Ive been wanting to go to Fundays for a few years now, but I just can't justify the price. Is the price worth it for the merc given? And is it as crazy as some say where people are shoving each other when the throw out Pops randomly?
Fundays 2016 had no shoving, it was very well organized. I heard the horror stories from Fundays 2015, and funko changed the way they gave out prizes.
Since im a collector of anything funko, the price is totally worth it. 2016 the price of a ticket was $127, and i think $80-85 for 2015. So i wouldn't be surprised if this years fundays was around $150. Which to me is totally worth it in my opinion. Everybody gets a box of fun, which comes with 3 random freddy funkos, in which each one is worth at least $100 and higher, depending which freddy funko you get.
here is a pic of all the stuff i ended up getting. 3 of the freddy funkos are from the box of fun, the rest my table won from spinning the big wheel for random prizes.
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I was bummed I never found the time to do the Netflix Experience, because I so wanted to see the Stranger Things living room. But not counting one-off parties/evening events, I did the Tick Amazon Lounge, Conan, Westworld, Blade Runner and unsuccessfully tried to solve the Mr. Robot puzzle. I'll offer my thoughts on Westworld and Blade Runner:
- Westworld. I've never lined up overnight/super early for Hall H or Everything Else, but after reading about how quickly Thursday's line reached capacity, I knew I had to take an extreme measure (at least by my standards) for once. It helped that this was going to be its own separate line and that it was indoors, unlike say, the GoT experience. It also helped that I knew the signups would be finished fairly quickly so I would still have basically the entire Friday to go do the con. 95% of the time I spent in line, nothing else was going on.
So I went back to the place I was staying at ~15 min from downtown after my Thursday festivities winded down around midnight, showered, regathered my thoughts and belongings, grabbed a pillow, and took an Uber back down to the Hilton Bayfront and joined the line at 1:45am.
Unfortunately and understandably, the Hilton didn't like people sleeping in the lobby, so the overnight security guards would come by once in a while to jostle people awake if they were trying to sneak in some shut eye. Thankfully, I've become interested in golf lately (don't @ me) and I was able to pass the time by watching the Open Championship taking place in England, as well as making new line buddies as I had come solo to lineup. Not going to lie, I was a little disappointed we didn't catch any people of note stumbling through the lobby at 3am. Oh well.
When I first arrived, I counted maybe 35-40 people physically in front of me. Knowing there were some spots being saved, I definitely grew weary as I saw people gradually join in line in front of me and I began getting a little anxious about my chances. Thankfully, they decided to wristband people around 5am and I secured a coveted spot (I heard they wristbanded 75 people, I was around #60). At that point, it was pretty much impossible to get sleep with the lobby getting louder and the piano starting to play. I snagged my 4:30pm appointment and was able to go do other things before heading to the offsite (I guess we can pretend the location is still secret, but it was a solid 15-20 minute walk from the heart of the Gaslamp).
EDIT: Decided to spoiler tag my summary just in case anyone reading this in the future doesn't want it ruined for them.
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We then watched a promo clip with a host who malfunctioned - she stared at me directly for about 5 seconds at one point and it was harrowing - but when she reset, she happily took us into the saloon where we imbibed in some delicious cocktails and banter with the staff before exiting back into the lobby and returning to a life with limits.
I'm a little disappointed I didn't capture more photos during the experience - a photo with the saloon staff would have been sweet - but that's because the experience sucked me in so much that I would have felt really weird abruptly taking out my phone and ruining the ambience. It was so good that you didn't want to interrupt the moment. The assessment got super real super fast and the last thing I was thinking about was sticking a camera in her face.
I wish I had waited around a little after my appointment had ended, because I would have been able to see some of the Westworld cast drop by! I felt really fortunate to have been one of the few to get to experience this offsite. I think they could have accommodated more people, but I also totally understand why they kept it so limited, because the direct participation and interaction between attendees and the hosts is critical to making the experience and immersion work. The one-on-one "concierge analytics" part is definitely going to stick with me a while, and that's something they can only pull off by putting a limit on the number of people each day.[/spoiler]
I'd really love it if it actually becomes a "roadshow" as the season 2 hype picks up full steam. Based on the e-mail (https://twitter.com/zar_eena/status/889496966958379008) they sent out a few days ago, this seems to be the case. I'm guessing it's going to be attached mostly to future conventions and pop culture gatherings, but if HBO wants to bring it as a standalone attraction to my neck of the woods, I am down to do it again and again. Can't wait to see what they'll do next year!
- Blade Runner. Wow, I wrote quite the essay on Westworld, so I'll try to keep this brief. Did this Saturday late afternoon. Chose not to do the VR line and waited about an hour in the non-VR line. If I have the timing correct, I got in line when they temporarily shut down the experience so that Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling could do a walkthrough of it, so when they left, the line moved pretty briskly. I was in awe of what a full-scale recreation they managed to make in a parking lot. It definitely blew away my expectations, and I loved that it was an open-ended setting where you could bounce back and forth between the different areas without being rushed. I shamelessly had at least 5-6 helpings of the noodles which served as an early dinner, and the Johnnie Walker samples I shared with some fellow replicants was a good omen to the rest of the night.
Offsites were A+++++ this year. Not sure if it's because of D23 compounding my Con fatigue, but I spent far less time/had less patience for the exhibit hall and sitting for extended stretches in panel rooms than ever before. The fact that the offsites were of such high quality made it easy. If companies continue to step up their offsite game in 2018, I'm going to lose very little sleep if I miss out on a day or two in the badge sale. Heck, I might even want to just buy 2 or 3 days even if all four + PN are available. Last year was sort of a breaking point, as there were multiple occasions in which I felt I was inside the Convention Center because I felt like I should due to my badge, and not necessarily because I wanted to. My biggest regret in past years always seems to be "I wish I did more offsites," so this year was definitely a conscious effort to change that.