Cons weapons and helmets and masks Oh My!

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peterthethinker

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Well I got some sad news from some other members today.. It looks like ECCC is playing dumb.Or they have a VERY bad writer .

They want only foam and cardboard props.
Prop weapons will be allowed providing they are composed of foam or cardboard only. Prop firearms are allowed only if they cannot be mistaken for real weapons. The barrel of all prop weapons must be covered with brightly-colored caps. Prop bows will be allowed providing they have soft tips.



There goes every projectile gun in the UNSC..

Now I am not a lawyer and not a english major, ( the latter is painfully obvious )
I may read this a few ways

Weapons must be foam or cardboard . foam in the eyes of a engeneer and not a con staff are WAY diff things....


If they want to be proper Mech eng nerd about it then rating the item on a durometer scale in hardness is the Real way to fairly judge a prop.... LIke they care.

Firearms are addresed in its own section. shurely they dont expect every stormtroooper to carry a FOAM or worse a cardboard brown blaster!


Metal is out. fine . fair. but plastic is what we all use.

Technicly Pep is out Or is it? it IS cardboard and LOADS of resin;) ...

I consider firearms to be weapons . So is it a AND function or an OR function ?

Does "prop weapons " cover only non firearms ?
If so then its a WHOLE lot better then it sounds.
Or do they consider the firearms to be Under prop weapons.




Prop firearms are allowed only if they cannot be mistaken for real weapons.

Like THAT is definable....

AS you can see the person who wrote the weapons document might have FAR better grammer then Ill ever have. But has a VERY poor understanding on how to clearly define things.

I On the other hand enjoy tech writing ..


* Weapons policy
* Non Firearms besides bows. Must be made of cardboard or a soft foam. Eg EVA as to prevent blunt trama.
* Firearms .Must be inert and the end of the barrle must have a Orange or Red tip visible from the front and the sides
as to madke said firearm easy to discern as a prop at a distatance of 10 feet (
Unless at the discresion of staff, barrel must be plugged.
* Bows and arrows must have a soft tip and no arrow unless its soft EVA craft foam or the like.








First and formost I am gonna vent a tad here and I want to make it clear I am NOT speaking on behalf of the 405th .
THese are my own personal thoughts and I want to just put on the table how I feel about this nutty con stuff as some one who staffs cons .
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Conventions are there to make money. they feed on People buying tix and buying swag from vendors.

We pay to go to a con and have our meetups and take pics and frankly Look Really REALLY cool!

We go there under some guidelines. Some the cons we go to are not really geard to our hardcore costumes.
Lets face it . Some one dressed as superman with no mask or guns is a * easy * cosplay to have at any con.

Us with our full on space rated armor and big gun toys dont bode well with some cons ...

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Some heavy reading >>>>>>

I worked for NewCon PDX a year ago as a staff photog.
and at Kumo for 2 years ... Only this year did I not staff kumo and NewCon as Its hard to be a photog in armor.

This year I planned to go to NewCon as a elite and also in my normal MC suit. I ended up scraping that.

A fellow member here told me a few weeks prior to newcon this Year of there problems the year before with staff at NewCon not in the loop with masks ect.

Ill be VERY clear. I doubt its the con directors who conjure up ways to make OUR cosplay hard to wear to there cons.
I know the con chair at NewCon. He is a reasonble person to deal with..

More likely Its the Hotel or venue that does not really care one pip about some dinky nerd con in a busy year of dozens of events

The hotel staff at NewCon was afraid of masks near the check in, It was after some nasty news stuff . fair enough .
there is money being excanged was the excuse..

The Hotel did not have there signs up till the last day where masks were not permitted ..
I saw people being yelled at and there was NO signs.One person is a friend of mine and a fellow 405th member.
I have some contacts with the con and I broght up the issue to the upper con staff and that night they had a meeting and I come to find out they were just as shocked as I was.

They said it was the hotels staff job to make the signs .
So we have hotel staff buzzkilling the joy of attendees and the Hotel staff is to blame.

NewCon Is ,Well, "new ish " in it's 5th year so its gonna have teething problems and its not doing bad .

Once the kinks were fixed it was a good con.... they are small and numble enough to fix things as they go.


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Wizard world was not as nutty with masks and guns.
For the 405th it was OK once a few thngs are fixed.

Granted the wrist band are really stupid.
I feel bad for any one in a spidy suit ect.
If I ran that con then I would offer a RFID wrist band for 10 bucks more.
If you sunk a few hundred in to a really good spidy suit Or any other costume It would be worth it to get a "enhanced" badge.
There was only ONE point of entry for the entire con so One Minder with a chip reader would be easy to implement.

An NFC enabled phone can read some RFID tags..
BAM now you have pleased every one! . How cool is that ! .
Oh and the Very least they can tell ON their site they dont have neck hung badges but tyvek wrist bands. Ahead of people buying the tix.


_



OH let me tell ya about EuCon. Its there first year so its gonn have problems...
It was right after the paris atacks. So they had the PD there and were also doing weapons checks.

accrording to what I learned they never thought of a pice bond station . LIke I sad ,Problems

I made my 80% scale sniper 2 days prior to the paris attack and was allreaddy down in eugene so I had no other primary UNSC props to tote. I made that gun for the con.

I make new props for every con I go to Keep it fresh !

OK so I am in line to pick up my badge day one.
I have my magnum on my side and my sniper in hand.

I rather polite officer asks to see my props "Ok Sir here you go. "
I handed him the sniper first barrel to the ground and butt to him.
He drops the butt to the ground and leans OVER THE MUZZLE and peeks down it . * facepalm *

The flash suppresor is a 3D printed part so there is No hole for the round " Oh thats not a problem its fake " he said

Then I handed him my magnum " Oh thats also fake "
I am SO glad I had my helmet on . I darn near lost it ..

Smooth con none of the less. but I was really happy the same officers were not there the next day.

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OK so enough fireplace storys of cons gone nutty.

What was the point of all of this.



Perhaps We as the 405th ...via regiment staff ect need to contact cons WAY in advance and get in writng some of this worked out. That is IF it can be ..

So our members can attend cons that We know are not going to be a uphill battle.

We perpahs should rate the cons we work with so We can choose to encurage members to attend places that enjoy our members. Avoid the ones who make life difficult.


in simple terms We need to whitelist 405th friendly cons and try our best to go to them.
I suspect we allreaddy kinda do in a way but we need to thank the good cons and poke and prod the bad ones and make it clear that its a 2 way street .

In my case had I known that ECCC was gonna be all nutty with there weapons policy then I would have not bought tix ot planned to go and blow my money at a con that wants to fight me all the way.

OTOH cons like the retro gamer expo and also Ill be fair WWCC were much more in line with our hardocre cosplay.
Besides a inept officer . EuCon was also OK on my list...

While this was more of my personal vent and I did focus on lots of negitive things.

I DO want to know what cons do YOU like . Not just in Oregon area but anywhere!



Peter..
 
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