20th August 2011... it's the first day of STGCC 2011... initially, me and my friends were planning to go there by 8am, but then someone told my friend that the queue to enter STGCC were already quite long at 8am, mind you, the event start at 10am but people have already come at 7am! If you're wondering why people are already queueing up three hours before the door opened, it is because most of them are trying to get one of Hot Toys 1,500 limited edition figurines of Predator, Batman Begins and Iron Man 2, it's like a treasure to toy collector and can also act like an investment as the limited edition figurines price tend to increase by 3 - 5 times from the original price!
Anyway, for me and my friends, the long queue won't be a problem to us since we are the VIP Ticket holder of STGCC, which mean we can cut the line as we have our very own special line just for the VIP holder... eheh... so we just took our sweet time and didn't bother to rush ourselves to go there...
We reached Suntec at almost 9am, we were kinda surprised to see the outer part of Suntec look kinda quiet, coz I had the imagination that the crowd will be something like Comiket where there are tonnes of people making their way to the convention hall... but when we reached to the 3rd floor, that is where the crowds are, I can say that more than 1000 people are in the line to grab the limited edition figurines, while 1000 or more people are queueing up for the regular entrance... but I feel like there is something missing here... where are the cosplayers? Upon arrival at Suntec, I only saw around 3 or 4 cosplayers, being one of the reason of me going to STGCC was to see the cosplayers, it was kinda disappointing not to see many of them around... but don't worry, as it turn out, most of them came after 12... so I guess the cosplayers aren't the early bird type there... eheh...
Bearing that into mind, as my priority of going to the STGCC is to see the cosplayers, so I didn't do much covering for the toys, comics & games, furthermore, I didn't know what to expect there as this is my first time attending an international convention, so sorry if my pictures show lots of cosplayers instead of the rest (which i will post in the near future... will post only a few here)... but after experiencing my 1st STGCC, if I got another chance to attend next year, hopefully I can do a more fair coverage of it... :)
Anyway, I think I talk too much now and some of you might be wondering what STGCC is? For your info, STGCC mean Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention. It showcased the world of comics, anime, manga, toys, collectibles and games. Not only that, it is also the place where you can try to present your work to C.B. Cebulski, chief scout of Marvel. Last year, Singapore artist, Benjamin Ang, sent his portfolio last year at STGCC, and he got hired by Marvel! How cool is that? And last year, STGCC managed to attracted over 28000 crowds, with this year STGCC being bigger than last year, pretty sure the attendance will rise this year...
the side wall of the ticketing booth
authentic movie poster for sale
Kipi spotted at the Graffiti Wall...
some off the cosplayers in the hall
On stage panel event with Kipi & COSMODE's Jacky Dosai for a talk on cosplay
I've been in the hall from 10am til around 3pm, while there were quite a numbers of cosplayers I see inside the hall, the number of cosplayers that I expected to see is well below my expectation... so at 3+, I decided to have a look outside the hall and escape from the crowds inside the hall... and to my surprise, outside the hall is where most of the cosplayers are! And it was even more crowded than inside the hall!
And where there is lots of cosplayers, there are bound to be lots of photographers too... so this is where the wits, instinct & skills of a photographer comes into play to get a good shots of the cosplayers within the 20 - 50 photographers who are also trying to get photos of the cosplayers... But one thing I do notice is the etiquette of the photographers there, despite of them rushing to get shots of the cosplayers, they don't do any pushing of shoving and they will try to avoid blocking other photographers view (except for a view people that I saw that was taking pictures of an upskirt shot of the cosplayers)...
Anyway, due to the crowds and the many cosplayers there, I didn't manage to take pictures of all of the cosplayers there... I can say there were more than 500 cosplayers wondering inside & outside the hall... as I only have about 2 hours left before ZANEEDS performance to start, I have to rush to get as many shots as I can, but I think I only managed to get half of the cosplayers there... :s
Kipi took some of her free time to wonder around the hall too... and despite being so famous among the cosplaying world, she is very shy and a down-to-earth type person and sporting too...
ZANEEDS performance where Kipi joined dancing too...
Unfortunately, I didn't stay until the end of ZANEEDS performance (had I knew they were gonna play Nyan Nyan song at the end, I might had stay til the end... huhuhu) and didn't take many photos & videos of them too (heavy camera + heavy lens with no tripod is really torturing my arms)... and so that wraps up my first day at STGCC 2011... having to spend more than 10 hours at Suntec standing, walking, carrying two camera is really not good for my feet & back... even today I'm still feeling tired despite sleeping for almost 12 hours last night... huhuhu...
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