I'm going to my first "gaming and anime" convention tomorrow (my friend is picking me up at 6am, I don't know why so early but he understands the details of the trip better than I do so...

The convention, A&G (Animation and gaming) Ohio info can be found here: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e5ifuy81bafc542f&llr=av66p6iab You can still technically go at this point. I doubt anyone here would be able to go though since I'm bringing this up such short notice.

Anyway, since this is going to be my first convention, I'm not entirely sure what to do other than participate in the events and buy stuff. Which sounds fun but I was wondering if there is anything to do during conventions other then the obvious. I'm not a giant Anime fan (but I do enjoy it assuming the story is at least decent) I generally favor playing video games. But this leaves me with a conundrum, I can play games at home on my computer any time I want, I was wondering if I could spend a minimum of my time on that (other than maybe a free to enter FPS tournament) and more on getting the most out of any unique things found at a convention that you can't do ordinarily. Any suggestions?

Also, anyone else here ever go to a convention of any sort? Any stories to tell?

Disclaimer: I've technically gone to GDC once, but I don't consider that a convention. If fact GDC is considered a business conference, hence being "Game Developers Conference" and not something you go to for fun but to network and find employers/employees (though I imagine a convention might be just a suitable for such a purpose).

I have some great advice for your first anime/gaming convention: Do not attend.

:/

Spend the day drooling over the sluty cosplay outfits and carry around a sign with the words 'Free Hugs'.

i think watching a grown ass man rap about final fantasy would actually be something worth seeing.

the whole thing is a spectacle by design, so my advice is to just go wherever fate takes you and be subsumed by the experience. 

I'm back from it. I had fun. I met the voice actor for Master Chief which was cool (Steve Downes). Made me wish I had my copies of Halo:CE, 2 and 3 with me. Also the guy that voiced the 'voice of the agency" in Crackdown (he also voiced some characters in WoW, but I don't play Wow). While I never got into Resident Evil 5, I also thought it was cool to meet the voice behind Wesker (D.C. Douglas).

They had 'cos-play wrestling'. I am a person normally not into wrestling OR cos-play but I thought it was pretty entertaining. I saw a little of the Protomen and I thought they were pretty good, so I'm going to check their other songs.

They had tourny's. but unfortunately they were almost all console so I didn't bother. They also had... a 'rave'. only not really since raves are usually known for having some sort of mind altering drugs involved. Oddly enough I never got drunk, yet actually danced during the rave (if you want to call 'rave dancing' dancing at all) I normally CANNOT dance in public but it was dark (hard for people to identify me as the awful dancer) and it was DUBSTEP. And I like dubstep.

Though I actually strained to dance OK when I was hanging out with a group of mostly girls when they and I entered the 'rave room' together.

They had some 21 and up party that I would have gone to, to drink a little (I'm not much of a drinker though). I was too exhausted at that point though so I went to my hotel room and passed out.

Got some ladies phone numbers. Nothing to be excited about though as they all live relatively far away, but being able to even achieve that for me at least is a minor victory as I'm usually far too shy.

Everyone told me it was far too small for their tastes, though they said that is probably good for a new con-goer. I also bought some stuff. Namely, A poster of Tali (I never thought I'd ever buy a poster of anything, but it was an awesome poster), a magic card deck, and a used PS3 game "Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time" since I recently bought a PS3 and have few games for it. With those 3 items though I burned a giant hole in my pocket.

I also played Magic a little in a board game room but I got my ASS HANDED TO ME.

There actually wasn't much corporate presence at all since it is such a small con. In fact I learned that it was only in its 5th year of existence.

Overall I think it was a positive experience, but kind of a 'lite' one. As there were points in time that I didn't have much to do and was a little bored. But that probably wouldn't be as big of an issue at a bigger con I assume.