Yukicon 18-19/1/2014, Espoon Kulttuurikeskus

Today I'd like to finally talk about Yukicon I went to this January and.. Oh my..

Let's start with the first day and the POSITIVE things. Rousuke and I went to my sister's place in Espoo on Friday (17th of January). There wasn't much time to stay awake, but we managed to play a few games and eat but right after that it was time to bed. In the morning we took our time to do the makeup and (somewhat) hairdo (Rousuke used wigs on both days, so she didn't have that much of a struggle with her hair xD). My sister had already left to work before we even woke up, so we had to manage our ways to the con by ourselves. Thank goodness we checked the bus we had to take in order to get there the day before, so there really wasn't any worries (I just checked it was the correct bus over and over again, though).

So, we made it there and it was quite early too, but since neither of us was interested in seeing the 'grand' opening, we arrived about an hour 'late'. But as we all know, you can come and go whenever you like, as always. Pointless point of me.

Yukicon's guest of honor was Laeppavika (a Finnish gaming group on YouTube), because the con was mostly game-themed. But to be honest with myself, I wasn't that interested in them. The shows I went to watch on Saturday were a concert with wind instruments, Final Fantasy Fight, and AMV competition. All these three were entertaining and fun to watch, but now we can get into the NEGATIVE things I've got to say about this convention.

The first thing we noticed, when we arrived at the convention, was a couple of organizers were on the floor wrestling with each other. To say the least, to me this seemed irresponsible of them and made me think "this convention seems to be held by children".

At the wind instrument concert on the other hand I couldn't believe my eyes or the bad manners of the audience: about half of the crowd had their smart phones in their hands and didn't pay attention to the music. From you I wish to ask: why do you line for a ticket to hear the music and then blow it for yourselves? The musicians were convicted to play music for you and you pay them back by not listening? To me, this is the same as going to movie theater and then sit there with smart phone suns. I'm not saying it's impossible to concentrate on two different things at the same time, but in this case, I doubt it.

Espoon kulttuurikeskus is so gaaaaaaaay XD

Final Fantasy Fight was awesome on the organizers' part, but some of the fighters weren't that entertaining and the mood was lowered almost by every single fight. It was quite sad to witness the lack of imagination. Hopefully FF Fight won't stop here though.

The final show I went to see was the AMV competition. And.. oh my, the horror we had to witness. Though, this is only my opinion, I think many of the people can agree, that the playback wasn't good for loud action AMVs. They almost made me insane and afraid that the speakers would blow up at any time. The winner videos were great and I'm glad they won. But just to let you know, there was waaaaaaaay too many Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) AMVs! By the half way through the entire show, I could hear so much sighing every time a title of a video showed it was going to be another SnK video.

After the first day, we headed back to my sister's place with Rousuke.

Her jewelry was so cute >u<

The next day we had our stall at the Art Alley, so we went there a little bit early in order to get the best spot. Yes; the stalls had no numbers and people could choose whichever stall they wanted to sell at. I'm surprised that the person responsible for art alley even was there on time, because we had to send her emails over and over before the actual event, because she hadn't sent the info early enough. What I'm saying is, that she didn't seem to care at all.

We spent the whole day at the art alley with Rousuke, TRYING to sell as much as possible. She was able to sell some of her jewelry, but the day still was poor. Customers had spent all their money already on Saturday. And wouldn't you know, I didn't sell even one hat (okay I sold one, but it was pre-ordered by a friend of a friend).

And I guess Rousuke's products took most of the attention anyways. Just look how pretty and cute they are! And next to them was my lousy creations in a tight pack:

dun dun duuuuuun

Like I said: nothing was bought from me. Fortunately, I put all the hats on sale in a local Facebook flea market and via that I sold most of my hats, but I've still got a couple left. I think I should stick with selling paintings, at least that went a lot better than this. *in tears*

After a long day with no sells, we headed back to Helsinki to catch our train back to Vaasa. Luckily, when we arrived to Helsinki, we had more than an hour to spend before the train would depart. So, we made a stop at a nearest McDonald's. Yeah, very original. But it lifted my spirit a little bit, because with Happy Meal I was able to get a Mario mushroom as a toy. It even makes the sound it makes in the video games, when it reveals itself from a brick! I still have it on my desk, that little cutie :3

A little bit depressed, we took our train and headed home.

