.the princess portal.

I really enjoyed the convention this year. Perth only really has one anime convention at the moment, and Mirai is on the board so I get to see a lot of the work that goes in to organizing it, I think they did a fantastic job. I will try and summarise each day but I am bound to leave something out because it was such an intense weekend and I had so much fun!

Day 1 Saturday

I wore my MA one piece and spent about two hours getting my hair in to a curly hime style. Steph kindly gave me a lift the convention center where we went and signed in for our pre-registration. I hurried in to help Clara set up and put together my Petit Miel stall then rushed back out to help Steph hand out fliers to everyone in the line waiting for the con to start. I think we handed out nearly 100 fliers for our panel which was great.

Before the panel I did a little shopping. My greatest treasure was a Rose of Versailles Lady Oscar bust which is just so precious to me, I love this series but own no merchandise from it because it’s so old. I also bought a Sister Princess photo album, a Hello Kitty x Lolita keychain and a Happy Berry bracelet.

Our panel was at noon and we had to fnd all our models and explain the fashion show directions to them. When we finally went in there were a techinical difficulties getting the slideshow to work for a while, but the room was nearly packed out so obviously our fliers worked! The fashion show was fun and the panel went quite smoothly.

We hurried off quickly from the Panel to the Cosplay competition where many of our friends were participating. I sat with Sanyu and her boyfriend who were lots of fun to talk to and we really enjoyed the show.

The rest of the day was spent chatting to people, keeping an eye on my stall which was doing pretty well and posing for photos. I met a really talented photographer named Sabrina who has asked me to do a photo shoot for her some time, I can’t wait, her work is stunning! I got a lift home with Steph and went to bed early as I had very little sleep the night before.

Day 2 Sunday

Sunday was much more relaxed. There were less people there and I had no specific responsibilites so I had time to chat to Vanessa and look at some of the artwork and other things on display. I manned the stall for a little while and remembered how bad I am at mental maths, and also helped Mirai set up for the panels. I really enjoyed the panels at this years con, I went to Mirai’s Yaoi and Fan Fiction panels and also got to see a bit of the Cosplay panel which was really interesting.

We also participated in a photo competition where we had to take some creative photos of things on a list, sort of like a scavenger hunt. We did ours lolita style and you can see all the images in the Gallery, there are some funny ones too!

I had a seaweed and cheese roll for lunch and sat down to talk to Tini while he manned the stall. The cosplay competition for this day went a lot longer, but there were some great entrants including my friends Clara, Tini and Matt who won for their Hellsing cosplay, congratulations!

Clara and Tini gave me a lift home and we sat for a while talking and looking out over the river, as there was actually a pretty good view from the loading bay. I felt a lot more involved this year and I think next year I may run two panels, I think its more fun when you are busy.

This candid photo was taken by someone at the convention, I think it sums up the experience for me. You can see me squeeing over my Lady Oscar figurine and Skwerlie holding her doll. I had a really great time.