Conbravo 2012 - A convention Report

[Haruhifan]

Conbravo 2012 in Burlington, ON at http://conbravo.com/

I’d like to start this report with a special plug to a charitable event that happened at Conbravo.

Special Picture Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyleaf...ns/7677222318/
This was a special photo taken for Cosplay for a Cure who is raising funds for a friend who has cancer by taking pictures with attendees at conventions in all sorts of cosplay. They made at this convention $700 all going to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Please go to their full album at http://www.flickr.com/people/skyleafcreations/ and donate if they come to a convention near you!

Now let’s get on with the main convention report! Conbravo in its third year showed growth once more having over 2000 attendees and many more dedicated staff, volunteers, guests and performers present to talk everything from video and tabletop games to TV, the Internet and anything geeky. Conbravo’s main events room seated 200 plus attendees where The 404s performed all weekend long. Most of the shows had about 70 plus rotating fans watching, while the Friday Late Night show was a packed room of just around 200 with a video theatre of another 50 seats to see as well.

Here are some in-show highlights:

*Apparently I was on my improving game this convention with a few lines of the night. When doing ‘Random Lines’ during the late night show in a scene inside a car ride, someone read a line that said “I like your Ethnicity,” my response was “Why thank you, I’ve had it since birth.” Meeting the person who submitted the line they said it was an inside joke amongst friends that I simply came with the best response I could think of.

*Another time during the League Show on Saturday, an idea came to mind when it had to be just 1 actor explaining an infomercial for “How to get a con date”. My solution was simple from the creators of the Sham-wow: chloroform! Sold in bottles for multiple uses, you’ll send your new “date” to a heavenly sleep while leaving that dreamy look on their faces! For 4 easy installments it even came with a Sham-Wow. I apparently even got a Twitter call back which was interesting and humbling that such an enjoyable response was had by the crowd to that joke.

* Exhaustion didn’t come into play even on Sunday’s finale as somehow tapping into the inner SNL cheerleader spirit we did a very energetic Cheerleading camp that the host played forwards and backwards to the amusement of those who like hearing cheers over and over again.

*The shows had all sorts of fun scenes, from Action Replay where 2 actors had to watch with headphones on a scene about Kite Flying becoming one they’d act out as sewer diving, to the Slow Motion action called by Sportscasters of the new Olympic sport of Torch running. The Alphabet was recited in a scene about the convention. Superheroes came to sort the issue of empty pudding cupboards, so we had Helicopter Head, The Man Who Can Edit Real Life, Narcoleptic Man and the Tonka Truck Kid save the day.

* There was also a fun slideshow of attendees’ date, 2 press conferences with one where I was giving the announcement about being Mr. Clean apparently, Authors and Characters where we did it with special guest Doug Walker who did the entire Half Time Show of the Music Show which had everyone from Disney characters to Super Mario and 8 Bit characters and even JRR Tolkien reciting a story, a silent film dub that got a stick up partway subbed in, and many more scenes like the infomercial Hey You Down there to Sound Effects to Freeze Tag to cap off the Friday show.

*Fans got in their own game of Zulu to name new products for us to pitch during the halftime of the late night show.

* Friday’s Musical had Questions Only meeting in Burlington, 2 headed pop star, film noir, hey you down there, freeze tag, kick it rap about what to do during a “Brodeo”, look/look away on team building exercises to catch your friend, sound effects amusement park to fix a Ferris wheel and hoedown about video games.

* We did another league format as the 5 Guys which included fish story where I took a meeting of the Nintendo characters at a wild party turned into Mario with all 3 princesses (from 1 and toadstool), Ness and friends doing bath soap (from weed and meth), to link with shadow link yaoi (from Zelda) and Miyamoto as Kirby wanting photo (from just Kirby). Other scenes from either team included Scooby Doo with Farley’s man down by the river, creepers in the crowd for halftime, cats learning how to read manga and talk. Team Blue Rattata became dumb then ate rare candy too much to take out the Elite 4 in 1 battle without badges.