I should also mention, that before the event even was around the corner, I got an honorable mention from Yukicon's art competition with this lousy piece of "art":

And the prize for all honorable mentions was a Yukicon's poster. Guess what; I never got mine. I posted my contact information with the artwork in the very first email and when they contacted with a congratulations, they asked my info again.. I sent them another email with the info but still I never got my so called prize. Oh well, after what we went through during this convention, I don't think I would want a Yukicon's poster at all.

So, all in all, this convention for me was a disaster. We'll see will I attend the next one.

Also, pardon me; this post is over 3 months late, but you'll probably understand very well why.

But you guys have a good one! See ya next time~

Bye.

Plans on Yukicon! o(>u<)O

Ye-hes! I bet you didn't see this coming, that I would write another entry without hell of a time gap. The thing is, I've got some news for you (for Finnish readers mostly, maybe)~

Since Desucon turned out to be a little to expensive that even my wallet would've cried out loud "what the hell, woman!?" if I used my money on that, my first convention of the year of 2014 will be instead Yukicon. It will be held next January, from 18th to 19th at Espoon Kulttuurikeskus. And on Sunday (19th), my friend Marika and I are going to be there selling handmade accessories. Marika sells pastel-gothic-styled jewelry and possibly customized iPhone 4, 4s and 5 cases.

On my end of the table you will find..

GJN EXCLUSIVE - handmade cat eared -hats and only one handbag! Every single hat and the bag is made by me - with love of course~

There are many colors to pick from and also shorter versions without the pon pons available! The prices are as follows:

Hopefully these will sell. It would be a shame if all this work would be thrown to waste.

So, if you are visiting Yukicon, please check out our table on Sunday at the Art Alley! You won't be disappointed!

That should be it. Have a great one!

~GJN

the GazettE @ The Circus, Helsinki 2013/09/29

GJN/ラウラ here (whatever you wanna call me)!
I bet you guys were all like "wheeeeeeeen is she gonna write a new entryyyyyyy??", since I haven't written anything for over a month, right? I've been busy with my studying here in Vaasa and there will be a different entry about that. Just thought it would be nice to give you some reason for my silence.

Of course this is late as fuck. I don't deny that. Yet, I do think that if I wrote this during the aftermath of the actual event, it wouldn't have been that good of an entry, full of typos and grammar mistakes because of all the hype. So by that, I justify my slowness. My apologizes.

And now, boys and girls, here it finally is: my blog entry about the GazettE's concert in Finland.

Let's start off with the hype we all experienced when the band made an announcement there will be a world tour. Oh BOY, it was simply unbelievable to let that info sink in: after 6 long years of waiting, the GazettE was finally going to return to Finland's shore and the city of Helsinki. Even more unbelievable was the fact that the tickets were going to be sold half a year before the actual event. And, as usual, I was stalking the tickets non-stop - day and night. When the morning came, I was sitting in front of a computer I usually use during the situations like this, at the school I was studying at when I still lived in Savonlinna. Clock hit 8 a.m. and I was in the online line for tickets. One more hour frustration and fright. Finally, at 9 o'clock, it took me less than half a minute to make full purchase of my VIP ticket. I ran to the class I was supposed to be attending and cheered to my classmate "I FUCKING GOT IT!"

The rest of those 6 months is just history of hyping and deciding what to wear. Though, there's no point trying to look good during the show, because all the effort will be thrown away along with sweat, my brain still tells me to "look swagalisious in the line". Fuck you, brain.

And finally, it arrived; the day when I lost my gazetto-live-virginity. And oh joy, it was totally worth the money, even though all VIP and FC members didn't get the gift. All we got was VIP and FC laminates and (sorry to say) a garbage bag looking bag which we could have bought from the goods table with 3€ anyway. Not really a FC or VIP gift.

