| 07.09.2019 – AVCon has ruled the halls of the Adelaide Convention Centre as the event took center stage Friday night with the introduction of guests and what to expect for the three day experience. From the retro games, Cosplay, and the abundance of merchandise that filled halls this year breaks new records in attendance.
It is one of the major pop culture events that have been around the City of Adelaide that continues to get bigger with the full coverage as follows how things rolled out on what to see in this year’s event! |
AVCON 2019 has come and gone and Adelaide has once again hosted the weird and wonderful creations of Anime and Videogaming fans!
|
|
Opening night on Friday saw hundreds of fans lining up to see the Opening Ceremony, and while it was a little late to start (an hour behind!), excited and patient fans cheered as the lights came on and new hosts were announced!
Fans were welcomed with the 2019 theme "Join the Party" and a commitment from the Adelaide City Council for $15,000 AUD per year for another three years to keep the convention running. The AVCON Avengers (a group of successful cosplay participants and ambassadors were introduced which saw an awesome Bumblebee from Transformers and a crowd favourite Pikachu!
The two highlights of the evening was the short but entertaining interactions with voice actors Paul St Peter from LA (whose credits include Punch in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Mondego in Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, Kurama in Naruto, Yammy in Bleach, Jorgun in Gurren Lagann, and Higa in Durarara!!, and can be heard as various Digimon (the most recognized being Leomon).
Some of his notable roles in video games include: Xemnas in the Kingdom Hearts series and Yuan Shao in Dynasty Warriors alongside fellow voice actor , Actor and Director D.C. Douglas (whose credits include notably Wesker from the Resident Evil series and also an unpopular cameo as "Bud" in Sharknado Two (why did they write a sequel?) The energy in the room during the two five minute interactions was engaging and these guys certainly knew how to put on a show.
When you made it past the gaming hall that have all the independent game developers, universities, and old school arcade game units you’ll enter where the merchandise area is located. At the same time there are booths that promote their upcoming events as well as places you can visit and here are those exhibitors.
The second highlight was the screening of Code Geass: Lelouche of the Resurrection an Anime special screening to close the evening. The film was an entertaining production shown on two large screens, but Adelaide Convention Centre had the volume extremely loud (about double your normal cinema) so the Mecha attack sequences literally shook the room and eardrums alike!
We returned on Day 1 (Saturday) to find many new fans that couldn't make the opening night breaking out the Cosplay, a massive Nintendo booth in the centre of the main hall with consoles set up to challenge friends and an assortment of stands from popular shops such as Shin Tokyo, Madman Entertainment, local heroes Greenlight Comics, Adelaide City Library and many more.
We were stunned by the art, cosplay, retro gaming rooms and general buzz around the Convention!
|
|
I personally liked our vendor from Siren Visual Entertainment who joined in on the cosplay from the other side of the counter dressed as Tony Stark (Ironman) and encountered a cute dancing robot from our friends at Adelaide City Library.
Stand out artists included the incredibly talented Anthony Christou with some fantasy art styles and our personal favourite Jackson Caspersz Art, where we purchase an incredibly detailed b>Iron Man, Captain America and Thor digital drawing set for a very reasonable $40 AUD for the three.
|
|
|
|
A great little start-up company called Chronicle Cards was at AVCON promoting their new 'companion' cards that are used for Universal RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons (but adaptable for any game). They include four decks of cards based on items, events, monster attributes and personalities to help get games set up quickly for participants.
We checked out a lot of weapons, memorabilia and custom dice then moved on to the RetroGames section where we relived some good old days of gaming with the NES, Atari, Commodore 64 and SEGA consoles and watched people relive their mispent youth. Indie gamers were in the next hall showing their new developments and discussing their creations with some very good looking new games in early production.
Moving through the halls we found the AEL University Cup challenge hall where pro-gamers were fighting side by side, located alongside to a sedate table top board game area where many fans were sitting and mingling over their favourite games.
It was here we found the little gem of Gundam Club Australia. GCA had a beautiful showcase of Gundam models, a featured diorama and offered a build your own Gundam for fans. We had missed out on the days allocated figures but decided to take our chance in the raffle they were holding. It was a great surprise to find out that we had won a Tallgeese III Gundam model as first prize when drawn!
|
|
We finished the day watching Super Smash Brothers Ultimate championship finals and getting entertained with watching the professionals challenge each other and some very close combat making it neck-and-neck for the race to first place. The crowd were becoming very vocal and ultimately it was a local Adelaide gamer who took the title, despite the stiff competition.
It is great to experience a different side of Adelaide by attending AVCON to check it out.
Special thanks to AVCon organizers as part of the event for the third year in the row. There’s more happening in 2020 just you wait and see which will be even bigger this side of Adelaide!
Ben and Brendan Tomlins are Custom Brick Builds who are passionate with LEGO. This was their first AVCon and you’ll find them with their creations this weekend at Brixpo happening from 13-14 July, 2019 at Morphettville Racecourse
If you want to see their Custom Creations and other related to LEGO just LIKE and Follow Custom Brick Builds on Facebook!
For more about AVCon follow their social media via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
Visit the site as AVCon.Org.AU
No comments:
Post a Comment