MCM BUZZ Blog by TONYO Episode 2!

15/07/2010
MCM BUZZ BLOG 2

Hi Tonyo here, welcome to another MCM Blog
London MCM Expo - May 2010

Another London Expo has come and gone, and now we're all looking towards October to give us some more enjoyment. I hope everyone who attended the Expo had a brilliant time and had no problems.

The biggest highlight of the event for a lot of people was the Masquerade. This was my 10th Expo in all (my 7th London one) and I don't think I've seen so many high quality cosplayers.
Both Saturday and Sunday were amazing. The Spirited Away skit made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up, what a buzz... yes, an MCM Buzz. Ha-ha.
Amazing Cosplays all round so far this year, perhaps the Euro Cosplay Championships have given everyone that feeling of going all out in 2010!

Everyone was so friendly as always and I met so many new people, I know I'm blogging from a point of a visitors view, but it's difficult when I'm so well known for my YouTube videos.
One of the biggest highlights for me over the weekend was being interviewed by Laura at the Tecmo Koei area stand that was something very special for me, and I think I'm pretty good at being interviewed, or maybe it's just because I like being in front of a camera?
That was the second time I held a microphone, the first time was with Stuart at the main stage before the DS World Record attempt was going to happen; He said he'd get revenge after I made a video about him after the Midlands MCM Expo in February earlier this year.
He got me up on stage as I was dressed as Professor Oak and tested my Pokemon knowledge to get prizes for some audience members, the first two questions weren't too bad, but luckily on the third one, the person who was hoping for a prize chose the audience over me to answer the question. Good choice because I didn't know! It's been that long since I saw Pokemon. Well done anyway Stuart, I've seen the video of that on YouTube and I declare you got your revenge.

The Nintendo DS World Record was a great success. Australia HAD the record for three years, and now it belongs to the United Kingdom and MCM Expo. Everyone gathered with their DS and had to play any game for 10 minutes, as long as a game was being played within that time. I think it was an easy victory that will be very difficult to be broken. Even if America or Japan break our record, we'll still come back in force and take it back. Now then, what other records can we break? Any ideas?

Saturday was very busy. Sunday was a lot nicer for shopping around the stalls as it's a bit quieter then. It's usually the case though because there's a lot more going on over Saturday. There were over 41,000 thousand people at the London MCM Expo this time, so the event is getting a lot bigger attendance wise. The hall itself was huge and even though there were more people, it didn't feel as crowded as it did in October. The new section of the ExCeL is now open and very welcome it is too. So all in all, the weekend with MCM was a complete success.

The goodie bags were really cool. DVDs, T-shirts, posters.. probably one of the best goodie bags I've had at Expo so far. I'll be doing my goodie bag video as always, analysing what's in there, good and bad. I must state once again, if you're going to throw your goodie bag down in the queue because you don't want it... DON'T TAKE IT! It's disrespectful to the Stewards who work very hard putting them all together. Take it home and keep it, or don't accept it in the first place.

MCM Fringe is one of the new babies at Expo. It's a good way to get your organised event noticed and get other people to take part. I had an event for Sunday morning and I have to say, seeing it on the MCM website being promoted felt good. I'll definitely be getting the help of MCM Fringe in the future to promote something for my YouTube channel in the future.

Did anything go wrong at this Expo? The only problem I could find was Saturdays queuing. We didn't get into the Expo until 9.30am which was half an hour late, due to some problems behind the scenes. The Masquerade started when the Expo should have finished, but believe me, the quality of the Masquerade was, in my own words after it finished, "Worth missing Doctor Who for."

Talking of the queue and this is no fault of MCM or the Stewards, but people coming to the queue and jumping to the front is wrong. Then once in the main queuing hall, people were jumping to the front by going through the barriers. If I had the power, I'd have made them go back to the start and made them walk the zigzag line all over again. Seeing as on Sunday I was third in the queue, and later after being moved into a hall to get our tickets checked and wristbands given to us, I found myself about 30th down the line because of barrier jumping. Disgusting! I'd expect this sort of thing from kids, but these people were grown adults.

A lot of people had things to say before the Expo about the new wristbands. At previous events, everyone got their hands stamped so you could come and go from the Expo hall, and now we have wristbands. At first I thought it may be a bad idea, but it's actually very good. It works and you get some memorabilia to take home.

So after a very busy weekend and some of the best times I've had this year, I look forward now to October.



5th May 2010
MCM BUZZ BLOG 1

My 10th MCM Expo and a New Beginning

Howdies Peeps.

