Conventions

Day 0 at the second edition of C2E2 found retailers confabbing, and early arrivals checking out the new location for the show. Following last year's...

Over at MediumAtLarge.net, the official ReedPop blog, pictures of comics invading the Valhallan halls of McCormick Place in Chicago are already circulating. There's lots of news and notes about the show on recent blog posts, but for the socially inclined, there's news of a special C2E2 brew!

WOW, The Beat is so far behind in everything. If you've emailed or called or anything we apologize for being in radio silence. There is just not enough time in the day. But even so, we'll be headed to C2E2 tomorrow, first for the Diamond retail event and then the regular show. Good times! We'll have a who's where later -- please send links and party poop. BTW, were the editors of TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED obsessed with the color green? That WAS unexpected.

Tonight at the Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center there is a SXSW Interactive evening event called Plutopia: The Future of Play that anyone can attend. Many speakers will focus on the converging technologies of the science field with arts and entertainment via film, demonstrations, performance art.

Dawn broke over the town and I slept the hell right through it. The panels of SXSW Interactive did not start until the afternoon and like a true ol' fogey, I spent the morning walk to the Austin Convention Center complaining about the businesses that had closed and what had been thrown up its place. Kerbey Lane with local art on the walls and pancakes of the day made the list of places to eat because the queso is an optional side like ketchup or chipotle mayo (I guess that one is rather new too).

Here's the guide for the West Building. The floorplan menu is located at the upper right of the screen, and allows access to floorplans for each level of the building. West Level 3 is where most of the action will be found! According to C2E2's own website, the Con will be held in Hall F1. I suspect that the IGN Theater will be placed in the Skyline Ballroom.

. The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, also known as C2E2, is set to begin next weekend!  If you'll be attending, here are some helpful...

Austin's South By South West has long been hailed THE place to play your new Renaissance-powered noise band or screen your documentary on the failings of mankind. As a former Austinite myself, I know the activity of the town pulses as if the city itself is running a marathon. The University of Texas students are off on Spring Break allowing for a different sort of tourist to take their spaces at the taco carts, oddly-named bars (hello, Mooseknuckle) and marvel at the bats of Congress Bridge.

Well this time it took about 5 hours. About the same as the passes. Since noon, people have been reserving hotels for this year's San Diego Comic-Con. While the process itself was painless -- a quick entry to a website where the diligent who had planned their hotel picks could easily choose up to 20 and get out -- the waiting game has begun. Or as Crazy4ComicCon aptly put it on Twitter: "nerd rage has given way to nerd angst."

This morning's San Diego Comic-Con hotel registration process was, as opposed to past days, a quick 3 minute exercise during which I did not hit refresh even once. As you may recall, in the olden days, servers were usually swamped, resulting in endless refreshing, endless waiting, endless website crashes, endless agony. The upside was that you knew within an hour if you had your hotel.

This weekend's Emerald City Comicon seems to have been a raging success, if only from the amount of "highly refreshed" tweets we saw all weekend. The Seattle Times has a preview which notes that some 25,000 people were expected. Based on the number of pictures like this one from @alisonst showing packed crowds, it would seem that the first year going from a two- to a three-day show was a raging success.

The excitement has already begun at the Emerald City Comicon, but in case you need more info, here you go.

This is the first time the show has run three days, but it has definitely joined HeroesCon, Baltimore Comics Con, WonderCon, and a few others as one of the premier "regional" shows of the year. If things were different we'd be there slurping oysters right this minute, but hopefully next year.

Here's an interview with showrunner Jim Demonakos, and a guide to the show with ALL the info you need.