First of all, there will be cosplay-pics in this thread later, I didn't get to take any myself so I'll post ones I find uploaded in the community I'm in with credit to the respective photographers later on.
For now though, here's my part of the event:
Let's start this with something that happened almost a year ago.
Back in March 2011 I went to a nearby book-convention that has a notable cosplay-part as well in the search of Touhou-cosplayers. Through amounts of luck that I still can't believe I managed to run into a Cirno-cosplayer that happened to be from the city I live in, Dresden, and was part of a group organizing events for anime-manga-etc.-fans here. Back then she told me that they were planning a con for 2012 and as I asked about it she told me they would gladly take any helpers they can get.
Now in December 2011, things were getting busy slowly. I received the info about which area of the con I was assigned to as a helper, and to my surprise I had ended up in the combined security-and-medics-department.
Unlike other departments, ours of course needed training beforehand, and so December and January became months of waking up early every Saturday to attend the training. Some basic workout, self-defense, first-aid practice, all under the guidance of our team-leader, who works as an actual medic in the military.
In the end, we had a nice group of 9 people split into five securities and four medics (for practical purposes, most of us were capable of doing both jobs since we all trained together), me being one of the latter.
Now fast forward again to the last three days, February 17th-19th. It was finally time for the con to start, and let me already say: It was a great success, made possible by every single planner, organizer, helper and of course all the nice guests we had.
The original estimate was 250-500 guests, 500 had noted interest in visiting in the online-community, and in the end we had over 600 guests coming to the convention! That it all went without any big incidents despite more people coming than expected already speaks for itself in regards to the staff's work.
This was the home and base of operations for our team during the whole con. The two characters are the con's mascots, drawn by one of our security-girls, there were signs like this for all the important places around the con.
The whole event took place in a part of a school, so our room was of course the doctor's office!
Our job was in general pretty simple, we were split into teams of two, a security and a medic, and we made our rounds through the whole con-area in half-hour-intervals checking if things were going smoothly, if there was any trouble or any injuries that needed attention.
We also guided people to the nearby school-gyms that were assigned to us by the city so guests and staff could sleep there overnight. Since we had to secure the guests' safety during that time as well we had teams on night-shift that stayed awake during the night in two shifts of three hours, and another team in the second gym that was only a door apart that could sleep through but was available for emergencies. In the end, none of us slept at all on the first night though :ohdear:
In the end, things went great. Even with the extra-burdens of being part of a performance-group (that was the case for two of our girls) or part of the maid cafe staff (another of our girls), with the lack of sleep and the stress that comes with a first-time-event and the whole organizing around it, everyone pulled through and stayed fit for all three days.
Though I suspect it might also have to do with the massive amount of energy drinks and coffee that parts of the team downed permanently...
The plush-death was a present from my sister for my birthday, and it has become our mascot for the team, especially for the medics. :3
During the con, our job basically got extended at random. Because we were the only team organized enough to have our communications set up properly and our shifts arranged so we always knew where to find each other, we quickly became the target for all-purpose requests, or as my teammate called it: We were doing sidequests all day long :]
I'm pretty sure we leveled up at least five times during the three days
We would grab duct tape from the information when the cashiers said they needed some, we would take a stewards place in watching over a certain area while they ran off to grab something to eat for a bit, we would relay new information to the helpers that didn't have means to communicate otherwise. It definitely felt great to be able to help that much all around, and it was clear the other helpers appreciated out work as well. There's also the fact that some of them had to stand guard in pretty lonely areas for hours, so we would always stop by and talk to them a bit on our rounds.
On the last day we took our whole sweets supply (we always carried lollipops and chocolate to give to people who just needed some sugar or to kids who needed some cheering up etc.), and handed them out to the helpers everywhere to raise morale for the final hours of the con :3
In the end, all helpers got along well, which is great for any kind of event!
This is the whole team together in a group shot we took after the end of the con yesterday. Some people might already recognize, but for those who haven't seen pics of me before: I'm the guy on the far right that is by accident abusing perspective to look taller than he actually is :]
The only one who's not actually part of the team is the girl at the front, but she's in the shot because she was a special case for us: Our (and mine specifically, because I ended up taking care of her most of the time by chance) most-returning patient during the three days of the con :]
She was the one in charge of the kitchen and the staff there, a big job because they had a lot of different stuff on the menu and many people to feed. The kitchen was also the source of the most injuries: small cuts, a little burn at one point, and some bruises.
This girl here was one for the cuts-and-bruises department on the day of setting up and on the first day of the con.
On the second and most busy day, she was brought to our office completely exhausted from the work, at the edge of a breakdown. We managed to arrange things so that she was released from her job without any problems, because it was clear she couldn't continue.
Now on the last day, she had fully recovered again and was having fun with her friends and enjoying herself, and she thanked us for how we helped her the day before. And since she was around when we went to take the photo we wanted her in the shot as well.
Her case alone was proof enough that our work was worth every bit of effort that came with it. Seeing her active and happy again on the last day was a big boost to our morale!
So yeah, that's it for my report up to this point.
It was tiring, it was stressful at times, it was certainly killing everyone's nerves and feet by the time the last day came around, but it was also a lot of fun and it's safe to say we managed to do an awesome job all around, and that goes for everyone else on the staff too
I also discovered that I have the skill to keep up a good mood even in such a situation, something I'm incredibly glad about because it helps a lot with such a job.
I'm already looking forward to next year, and the smaller events that will take place until then, because I will definitely stay on the team as a medic~
Now, look forward to the cosplay-pics that will be posted during the next days~
