Hello hello ~
I've returned home from my trip to my sixth Skecon and I thought that I'd write my summary of it as soon as possible so that it would be done and out of the way because I'm stressed as fuck about other things. ^^" Skecon was held on 3-5 November 2017 in Skellefteå's Campus. It's basically a school and the same con building as last year so yeah, for more photos of the location (because this year I didn't take many) just check out my summary from last year.
Now let's get on with the summary ~
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| Skecon entrance. |
Friday
Not gonna lie, this whole con trip started awkwardly. The day before we all had agreed that we'd need to be on the road approximately 07:30-08:00 at the latest (or that's what I remember) and so I set my alarm clock up. I went to bed sort of late because I was up fretting over if I had packed everything and I intentionally left some of the packing for the morning as I couldn't take them during the night.
One of my alarms rang really early (like, 5 or something) and that was so that I'd get up to put on the dish washer and then go back to sleep, which I did.
I had calculated that I'd need about one hour to get ready and so my alarm was for like 06:30 or something like that but yeah, what I actually woke up to was someone ringing my doorbell at like 06:15, if I recall right. I thought at first that it was like a prank ringing or something so I went to check through the door hole and then I saw my boss, with her recognizable blue jacket, and I was like "oh shit kill me". xD I was still in pyjama and everything and with my hair in like Super Saiyan mode, it was embarrassing as fuck. She asked me if I wanted to go see my cat before leaving (he would stay the con weekend at her place) but I was like "nah it's okay" because I realized everyone were ready already (I saw the car outside waiting...) and I was like ffffffuuuuuucccck. :::DDD So yeah, stress deluxe and I finished my packing, speedboosted my yoghurt and pissed off towards Skellefteå.
The car trip down went fine, no issues. We had a few breaks and everyone except me ate at Skellefteå's Max; I just didn't want to eat hamburgers like 10:30 in the morning or something like that. xD Needless to say we were at Skellefteå really early and, at first, we were worried that the con wouldn't even be open and we'd have to sit with our hideous amount of luggage in the bus station and then walk to the campus area from there, once the con opened. Luckily, because I was a con worker, I had access to this one Facebook chat and asked there if we could get inside and got a positive reply so yeah, after the burgers we headed straight for the campus.
Once we got there I went inside to look for any Skecon workers but only saw like ordinary students and middle-aged people eating at the restaurant. I got worried but it turned out that all the other con workers were upstairs. I then went back to the car and we took all our stuff out, bid Carina farewell and went inside. My boss is awesome, deal with it. ;)
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| Skecon poster. |
Once back at the con more con workers had showed up and I went to meet with my team leader for the weekend. This year I would work with the cleaning patrol when last year I was at the entrance – I just wanted to try something different! I met her and we went upstairs to pick up my worker gear, namely a badge and a t-shirt. I also helped to tape up the big paper roll thingy on the wall so that people could draw on it.
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| Con workers got this badge to wear around their neck... |
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| ... and a worker t-shirt. :D |
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| Entrance view. Information desk is the red table in the center of the image. |
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| View from the entrance past the info desk. Fun fact: those two dresses (yellow and green) are made completely out of paper! |
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| The con band was the cutest one for Skecon so far! |
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| Merchandise sellers, seen from the entrance to the hall. |
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| Of course there was the candy and drink table! |
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| Geeky embroidered towels was something new for me. |
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| The obligatory "cool kid" caps. I've kinda been going back and forth with if I want one or not for years. xD I guess I keep looking for the perfect design...? |
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| Artist's Alley was basically just this one table. I was hoping for more but oh well. |
I felt so bad that me and Therese started thinking of ways to get her happy again – I really didn't want her to get a bad memory from something that is meant to be fun. We came to the conclusion that getting food from town could be a decent option because at least a part of her anger could come from being hungry since yeah, it was more than five hours ago since we last ate something. Also, by going to centrum for a while we could temporarily avoid the sensitive topic of Skecon itself.
