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AX2009 Day -1 and 0: Prologue to chaos

Posted by turbos86, 26 July 2009 · 445 views

Anime Expo 2009
Introduction

It's has been almost a month since the epic event we call Anime Expo 2009 has come to an end. Everything has now gone over my head and I'm feeling calm, it's time lay it all out.....all my personal experience at this event, and all of its controversy behind it. And those of you who was looking for me, I was not intentionally hiding, but focusing all energy on Morning Musume had increased my Ninja skills ten-fold.

Day -1: June 30th, 2009 Arriving in LAX

I arrived on an early flight to LA at just after 10AM. Uneventful as it might seem, it was my first time traveling alone. On the flight, I managed to chat up with the gentlemen seated beside me about everything LA. Him, being a LA local, told me to be careful of the people in LA, especially the downtown area. From all the research I have done prior to the trip, his words seems to be legitimate, but only if you wander the streets of downtown LA at midnight. I was not planning to hang around until that late at night on the streets, so it was all irrelevant to me.

Getting off the plane, I walked into the airport and was surprised to see how it did not stood up to my expectation, it being an airport of a major city. However, it was interesting to note was that there were Japanese written on all the direction signs. Maybe LA is a popular Japanese tourist spot? So first thing first, I opened up my phone and messaged the friend I will be staying with for the coming week, sferris. (Some of you might know him as a former H!F translator. I'm currently in a new subbing group with him called Hyakupa subs, more details about that later.) After picking up my luggage, I headed outside to wait for sferris to pick me up. Couple minutes after, he arrived and I loaded my things into his car. It was both awkward but familiar at the same time to finally meet with him. Awkward because it was our first time meeting in person, but familiar since we have already known each other for a while on the net. Once settled in the car, things got more comfortable, as we rocked to some H!P tunes.

For the upcoming three nights, sferris and I would be sleeping over at one of his buddies' house (Let's call him Mr.G). Beside the two of us, two of sferris' friends would be attending AX, making us a group of four. Mr.G's house was the only place that could house 3 extra bodies. Before we headed to Mr.G's house, sferris took me around town to do some sight seeing. It was ashamed how the weather was cloudy, surprising for summer in LA, I must say. We checked out a few places, including grabbing a bite at a local ramen place:

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Hakata Ramen, to any Reina fan, the word Hakata is more than a mere word. (Simply put, Reina's hometown -> Fukuoka, a ward within the town -> Hakata. And Reina speaks in Hakata dialect.)

After half a day of roaming around, at a bit after 6PM, we headed to Mr.G's house to unload. I was introduced to Mr.G and Mr.J (the forth person in our group of four). Both were very friendly and lay back. It didn't take long until they revealed themselves as fans of Ai-chan. With sferris and I being Reina fans, things were going to be quite interesting. The night was still young and all of us were so excited for Day 0 that we didn't want to sleep. Mr.J suggested we head down to the movie theater to kill some time. We ended up watching Transformer 2, great movie by the way. At 1AM, we got back to Mr.G's place and called it a night. Little did we know, this was the beginning of the greatest train wreck known to all wota-kind.

Day 0: July 1st, 2009 All aboard the fail train

5AM, I woke up to the sound of GAM's Atsui Tamashi (My cell phone's alarm clock). The others had also just woken up and we quickly cleaned up ourselves to prepare for what we were hoping to be the start of something special. Being Day 0, most people normally don't dress up or cosplay since all there is to do is picking up your badge and event tickets. For sferris and I, it was much more. I was representing Hello!Online as press, with sferris as my helper, we were looking to interview Morning Musume at the AX Press Junket, which was scheduled from 1 to 5PM at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel (about 6 blocks away from AX). Badge pick up would not begin until 3:30PM at LACC, which meant we had to leave Mr.G and Mr.J to pick up Morning Musume concert tickets for us. Deciding to distinguish ourselves from other interviewers and to show our support and fandom, sferris and I wore our Platinum 9 Disco T-shirts. He had the normal black shirt, while I had the black tour final shirt. With our jackets on, there was no way to tell we were wearing official H!P gear.

6AM, we arrived by car to LACC. To our surprise, the doors from the parking lot to the South Hall were wide open. We walked into the hall to see that most things were already set up for AX. It was beginning to sink in, we're here. Knowing the badge and ticket pick up was in West Hall, we headed there through the concourse. We were ignored by AX staffs and guards until we were stopped by a security guard near the ticket booth. She told us we had to line up outside. From reading all the forums, we were expecting an early line on Day 0. When we go outside, there was roughly 30 people all lined up. The sun was showing no mercy, so our party decided to hide under the tree in front of the entrance instead for the time being.

Mr.G was still tired from not getting enough sleep the night before and decided to take a nap on the bench. Mean while, I decided to be an idiot and began blasting H!P music out of my phone, it caught the attention of some people around us. That could only mean one thing, they are here for Morning Musume too. Not long after, more people showed up, some wearing Morning Musume member shirts, including one guy in a Koharu T-shirt (could this be infamous guy who wore the same Koharu shirt for all 5 days?)

