Infinitus Part 1

With only a little over three weeks until the deadline for our LeakyCon contest, I want to take a moment to remind everyone that there's still time to enter and you needn't answer all the questions to be eligible to win the prize!

And with 54 days to go until LeakyCon, I wanted to use this post as a kind of recap of Infinitus last year from my point of view.

Being that it was our first HP con ever and we'd been planning it for over a year (since we figured out there was no way we could make LeakyCon '09), there was a LOT of buildup of anticipation before the actual event. I don't remember any other time when I got less sleep before an event I was greatly looking forward to. For weeks beforehand, Brae and I went back to discussing nothing at all but HP and doing nothing that wasn't HP-related, whether that was re-reading the books, reading Harry, A History, watching AVPM, or reliving great HP-related times (some of which already have posts devoted to them here, others will be coming in the future).

The plane ride was excruciating, as was the cab ride to the hotel. The moment we got out of the cab and someone screamed, “Merlin's beard, I love your shirt” at me (I was wearing my “I'm tired, can't we just be death eaters” t-shirt), I knew I was home. Then, we checked in, checked our luggage because our room wasn't ready yet, and headed down to registration. I don't remember much between the line for registration and the beginning of the opening feast except finding a few people from HP Ohio in the mass of excited fans and taking a few pictures of and with various people in costume.

The opening feast was excellent, and they introduced the exiled and redeemed game that I couldn't quite follow throughout the con. All I remember of that was that Chris Rankin was apparently exiled for a portion of the con...? And there were a few people running around yelling because of it at one point.

Anyway, after the feast, we ran back to the lobby to get our luggage, throw it in our room (which was ready), and freshen up before hitting the vendor room briefly and heading to our first formal program--”Umbridge's Justice and Hitler's Justice: The Sinister Similarities”. It was amazing! Though a few other programs we went to out-shined it in my memory for various reasons, this was an excellent presentation and very informative.

Fortunately, after this program let out, we just had to run across the hall to see Wrock Classics Night, which Lena was opening. During her set, she announced she wouldn't be playing another concert live. Someone assured us that this isn't an uncommon announcement for wrockers to make before actually returning to tour or play “one more” show at a future con, so we held out hope that this wasn't the case. I think we ducked out after Lena finished because there were a few other bands we'd either already seen or weren't that interested in and headed to the craft fair intending to buy pygmy puffs. They had sold out of most of the colors, though, so we left empty-handed and intended to spend all the gold we'd set aside for the pygmy puffs at the merch tables at the wrock show next door. Then, we watched The Moaning Myrtles and ran off to find some food where we ran into our HP Ohio people again who were scarfing down food before Witherwings went on at Wrock Pub Night. We joined them, wishing Mandala well before her performance as she swept out to set up.

Someone received a text that Witherwings was about to go on, and we all ran back down to the conference space to see Wrock Pub Night. We ended up being pretty close to the front of the crowd, so we were afraid to stray during House of Black and MC Kreacher's performance, even though neither of us were that interested, and it did go on for about an hour. But then, the Swish and Flick cheerleaders came in, and we knew the party was about to begin! Sure, the next day my throat was sore, my feet hurt from people dancing on top of me, my head was slightly bruised from the elbow I received in the mini-mosh pit that started when Ministry of Magic came on, and I was slightly dehydrated and about to have a heat stroke from the amount of people all up in my business, but it was TOTALLY worth it to see Swish and Flick and Ministry of Magic live! I'm especially grateful since it appears Swish and Flick won't be performing at LeakyCon. : (

On Friday, Brae convinced me to sleep in an extra hour so we did miss a program I would have liked to go too, but I was too tired to argue much. But we got up, threw on our Slytherin robes, and ran to catch our different programs. I think he went to one about werewolves or other magical creatures...or something. I was too tired to hear where he was going, but I ran off to “Immaturity or Escape from Reality in Adulthood: The Satisfaction of Reading Young Adult Series as a Twenty-Something/Mother” where we all shared stories about our families not understanding how a “children's” book can appeal to us, how we found HP, how many of us had lied about where we were actually going that weekend, etc. It was hilarious to hear some of the stories that so closely echoed mine (again, there's a post coming on this)!

Then, Brae and I met up to hang around for an hour while most people ate lunch. We were planning to eat in the park when our after 2pm ticket was good for Night of a Thousand Wizards. We also had planned to go to see “But I'm the Chosen One: Schools, Hijinks, and Heroics with Buffy Summers and Harry Potter” which was EPIC! I mean, come on! They combined two of the most awesome things in the world...BUFFY AND HP! How could it not be amazing? But the discussion that this comparison created was amazing, though it did hurt me that Xander was obviously compared to Ron (because I love me some Xander and hate me some Ron).

Then it was off to the park!

To be continued...