I told Therese that I knew of a really good Chinese restaurant and asked her to relay the message to Sabine (they're sisters) outside. Therese came back and told me that it worked and then I went to find my team leader to plead her for some time off so that I could go to the restaurant with them. I explained the situation briefly and she was super kind and said that of course she will let me go. ;A; I then went out and told Sabine about the restaurant myself and yeah, she looked really pissed and sad. But seemingly there had been a communication error and Therese had said that I knew of a sushi place and when I corrected and said that it was a Chinese restaurant Sabine promptly continued sulking and sat down again. Shit. I felt like I needed to come up with something quick and googled for sushi restaurants in Skellefteå – thank God I found two! I picked the one with better ratings and opened Google Maps and thankfully it wasn't far away. And then we moved out.
We found the restaurant after a bit of walking (it was close to Max) and went inside. My first impression was "oh this is gonna be expensive" since it looked to be a fancier place. Luckily the menu seemed quite normal in the price range for a sushi restaurant in Sweden and the girls decided to share a 12 pieces mixed plate. The sushi looked really good and was laid out in a super fancy way on a big leaf and there was a detailed figure cut out in cucumber and everything. The sushi did its trick and Sabine was back in a good mood and goofed around with Therese in the restaurant while I just sat there and felt embarrassed because the restaurant was so tip-top and they were very loud, lol.
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| Limited Skecon 2017 merchandise for sale at the info desk. |
We waited for them to catch up and eventually got close to the sleeping accommodation, which was another school. Sabine saw some random school boys running in the gymnastic hall (sports training practice I guess) and totally flipped her shit and started screaming that she refused to go in there and so on. I knew she would be unhappy but I wasn't expecting this caliber of rage. xD Carina had implied that Sabine has a really hard time with being near other people and a fear of strangers stealing stuff etc and, while I can relate to it being uncomfortable and undesirable, I've just learnt to deal with it because sleeping halls at cons are the cheapest option and most young people don't have the money to pay for hotels, me included. But yeah, I must admit that at this point I might have lost my patience because I was really mentally tired from the day and just wanted to sleep. I still felt bad because I can totally understand her fears (I'm the same but just not so... extreme) and personally I avoid sleeping accommodations as far as possible. Honestly, Skecon is to this day the only con where I feel comfortable picking this option because it's small.
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| The class room that we slept in. My "mattress" is the orange couch cushion to the left. |
Saturday
Man it was cold to sleep the night. I woke up several times because my feet were cold and yeah, I totally forgot to take my own wool socks even after I told Therese to take some with her. >_> Dumb-dumb.
When I eventually got up I noticed that Sabine was already up, playing with her phone. I assumed she had a hard time sleeping – I mean, it's not really comfortable to sleep on the floor among strangers. We woke up Therese and put on our clothes and left for the con – I took with me my gray bag because I had my cosplay in it. Sabine seemed okay-ish and we agreed on going to town first to buy some breakfast before going to the con.
At the town we did a nearby Bayleef raid (this was literally the day before the raid bosses changed) and then walked to Lidl to get something to eat. We ate our breakfast outside while sitting on the stairs to another building because there were no benches nearby. Some random man was playing on his accordion outside Lidl and provided some living music while we ate, it was pleasant.
After we were done eating the girls wanted to go check some clothes in town and so we parted ways because I headed to the other side of centrum to grab some of the remaining gym badges on PoGo and then went back to Skecon.