After approximately 9AM, the line had grew to over 100 people long and was beginning to snake around the corner. AX staffs decided they should do something about this, unfortunately, it was not for the better. One lady who looked like she had some powers made an announcement that they wanted the line to be on the side of the building. Instead of telling the people at the front of the line to come forward, she pointed to all the people hanging around the entrance to start the line. This means, people who arrived at 4am to start the line up just go served. Some complained to the AX staff, but to no avail. Just mere minutes after this new line was made, AX staffs came out again and lead us into the West Hall. "YES!" we all thought, finally able to get away from the sun. The AX guy lead us far into the building. Half the lights were not on inside, it was quite creepy. We walked pass West Hall B, which was were badge pick up was. We were now confused. Mr.AX staff then lead us outside to line up directly outside of West Hall B. Great, back under the sun. Funny enough, half an hour after this, AX staffers found it in their hearts to sympathizes with us and let us into West Hall B to line up in front of the badge pick up booths. It was not even 10AM yet.

Inside the hall, the line were divided into smaller lines. This pretty much made the efforts of showing up early irrelevant, to some people at least. Everyone in line sat down on the ground and pulled out all forms of entertainment to occupy themselves with. Some people were showing off their Morning Musume photo books, others were playing on their laptops. sferris, on the other hand, pulled out his DSi and loaded up a Kirarin game!!!!! After being call gay by Mr.J for over five minutes, we all ended up taking turns playing the game. (Mr.J is not fond of Koharu.) At 11:30AM, sferris and I made our way to the Westin Bonaventure Hotel for the AX Press Junket. Knowing how impossible it was to find a parking spot again in LACC, we walked 6 blocks to the hotel, carrying our cameras, tripods, and other gears.

We got to the hotel just after noon. The Press Junket waiting room was in Santa Monica Room C, on the 3rd level. It took us a bit of time until we saw some AX staff and followed them to the room. There, we were given our press badges, and we signed ourselves up for Interviewing with Morning Musume, we were the first interviewer. The room began to fill with people soon after, some in suits, some in casual street clothes, and even some in cosplays. We strike up a few conversations with other press badge holders, and everyone there was excited for Morning Musume. One person in particular stood out, Paul from Hello!Blog, as he was wearing a Sexy 8 Beat T-shirt (if I remember correctly). He arrived at the Junket late and was at the very bottom of the Morning Musume interview list.

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A random shot I fired off with my camera of the tables inside the waiting room. The paper on the tables are interview sign up sheets for each of the guest.

We sat nervously reviewing our questions and double checking our equipment, as we waited for our names to be called. Tension was raising, by just wondering if we would be able to pull through the interview without a hitch. Shortly after 2PM, our names were called, but we were told to leave our equipment in the room. Confused, we headed out to the hallway, where we were told that Morning Musume's staff has denied our request for an interview. Not believing our ears, we pleaded they review the decision and were told to wait back inside the room. We told Paul what has happened and he's in as much disbelieve as we are. In the case we were truly denied, we agreed to let Paul take our spot in the line. 20 minutes pass and we were told the decision was not changed, at the same time, Paul was not allowed to take over our spot. Disappointed, we packed up, wished good luck to Paul and headed back to AX. (It was later revealed that Paul, along with JPHiP and a few others were also denied from interviewing Morning Musume.)

So back to AX we went. Going back in, through the West Hall entrance, we noticed a short line forming in front of the Event ticketing booth. Instead of going back to meet with our friends in the badge pick up line, we jump into the Event ticket line. We called Mr.G and Mr.J and told them to join us once they pick up their badges. There was about 50 people ahead of us in the ticket line, we were just outside the glass doors.

Shortly before 4PM, people started coming out with their badges, including our friends. We were informed that AX was experiencing technical difficulties, delaying badge pick up which was suppose to start at 3:30PM. The ticketing line was now beginning to grow at a rapid pace, and it was funny how everyone thought the line ended at the glass door. The guy holding the door open gave false hope to a lot of people.

Eventually at 5PM, we picked up our concert tickets, but some guy ahead of us in line picked up 20 tickets for all his friends, so we only managed to get seats in row D 6.

Now completely exhausted from the lack of sleep and all the running around, we went for dinner and headed back to Mr.G's place to prepare for Day 1 and our first real encounter with Morning Musume.

Find out how I royally make a fool out of myself in front of Koharu in the next post!




Picked up 20 tickets?? You can do that?!
Nice write up XD glad to read another experience!
@Xeqcme, apparently you can pick up as many tickets as you want, as long as you have your friend's badges and a copy of their photo ID. It was pretty stupid. And AX allowed people to line up to the Event ticketing booth without badges, it pissed off a lot of people.

@toxic025, LOL, sorry I didn't run into you, maybe next time!

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