*There was a story told of Abe Lincoln the vampire hunter in full group storytelling where he encounters Bella and Twilight cast, the director, and had axes to kill them all. Living Scenery told a story with a Pikachu on stage that fought me playing the Digimon Agumon at the end.

*Conbravo supplied some spare prizes so fan participation got in on the Sunday poster giveaway, but during the dating game our female contestant, a Vaporeon decided to “make out” with her choice bachelor female Professor Oak all while the other 2 bachelors, a cannibal eating the other contestant who was a Bronie, was going on around me. I get so confused sometimes but least it was a sight to see!

*For the end to the Sunday Finale we had a funeral for one Jethro Smith...with the punishment for laughter being Marshmallows to stuff in their mouths while talking.

That wasn’t all at Conbravo to do or participate in. I was able to make a few panels like the Best and Worst of TV and the Legend of Korra: Deep Thoughts that had a wide range of opinions. Hosting the first ever 404s Collector Card Game Meet and Play event went well with players of both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic the Gathering coming to play games, chat, and as a reward got a bunch of prizes from boosters and rare singles to posters and plushies. Even during off times there was plenty to do like visit the Video Games Room to play everything from consoles with games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (got to play my Tron Bonne, Morrigan and Iron Man team) and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, to huge arcade machines like of Street Fighter 3, to getting in a few Pokemon TCG games in too for fun at the Tabletop Gaming area.
You Don’t Know Jack (YDKJ) was quite fun also to do a run in and wrestling spot in on the host, while in a different show of the time slot being able to garbage toss my Klondike bar wrapper – it’s what I do for a Klondike bar!

During Celebrity Squares there was quite a crew from Teddy Ruxpin to the expert buff Mike of the 404s 3 Mikes who were all in too. I got called upon 3 times, where I was wrong on Draco’s wand being named after Snape, that Spock’s blood is type AB, but I got right that Napoleon feared cats. I didn’t fool anyone (not even called in “lawyers” by one contestant) as it was another fun game show event.

D20 and Death Note Mafia were other events attended with some fun participants. The D20 in particular was a highlight I cannot do justice simply explaining – see the RPG epic at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG2bt...9D2649FE1180BE and kudos to all involved in making it happen and having it be a hilarious romp while being the only people able to roll amazingly with my lent dice!

Finds:
*Another Mahou Sensei Negima Figure which have been hard to find. So to add to Ako I now got her friend Makie.
*Multiple promo and free Pokemon cards, an inflatable beach ball and pencil. I did buy too the Dark Explorers Shadows Theme Deck along with 2 Dark Explorers boosters and 1 Next Destinies booster on a Black and White series sale.
*Since I decided to once more have one Type 2 Standard Deck again to play others who are in the current tournament format, I got a good deal on a new 2013 Core Set Starter, the Wild Rush deck since I play Green decks often but it has some Black Swamp cards splashed in so I got 1 deck that has Black once more (I mainly play Green, White and Red).
*2 key chains from the artists-a cat keychain that looked like my cat and a plushie Totoro one (OH HO HO!).
*Some Strawberry Hi-Chew because my friends got me hooked on it.

VIDEOS AND PHOTOS
A few fan posted videos from the halftime show of the Music Show are up!
Greatest Hits about Mining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg5hpG_L0Zc
Authors and Characters with JRR Tolkien, Mickey Mouse, Super Mario and 8-Bit Non-Playable Characters about the King of Nerds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg5hpG_L0Zc

As always, all videos of the Eastside shows and more can also be found on a playlist at:
Older First Set - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5dxY...e=results_main
The Current Ongoing Set of Videos - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSwAE...=plpp_play_all
And a different playlist for various convention videos mixing conventions I’ve been to and others I liked seeing online:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL219D2649FE1180BE
And check out this regularly updated photo album at - http://www.crunchyroll.com/showphotoalbum?id=10061028
Enjoy!