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| Skecon's cafeteria area. |
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| The video game room upstairs. |
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| The drawing/crafting room. |
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| Some of the artwork. I love the Waluigi one. x) |
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| If I remember right the karaoke was absent last year but this year they made sure to make people aware of it. |
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| Skecon activity schedules. |
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| Skecon activity schedules. |
I must admit that it felt a bit weird to put on a cosplay that I last wore in 2014 and that I made in late 2009, at least the shihakusho kimono tops. x) I was really scared of messing up the eye makeup because my original plan was to do a makeup test before the con at home, but I didn't have time for that and then I thought that I'd do it on Friday night before going to sleep but yeah, then I lazied out because I was too tired after the day. So yeah, no test-runs and the makeup that I originally did for Gin when I wore him during 2012 is way below my current standards (I didn't even use liquid eyeliner back then!) and I didn't want to do it the same way so well, now that I was stuck here with only this cosplay I had to do an improvisation makeup and hope for the best.
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| Just photo proof that I actually wore Gin. |
While I was changing into cosplay Therese texted me and asked where I was... and some random person knocked on the door and asked if everything was okay. xD I guess I stayed in there long enough for people to get worried since I do legit take forever getting changed into cosplay, lol.
Most of my free time in cosplay I spent upstairs in the drawing room with my company. We scribbled some shit and just hung around and then some people came and wanted selfies with me; I was shocked at first because I was completely unprepared and then I felt incredibly awkward and insecure, to the point that I wanted to decline the offer but accepted anyway since I didn't want to come of as rude or make them sad if they liked the character/my cosplay. The following hour I felt extremely uncomfortable for having obliged – I knew that I was so stiff from the surprise that I couldn't even do the eye thing properly (Gin almost never opens his eyes and always have these creepy squinted eyes) and yeah, not being able to control the camera myself makes me extremely anxious and self-conscious...
Once my free time was over I changed out of cosplay
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| My dinner, day 2. (day 1 was the same but original Gorbys, lol) |
While I was eating this one guy walked past with milk cartons in his hands. He suddenly stopped and asked me if I wanted milk. I was like "sure" and he just casually handed one bottle over (same as on the photo above) and continued his life. I didn't think so much more about it, except that now I had two milks for my dinner rather than one. xD
Oh and another little thing I feel like mentioning: on Friday I was surprised when I went to get my food and there was no plate to put it on and nothing to eat it with. I thought it was weird but just ate the thing directly out of the bag anyway. I later asked other workers about it and they said the same thing and that Skecon probably just forgot to buy in one-use plates, forks and knives. It's a small thing but it still left a kind of image of carelessness. On the second day the issue was fixed but by this time I already got used to the "eat it out of the bag like a savage" and so I didn't bother.
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| Video gaming room at night. Best time to play after a long day! |
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| Stinkin' cute mini SNES! >w< |
(warning: prepare for a rant ahead)
I was pretty tired by now and I figured why not go sleep because I had a semi-early shift on Sunday and it would be tough to carry all the stuff back to Skecon and then around town to get to the bus station after the con. So yeah, I was just about to go head out myself when Therese texted me and said that she can't find the keys to get inside the sleeping accommodation. I told her to look at the metal platform stairs thingy next to the door because that's where the keys were hanging last night and we had been instructed to look for them there if we needed to get inside. But after repeated messages from Therese saying she can't find them I started to feel weird about the whole thing and went to ask the info desk about it – I said that I had some friends outside who can't find the keys and then they dropped the bomb: the keys are not there anymore.
Turns out that they had decided to change the system so that, instead of leaving the keys in a hidden spot so that visitors can go sleep when they wanted, now everyone had to wait for specific "sovsalståg" (lit. sleeping hall trains), which meant that there was a leader with the keys who'd walk there with everyone wanting to go sleep and open up for them. In theory it sounds organized and good but in reality it was a mess. I understand not wanting to leave the keys for hours outside because anyone who knew where to look could just steal them but yeah, the change was poorly informed and implemented (at least by the time I needed it, dunno how it worked on previous hours). I literally didn't know about it before I asked the info. It wasn't written on any obvious place (like the noteboard thingy near the info desk or on the big screen) and only a hand-written A4 paper was stuck on one side of the entrance doors and it was, truth be told, easy to miss. So yeah, I was told that the next organized walk there would be at eleven and so I thought "okay" and took my stuff and sat down near the info desk and waited.
