Done now? Done now.

Part 1: http://www.crymore.net/2013/12/27/anime-conventions-a-guide-of-sorts-part-1/

Part 2: http://www.crymore.net/2014/01/01/anime-conventions-a-guide-of-sorts-part-2/

Topics covered this time around: things to bring, and misc. Yeah, I need to work on my naming sense.

Things to Bring

Don’t forget your head.

Essentials

You’ll be needing these.

Phone device

You’re gonna want to stay in contact with those friends I said you should have back in the first article. If you don’t have friends, now’s the time to make them.

Camera

You can bring one of these and a fanny pack and pretend you’re cosplaying as a pedophile. Otherwise, you can just easy-mode it with a phone camera.

Remember, you’re grabbing ~memories~ with pictures, not fucking art to hang in a gallery. And yes, sometimes you can masturbate to those memories. Nothing wrong with a shameschlick.

Food/drink

Already covered.

Condoms/birth control pills

For water balloon fights and crushing up to sell to the homeless, respectively.

Toiletries (weird fucking name for the things, I know)

While hotels generally have soap/shampoo available, you’re on your own for everything else.

If you’re gonna be traveling via plane or something, grab some travel-size shit from Target for like $1 each. Or you can throw stuff you already own in some smaller bottles. Trust me, people aren’t gonna fucking judge you on what your shampoo looks like in the hotel’s bathroom.

Cell phone charger

If it’s small, I’d suggest keeping it in a pocket or your panties or wherever you keep things. Reason being, there are lots of outlets in convention centers and if your phone gets low on juice, you can get a recharge instead of having to go back into your room for it. Sitting near an outlet in panel rooms is a solid choice.

Having an extra battery already charged will work if you want to go that route instead.

Cash

Try to not be poor.

Bonus Round

More information than you wanted. Aren’t you the lucky one?

Surge protector

This is really only needed if you have a lot of people in your room and a lot of electronics to power.

Ethernet cable

Depending on the hotel, they may have an ethernet jack but not ethernet cord. Might as well be prepared in case you’re bringing a laptop or something.

Stupid stuff

You want more streetpasses? Bring your 3DS and you’ll have a hundred in a minute. Huge TCG player? Bring your deck; you can always find people playing Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh, and they’re usually glad to play with someone new. And yeah, they probably play other games too.

If you’ve got a niche, you’ll probably find other people into that niche at the con, so bring something with in the eventuality you find like-minded souls, even if you just keep it in your room. Hell, I see people walking around with ball-jointed dolls all the time, so even future sex offenders have a place at the con.

Less

Don’t bring too much. For example, if you bring your PS4 hoping that people are gonna play Resogun with you, you’re wrong. That game is only fun for 10 minutes and you’re weird for liking it so much.

Misc.

For your consideration… and health.

Registration lines are long and will only get longer. Get into them ASAP. Some cons will even let you get your badges on Thursday night if you preregistered. Go that route if you can.

Friday and Saturday are the best days because people care about the nights. Sunday is a day when people leave and nothing happens on Thursday, so if those are the only days you can hit up the con, you might want to reconsider your plans.

Be sure you’re fed/beveraged throughout the day, especially if you’re going to be drinking liquor later on. Some pansy fainted at the last con I went to and it shut down the rave. Don’t be that guy.

Read the fuck out of the program guide. You don’t wanna go into this thing aimlessly, cuz you’ll just waste your time on stuff you don’t care about. Make a schedule and go from there. Sometimes cons have smartphone updates that you can use to make schedules. They’re quite convenient (but also absurdly expensive, so smaller cons will likely not offer this).

Schedules can — and often do — change at cons, so be sure to check for updates every now and then. If the con offers a smartphone app, it will let you know when times/rooms change for events. Others have Twitter or will post status updates on their website. This ain’t a huge issue — more of a convenience thing.

If you plan to be spending a lot on your credit card (again, you have to realize a lot of places won’t take cards), call your credit card company ahead of time to let them know you’ll be spending a lot over the weekend. This way you won’t get your card denied like it’s a voice actor hitting on someone who has standards.

End

We’ll say it’s a Good one.

That’s all I’ve got. If you have any questions, fire away in the comments.