Day 2-
Sara and I accidentally slept in a bit on Friday. We woke about 9:50 and rushed to get ready. We caught a shuttle to the convention center where we saw Jon handling crowd control on the third floor. We got some pictures of a set of creative costumes – Mario, Luigi and Toad as Jedi. This is one of the things I love about Star Wars fandom. We get to make up our own rules as we go along, regardless of whether it makes sense. We would see another example of this later the same day.
My wife was a bellydancer until her school schedule forced her to drop it, hopefully temporarily. Because of this we made it a point to see the Slave Leia bellydancing performance. This was something I kept missing by a few minutes at Celebration IV but had really wanted to see. The performance was enjoyable, but it made Sara a little sad because she hadn’t danced with her troupe in so long. She did get into the crowd interaction portion. I liked the performance because it wasn’t just the Star Wars music, which would have been good enough, but it also incorporated dialogue and other characters. There was a good Darth Vader costume on stage with her and a guy I think was her husband as Han Solo. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4910627569/in/photostream/
We had a little bit of down time that I used to check email and Sara updated her friends and co-workers about the goings-on via email. This was my first time at a con with the netbook (nicknamed Bean) and having free wi-fi in the convention center was a treat. We had no idea how important this little bit of downtime would be once we started the Bounty Hunt.
Jon and I participated in the Bounty Hunt at Celebration IV and it went miserably. We were not prepared for the difficulty or the style of the event. We also did not allot ourselves enough time to participate fully. This time we were determined to be more successful. The set up was different and allowed for a lot more strategy, as well as playing to the strengths of our teammates. Ninety-eight teams joined the hunt that included 12 clues with varying credit values based on difficulty. We called our team Sithilis. This might need some explaining. Sara maintains she was not a geek until she met me. Her association with Star Wars is an STD she calls Sithilis.
Phase 1 involved seven clues ranging in value from 2,500 to I think 10,000 credits. Jon took over the lightsaber identification task. My borderline autism was helpful with word search and pattern puzzles. Sara took over the tasks that required less knowledge of Star Wars, like a “connect the dots” puzzle with a twist. Our strategy was to solve all of the clues first, then plan a route to hit all the “characters” throughout the convention center that matched the answers. A second piece of strategy was that we needed four clues solved and stamped in order to get the second pack of three clues. The third pack of two clues was available only after completing six total stamps. Rather than make extra trips back to the muster room we decided we needed to get at least six of the first seven, then get packs two and three at the same time. We solved six of the clues; the seventh required being in a specific location to start the steps. We decided to save that one for later.
Our plan went off without a hitch, including the extra tasks of drawing a bounty hunter (Sara did Greedo – Jon’s stick figure IG-88 was not accepted), winning a bean bag toss (me), and shooting a stormtrooper a couple times with suction cup gun (again Sara, because she’s a sniper but won’t admit it). We took the six stamps on the passport back to muster and got our second and third packs of clues. These clues ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 credits a piece I think. They were much more difficult and we relied heavily on Bean’s internet capability to look up answers. Again, we relied on our team’s individual strengths. Jon took the hardcore trivia sections. I handled a worksheet involving the books; it involved sorting books into publication date and in-universe date then using that order to break a code. Sara took over a task none of us knew. Strange but it worked. She used her test taking and fact-finding skills and was way more successful than we would have been by trying to trivia our way through it.
We solved the last five clues, got our passport stamped and returned to the muster room with 15 minutes to spare. Some teams were just getting their second or third packets. We had solved 11 of the 12 clues. Somehow we had forgotten that the clue we skipped from the first packet had only been skipped because it required us to stay in the main exhibit hall and follow banners based on trivia we already knew. We got into our heads that it was just too difficult and that’s why we had passed on it. As we were waiting for the last teams to finish we kept reading the clue and realized that 15 minutes would have been plenty of time to finish it had we tried. That would have given us the perfect score of 100,000 credits. Without it we only had 90,000. We were counting on our extra 15 minutes to break any ties with people who got the same score. We didn’t need to worry.
The top five teams were awarded prizes. They explained during the awards presentation that Friday’s competition was much more competitive than Thursday’s. The first place team on Day 1 had scored only 55,000 credits. Fifth place in our race scored 60,000. Hmm, 60,000 for fifth? We definitely placed, and we outscored them by a ton, but what about the other three podium teams? It turned out second place only made it to 75,000. We had completely dominated. The fact that our prizes were paltry was irrelevant. We each won a Rebel Blueprints book and a model kit. We were on top of the world. We were also exhausted. We had run completely around the convention center at least twice through massive crowds carrying backpacks (or in my case, a large messenger bag). Jon was wearing his Jedi robes, which include horribly uncomfortable boots. My wife was cursing us both for making her run. I still don’t think she’s forgiven me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4911230396/in/photostream/
We wanted to go see the panel Swank was moderating, “Why We Love the Prequels,” with Kyle Newman (Fanboys), Dave Filoni and others. But we were just too beat and hungry. We went back to the hotel where Jon changed out of his robes and then to Miller’s Ale House. The food was good and the beer was cheap. I saw Bryan later and he told me the panel went extremely well and was very crowded; we might not have gotten in the door anyway.
There was a free mixer going on in the upstairs ballroom. We were a little early so we stopped at the Hoth Ice Bar for a couple drinks. The sitting area was pretty crowded so we introduced ourselves to a nice couple that had a table and joined them. This was the second time that day we saw someone taking their own unique fandom and making something fun with it. The Jedi Mario Bros. were fun. Brandy was different. She had used some old Star Wars curtains as base fabric and made a Victorian style dress from it, complete with bustle. I’ve seen similar ideas done – but this was the best I’d seen yet. Plenty of people wanted pictures with her, including some others that had also used SW material to make their own unique items.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4910628221/in/photostream/
We spent a couple hours at the party with Brandy and Scott. It wasn’t a great party, but there was booze and we were still amped about our bounty hunt win, even if we were physically beat. We did cut out a little early only because we knew the morning would come too soon. People were already camping out for the Main Event Saturday morning. We weren’t going that extreme but we were planning on getting there early for seats.