The clock strikes eleven.
The clock goes past eleven.
The clock is five minutes past and no sign of anything happening.
Every minute past eleven I'm getting bombarded by Therese's messages asking if we have started walking yet, to which I reply negative. I'm starting to feel uneasy thinking of how pissed Sabine must be and how cold they both must be by now since they've been standing outside for at least 40 minutes.
I don't see the leader with the keys anywhere – I don't even know who it's supposed to be. I see a few people gathering, one of them being my workmate from the cleaning patrol. I ask the info again about the leaving time and now I'm suddenly told that the train won't leave until the rave has ended because it's supposed to be co-arranged. At this point I'm getting moderately annoyed because the rave should have ended already but it's going overtime meanwhile my friends are freezing and probably unable to walk back because of pains/tiredness...
I start talking with my workmate about this and after a while a woman appears and says that she's the leader. I perceived her as quite annoyed because she was saying something that she had just been there and now she had to go again, borderline guilt-tripping my friends for choosing to stay outside (it's not directly next to the campus and Sabine has been complaining about shafing pains while walking since Friday) and for not noticing the sign. It sounded like she barely had any free time and had to walk that same trip back and forth constantly and, even worse, it seemed like she was the only one who had to do it...?
People around me soon enough start talking about how they had sleeping accommodation workers/watchers on previous years and how it was inhuman to keep them stuck in long shifts there because they got bored to death and thus they scrapped it this year. Other workers joined in and soon enough there was a loud quarrel about whether or not having workers at the sleeping accommodation was good or not because this topic clearly divided people. I was afraid that people would actually start fighting over it but it was summed up with a "we sure have a lot of improvements to do for next year" – so fucking true because this is embarrassing.
Some ideas about how to make it better for sleeping accommodation workers was tossed around, like having all con workers (cleaners, technicians, info, entrance) do 1 hour of obligatory sitting there but personally I think that getting more workers in general for that task and give them like 2-hour shifts and then at least 4 hours of free time between their next shift would perhaps work to get rid of the boredom of sitting many hours in succession. I know that a friend of mine worked as a sleeping accommodation worker last year and he didn't seem unhappy with it but, at the same time, I heard another guy complain how it was torture (dunno what year) when they had to sit 8 hours there. But whatever the case I agree that there should be workers there because otherwise you take away from every attendant the freedom of going to sleep whenever they want to and not be dependent on someone else – and that's a big deal. Especially considering how shitty the whole organized tours were like "yeah one leaves at eleven" and the later it got past the planned time the more it felt like they probably just pulled it out of the hat and it wasn't scheduled or pre-planned at all...
The clock was like 20 minutes past eleven, the rave had ended and no other congoers had still shown up for the walk. The person with the keys obviously got sick of waiting because no one showed up (I assume the ravers weren't even informed, lol) and just told me
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| Rave going on. |
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| Rave without the bright rapidly flashing light that I caught on first photo. |
So yeah, once we got inside the sleeping halls I explained the situation and why it took so long for Therese and then we went to bed. I don't think anyone was particularly happy at this point, I know that I was ashamed, tired and just astounded by how badly organized the whole sleeping issue was. Like holy hell.
Pssst, I'm kinda sad I missed the martial arts display, it's been a tradition of mine to participate in it.
Sunday
Okay, Sunday. Soon I can get home.
We woke up at like 08:30 or something, packed our stuff and headed out. My working shift started 10:00 and that's pretty much what I prepped for as soon as I got to the con. We ran into some money issues because the girls were out of cash and had no money for breakfast, which was a problem. I still went out to do my rounds and ended up finding a half-full big carton of juice which I brought back to them – better than nothing, I thought. Soon enough I got hungry myself and went to eat my third and final Gorbys with milk and while eating I happened to spot the main organizer walk past me. I had earlier noticed that some baguettes and stuff were put up near the info desk and asked him what these were for, he said that it was mainly for workers but con attendants could have a bite if they wanted to. I explained the situation of my hungry and moneyless friends and he smiled and said that it's okay for them to go eat. Luck in misfortune again!
