effect, and being able to find good and clear points of subject to shoot. With 20 screaming people taking pictures with their phones moving around in front of you, bumping you and walking into your shots its hard to maintain focus and priority with such chaos.
Anime Battle Chess was the next event we attended, I remember last years event was fun and this years was a blast, though the game ran a little longer than expected it ended with some awesome anime executions.
The AMV winners event was held, and the winners are linked in this post. LINK
One of our staff members wanted to get some signatures by this years guests, and he reported that the lines were pretty big and it took a long time to get moving, but the guests were great and the he got his items signed.
Lunch at Wendy’s was out of the question, the line was insane, so we stumbled down the street to Chipolte and got some burritos. On our way back we noticed that several stores and restaurants welcome the NDK traffic and some of them can spell anime correctly, that said I’m happy that NDK brings so much commerce to the tech center.
Anime Battle Chess was the next event we attended, I remember last years event was fun and this years was a blast, though the game ran a little longer than expected it ended with some awesome anime executions.
Anime Dating game followed lunch for us and was hilarious & enjoyable. I hope some of the matches made will last the rest of the day and hey you never know that some of the matches could stick for life. Friends made at NDK are great, in fact everyone you meet at NDK is your friend so go forth and learn about your buddies sitting right next to you.
Following the anime dating game was the world famous NDK Charity Auction. This years proceeds went to the United Way Gulf Recovery Fund. I personally bid on few items but came up short on many of them, but in this case that helped to raise money for a good cause. If you missed this years Auction make sure to drop in for next years. Why? So much cool stuff, rare, out of print, signed, odd, and just flat outstanding stuff up for auction. AnimeRoot.com does not take pictures of the items up for auction during the auction, some of the items are have signatures and some respect is due to the talent, so out of respect we refrain from doing so. In short we are their to bid, observe and have fun.
The Closing Ceremony came swiftly after the end of the auction, and just like years past the guests come to the stage, everyone stands up and claps and screams to honor the guests and the hard working staff that make NDK possible. Everyone in the room then does a series of claps and then its all over. We bottle the energy from this year and keep it till next year were it is unleashed during opening Ceremonies.
Convention Fallout time, well we all made it out alive. A little tired, a little broke, and very hungry. I’m looking forward to the New years eve costume ball and of course to next years NDK.
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Was another wonderful year at NDK and having plans on going back next year. I was only introduced to this convention a year ago and have plans on going for a long time. Felt at home with all my anime family and was good times hanging out with friends that are super busy covering the convention, To those at anime root I want to say thanks for introducing me to the event and lets have more good times for the years to come.