G Fest XXI (July 11-13 2014)

[Destroysall]

I hope you guys have fun this year. I had a chance to go this year but I'm going to Vancouver for some school work and possible career opportunities. I will be going next year for sure and I can't wait. It should be extremely fun!!!

If any of you guys find the chance and are capable of doing so, do visit the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights. It's such a fantastic store and if you've never tried Ramen the way it is supposed to be done, report to Santouka.. Gosh I miss that place so much. This Marketplace was a second heaven for me next to G-Fest.. You might even run into a few G-Festers there like I did when I went there. I went there every year I went to G-Fest and I loved it every time.

[XvGojira]

[John Schuermann]

Rehearsals start tonight for the Ifukube concert - wish us luck! I've got three suites to conduct, John DeSentis the other eight

[Gojilove]

[Destroysall]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Legion]

[jellydonut25]

[AVERY GUERRA]

Hey guys! If anyone's headed to "G-FEST" which starts tomorrow there's a very special treat that I helped arrange in store for you all. The North American English language premieres of both "ZELLA: MONSTER MARTIAL LAW" and "THE DAY OF THE KAIJU" plus a screening of "THE GOD OF CLAY" all with the filmmakers of each film in attendance!! All are very excellent little kaiju films!

[klen7]

Hope to make it to some of those.

I'm sitting at the airport now, waiting to board...the adventure has begun! ...and whats an adventure without a full body x-ray, standing in line with annoyed strangers and a hotdog wrapped in a pretzel?

[XvGojira]

Getting up early to head over to my folks to car pool down to Chicago.

[MouthForWar]

I'm officially on my way.

Don't be afraid to say hello!

[RapZiLLa54]

My dad and I are officially on our way!

[John Schuermann]

[klen7]

So far I've run into a number of forum members which is really cool... I've also spent way too much for a Friday...but I did succeed in getting one of the thirty GFest exclusive Marmot MH Desugojis, so it was a success. Still have opening ceremony and the Pickwick to look forward to today

::edit::
Tomoko Ai and Katsuhiko Sasaki were terrific at the opening ceremony. Both greeted the audience in English with humor. I had planned to skip Katsuhiko's panel to attend the comics panel but after the opener i think i shuffled things abit.

[klen7]

Avery, do you know when/where the God of Clay showing is?

[AVERY GUERRA]

Not really. Unfortunately, and I am not able to attend the fest this year. However, if I were you I'd hit up Jeff Horne who is in charge of handling the screenings. He'll be able to tell you for sure.

[MouthForWar]

[KaiserGhidorah]

I heard the concert was pretty epic. I'm quite sad I missed this year. If anyone has any pictures to share, I'd appreciate seeing a few. Thanks.

[GiganGoji]

[MouthForWar]

[Cookie]

There's no way I'm missing next year. Sounds like everyone had a good time.

[klen7]

So here's my overall experience for the Con.

I was in the Double Tree this year next door since the Crowne was sold out.. not a terrible choice but i missed the in house Toku channel

Friday i spent 4 hours waiting for the Dealers room, which was an experience in itself, but i missed the Kaiju Gaiden panel which i was curious about. It was worth it but thats a story for a different thread (viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14632&start=3100#p451216)

I did get to the Kaiju Toys (pt 1) panel... the first 1/3 was about Vintage figures, and i would have loved an entire panel dedicated to the topic. The rest of the panel was about Bandai figures.. not having a projection screen was tough luck. For Part 2 i stayed for M1, Marmit and Gigabrain, but bailed on the SHMA and X-Plus portion. Having the projector made a huge difference. As a collector, i think these were both great introductory panels for new collectors.

As MfW mentioned the autographs were a bit of a mess, hopefully they work it out a little better next year.

I like the new artist alley, but i wonder if not being across from the dealers room hurt their traffic.

Hiroshi Sagae is awesome. I would be happy if he came back next year as well.

Shinpei Hayashiya was funny, and it was neat to see the little bit of Gamera 4 footage and the behind the scenes real. (There are two suit actors in the Gamera suit, one operates arms and legs, the other does the head.)

I watched a number of movies (Zella, Day of the Kaiju, Reigo) and was happy to have caught all of them. I missed Jared's movie, but it was at the same time as Master Sagae's panel.

I did hit the concert, and stayed for GvKG (which didnt start until 11:40) and actually stayed awake for 90% of the film. I got a power nap while the orchestra cleaned up

I heard more than one person ask "How are they going to top this next year?" so i think that is a good sign.

It was very cool to meet up with people from the boards. Maybe next year we can do that meet up we keep talking about.

This was definitely a great year.

[Simon]

Had a ticket to the Ifukube concert - couldn't make it, and THAT was the real bummer of a otherwise ridiculously fun weekend. Hearing how much it rocked makes the sting worsen. Ouch.

Kawakita and Ai seemed to have a BLAST at the convention, so that was nice to see. It's always a pleasure to have the guests actually getting into the festivities. Although, anyone else notice Kawakita nearly fall asleep a half dozen times during the Costume Parade Saturday night? That was slightly amusing. And that POWER RANGERS-inspired proposal was a memory for the ages. Well done, that.

[XvGojira]

G-Fest was a blast!

The most disappointing thing was the Mothra vs Godzilla panel. most of it was talking about some one, I'm terrible at remembering names (foreign ones exceedingly so), who did a lot of Godzilla sculpts and the 64 design was his favorite. It was neat but didn't really pertain to the movie itself. After that it was a Q&A where nothing of much interest popped up. I had a better time stand next to a fellow /r/godzilla member and talking to Ed Godziszewski about a novel tie in or something to the Mothra movie.

The concert was euphoric. Hearing the themes live was a great experience and would definitely toss money at another campaign for another if needed.

As much G '14 stuff there was, I was still surprised the lack of some of some items. Like the throw blankets that are on the Warner Bros site, underwear, travel mug. It was mostly the Bandai stuff, the hero-click sized mystery mini-figs, buttons, pens. Also a lack of variety of MonsterArts (overly expensive Biollantes that still stupidly sold, Destroyahs, and one G2000 that apparently sold Friday then sold back the next day) I heard tale there was a G '64 but was bought in the first hour. Still got a nice haul.

Got a photo with Don Fry after the costume contest. He smelled a little boozy.

Great conversation with artists, redditors, MZers, and fellow G-fans. Now I have a whole year to think of what interesting and fun commission I should give to Matt Frank.