Now then, where to begin?

I feel like Bilbo Baggins in Lord Of The Rings, looking at a blank page not knowing where to start, but like Bilbo, I think I can pretty much start at the beginning by looking back at my previous Expo experiences and definitely say that it changed my life for the better!

From that very first moment of walking into the Expo back in May 2007, my life became more epic than I could possibly imagine.

It's an event where you can make a lot of new friends, have a lot of fun getting involved in activities, play video games that haven't been released, enter competitions, meet celebrities, and see a lot of people dressing up as characters from movies, games and Manga/comic books. It's no wonder the MCM Expo is the UK's biggest event, and for me, it's my official holiday twice a year.

To introduce myself, I'm known as Tonyo, i've established myself as the person who films the entire Expo, including the Masquerade which is a huge point of the event for me.

I've never been on the stage myself, well not yet anyway.

One day I'll make a costume so epic I'll want to show it off. I think there's more excitement for 2010 with the Masquerade since the new Euro Cosplay Competition is starting.

We have a qualifier in May, and the finals in October.

I'd love to have a go and become the greatest cosplayer in Europe, but I think I'll stick to filming it... for now. ;)

I have been asked a number of times why I go around filming everything and making tons of videos at each event, for one, I enjoy making videos and keeping the history of the events, and it's nice to see on video websites such as YouTube.

I like filming the Masquerade for the people who are on stage and miss out on watching the performances, so I always try and queue early to get that special view of the stage.

My wandering videos of the Expo, inside and outside of the event, that's a nice way of seeing and showing what's going on and what kinds of madness goes on at Expo.

People outside organise things like Lucky Star dances, crazy cosplay raves, cosplay chess, and there's photoshoots going on everywhere dedicated to a certain anime, manga, or sci-fi fantasy series.

Some of the big shoots have been from the Final Fantasy games, Naruto and Bleach, I'd add Death Note but you can just imagine 300 cosplayers standing there as in in front of a camera.. 95% of cosplayers have done L, even I've done it.

I'm happy to say that people have gone to Expo after seeing my videos online. To others that would like to go to Expo, make sure you do, and if you see me, come and say hello!

More than once I've had people message me after the event saying they'd seen me but were too nervous to come and say hi.

I wont bite, I'm just a bloke having fun along with everyone else, only difference with me is, you'll probably end up on YouTube.

So I'm coming up to my 10th Expo.

May 2010 will be my 7th London Expo, and I've attended three Midlands Expos held in Telford.

As always in London, I'll be going down from Friday to Monday, if anyone lives in London, you're lucky. I come from a little town called Worksop which is miles away so have to stay in a hotel.

The last thing I'd like to talk about, and I am making this the last thing because otherwise this first blog of mine will be going on and on, trust me, I can blog for the world.

Yep, the last thing is about actually staying in London over the Expo weekend. I recommend it so highly because quite a lot of people do it and you can make more friends out of Expo and get to know them better.

Expo has its own Saturday night party, but I tend to do my own thing with a few other people at my regular hotel, the Premier Travel Inn (also known as PTI).

My advice is, if you want to stay from Friday to Monday, book your hotel as soon as you know the date of the Expo. I could be shooting myself in the foot with this advice because I don't want to try and book my hotel to find everyone else dived in before me.

So don't book it until I have, Haha.

Going on Friday, you can meet a lot of friends, meet new people, and if you know me, you can always head to Namco Arcade (Waterloo, near the London Eye) and join in the fun there.

I know you'll be shouting "But it costs so much money, I can't stay three nights." I can understand that, but with the Expo being months apart, just do what I do.. Put your spare pounds in a money box and by the time Expo comes around, you'll be surprised to find you have the money for your hotel room.

My last piece of advice, share your hotel room with friends, it cuts major costs for your weekend and you can go to Expo a lot cheaper than if you get a room to yourself. It's brilliant sharing with people too. I've had a room to myself twice which was boring, and since sharing it I've never looked back.

I have a lot of things I still need to prepare in the next 3 weeks before the big weekend. I'll be making my Tonyo Times News video soon revealing if I will cosplay or not.. probably will, I usually do.

Got a nice video coming up soon of a rare Kasumi figure (Dead Or Alive Paradise) which you will only be able to get at London Expo.. Seriously, if you're a Kasumi fan, take some extra cash and get this while you can, it'll be available from the Tecmo Koei stand. Ohhh, I can't wait.

Righto, so that's my first blog for MCM Buzz.

Any questions, you know where to find me. ;) Sayonara.