I went back to the girls and told them the good news (I had to ensure Sabine that good news weren't followed by bad news) and then they went to eat and everything was fine and dandy for a while again. Oh boy, this whole trip has been such a rollercoaster.
My working shift officially ended at 14:00 and somewhere around that time the "milk guy" showed up again! He asked me if I wanted milk and I was again like "why not" and he then told me to follow him, so I did. He led me to the fridge from where I had taken my con lunch and asked me how many I wanted. It soon dawned on me that he didn't talk about individual bottles but cartons. He filled one and was like "you do want another one, right?" and I was all okaaaaaay. :'DD
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| Skecon's parting gift. Yes, I like milk. :::))) |
During the final cleaning I asked my team leader if she could drive me and my friends to the bus station and she was such an angel to agree. ;u; It turned out that the bus station had indeed moved to another place and I didn't know where it was so I'm thankful she took us there because getting lost with that amount of luggage would have been really annoying. So yeah, Skecon was then over for our part and we took the bus back home. Carina picked us up from the bus station when we arrived and drove us home.
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So uhm, what can I say? If I'm brutally honest this was the worst Skecon so far and yes, I've attended all Skecons to this day since the first one in 2012. It's not a complete disaster (most of the people are really nice, I enjoyed my company and there is stuff to do for entertainment at least) but the con itself left much to be desired – what happened with the ambition to be fun, unique and bring in things no other Swedish con had done before? Right now it just feels like Skecon is comfortably falling into the "let's just be a small generic con with no special things to set us apart from the rest" mold and the lack of big-name guest of honors etc, at least compared to before (I'm sorry if Tenkou was supposed to be a guest but I had no idea about her presence until after the con, to be honest... Poor advertising?), just underlines this; I really miss the concerts. If it's a budget issue I understand but the price keeps going up and the quality down and that's just no. Also, I should have realized that something would be off when like a week before the con the schedule (which didn't have so much going on) still wasn't up on the website, like what?
As I said previously Skecon 2013 and 2014 were the best ones and 2015 was good, even though it felt a bit like recycling what made 2014 amazing (Vocaloid concert) and thus lost some of its impact and wow-factor. Seriously Skecon, go back to Folkparken and bring in the good stuff and you might not lose me in the future. The people are lovely but the con itself needs to fix its knots along the way because great company can't hold up against shortcomings in other fields forever.
As I said previously Skecon 2013 and 2014 were the best ones and 2015 was good, even though it felt a bit like recycling what made 2014 amazing (Vocaloid concert) and thus lost some of its impact and wow-factor. Seriously Skecon, go back to Folkparken and bring in the good stuff and you might not lose me in the future. The people are lovely but the con itself needs to fix its knots along the way because great company can't hold up against shortcomings in other fields forever.
This year's edition just felt like it wasn't properly planned –or, as we say in Finnish, juostenkustu*– and that whole sudden sleeping hall change thingy really turned into an awkward and confusing fuckpile. For the love of Jesus, please take back the sleeping accommodation workers but give them human working times so that anyone would actually want to do that job because yeah, I'm pretty sure that most congoers don't want to be dependent on others to decide when they can go sleep or not, especially when promised times are not even followed...
* = it's hard to translate directly but it's basically "take a running piss", meaning that something was done in a rush and/or really sloppily.
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Thanks for reading and no hard feelings! I wish Skecon all the best and that they'll learn from their mistakes. A big thanks to Sabine and Therese for coming with me and I hope that both of you had a good time overall and will want to go to more conventions in the future!
Thanks for reading and no hard feelings! I wish Skecon all the best and that they'll learn from their mistakes. A big thanks to Sabine and Therese for coming with me and I hope that both of you had a good time overall and will want to go to more conventions in the future!
