PAX sheep

Let's not forget the added benefit of LineCon: After spending hours upon hours in line, you try to get the best seat (or square foot for standing) possible.

You pray that you won't be surrounded by people taller/wider/ruder than yourself.

You manage to get a spot that almost lets you -- if you hold your head JUST right -- see about 1/3 of the stage, and perhaps glimpse the speaker/panel/performers.



...only to have that view destroyed by the inconsiderate video crews who decided to say "Screw the audience, we're the MEDIA!" and take up residence on the stage or just in front of it, standing there as though they were the only people in the room, completely oblivious to the fact that they were blocking an entire section of the audience from actually seeing what was going on.

I'm looking at you, video stringers at the concerts. And you, annoying semi-pros who stood like statues just to the side of Wil Wheaton.


The pro photographers weren't a problem, because they really WERE professional photographers: killing themselves to get the best shot possible, while remaining as unobtrusive and invisible as possible.

Many of the gits with video rigs need to have a lesson beaten into them, preferably with the sharp, expensive bits of their own equipment: YOU DO NOT BLOCK THE AUDIENCE TO GET YOUR SHOTS.

All hail LineCon 2009, where 60,000 sheep will sit in The Line Room for hours on end! First, to obtain concert wristbands.

Then, to obtain wristbands for each talk (after The Line Room has been cleared, of course. Can't have malingerers hanging around and scoring a good spot in The Line).

Finally, after another Room-clearing, to attend the actual events they already had to wait in Line to get wristbands for.

But all is not lost! For those of you not carted out on stretchers due to lack of food, medication, ventilation, or what-have-you (and I saw at least one this weekend!), you'll be "entertained" by The World's Worst Band: The Freezepops, whose popularity can only be explained by the throngs of fans who didn't actually live through the 1980s, and are thus woefully ill-equipped to recognize the worst of that decade when it's performing in front of them. (for values of "performing" that include "widdling petulantly on the carpet of one's soul".)


Me? Bitter? No, why do you ask?