I was at the Circus at 6 am and noticed there was already about 6 people before me, even though jrocksuomi had forbidden it (yeah, I was breaking the rules too XD). The line was made at 8 am and by then there was couple hundred people already. It was such a hassle, because there was the regular line and VIP line, which included 3 sections of different 'levels'. In the head of the line was us with VIP tickets and fan club membership, then the fans with only VIP ticket and the last section was for the fans with regular ticket but with fan club membership. In short: VIP+FC>VIP>FC+REGULAR.
And in the top of that, jrocksuomi kept their rule of randomized lining numbers, which I really don't agree with. You may call me selfish, but why doesn't the rule of the jungle go here? Fast ones eat the slow ones; that's how I was taught as a kid, and find it hard to sympathize with people who cry "but we come from far away! We should have the chance to get in front too!" Tough luck then, you little shits. The concert was on Sunday and you all probably traveled to Helsinki already on Friday. If you really want to get to the front, you need to be there really early, or are you suggesting that you come in line half an hour before the doors open and think people would let you go by pass the mass in the stage hall? It might be good for you, but isn't fair for the rest of the people.

So, I got the number 19 and the girls behind me number 1. But still I got quite in the head of the line, since the VIP+FC section didn't even have that much people. In reality before me there was about 10 or 12 people.
And what are the odds of that the friend of mine I only see at concerts gets right behind me? It's just like we're linked somehow! I met couple of old and new friends at the line. In their company time fled by fast.

While still in line the gazetto staff was filming and interviewing people who had made gifts for the band and asking where did we hear about the GazettE and how long we've been listening to their music. If (un)lucky, my interview might show up on the world tour DVD. Whopsiee..

After the hassle in the line up we finally got in. I only purchased the hoodie and went right after to the audience. I made it to the second row and was quite happy with my spot. Good that I use shock hair colors so it's easy to spot this head :DD

There we stood and waited for one of the biggest names to show their face and let us hear their music.


And my second question of the day is: what are the odds that every god damn concert I go to, there's always a foreign girl who doesn't care and makes me to carry her arms on my shoulders? Because of the weight she made on my shoulders, I ended up hitting someone's face in front of me with my elbow multiple times. If she reads this; I'm terribly sorry for that!
The girl behind me also tried to get in front of us with her hips. I don't know was this only stupidity or was she actually trying to hold her ground. Either way, I couldn't possibly make any room for her in any direction and as a result we were squeezed against the row in front of us and people next to us. I kept trying to push the mass back since I was holding from the security fence, but oooh no, people just can't believe that no matter how they push, they are not gonna touch any of the artists. The girl behind me appeared to be Russian and luckily my friend near us is half Russian so I asked her to communicate with her, but the girl just ignored her. So there, you didn't give good impression of yourself at all.

Apart from that, the audience was really good behaving! What my friend told about her experience in the balcony(?), she didn't see any cameras on audience. Impressive guys! I'm proud of you!
It might have been something do with the announcement before the show JrockSuomi made, because everyone heard it and wasn't just a tiny side info on a website which nobody knows about.

When the concert finally started I immediately was disappointed with the mixing: Ruki's singing couldn't be heard that good in the front and was quite muffled. This is why I'm seriously considering to go back or to the balcony next time.
But despite all of that, I enjoyed the live with my full heart. I experienced the emotions the songs should deliver and could even see images in my mind. The lights were gorgeous and dimmed at the right moments. Funny add was the word "HOMME" on Ruki's back.

During some songs Uruha seemed to worry about some short fans in the front rows, but this is just my assumption. Maybe he had a headache or something and that's why he had that worried look on his face.

The show was over fast and we had one encore after long time of repeatedly shouted "encore!" pleas. At first the fans couldn't keep themselves in sync and when they finally were able to do it, our voices started to fade. So, we started to bang the edge of the balcony and stomp our feet to the floor to make a perfect sync and more sound. We were together in this. Finally the GazettE returned and we got a thumb up :DD (that sounded wrong)

The setlist

[XI]

VORTEX

LEECH

Before I Decay

Gabriel on the Gallows

VENOMOUS SPIDER'S WEB

THE SUICIDE CIRCUS

DRIPPING INSANITY

UNTITLED

DERANGEMENT

HEADACHE MAN

SLUDGY CULT

COCKROACH

Filth in the Beauty

Encore

SHIVER

RUDER

LINDA~candydive pinky heaven~

After the encore we tried to have another one, but the staff was already packing away the instruments and lights were lit. the GazettE left us with Guns'n'Roses' "Knocking on Heaven's Door". I sang along with couple of my friends while the audience started to fade out and have drinks.

I was pleased. My virginity wasn't given away for nothing. Thank you the GazettE. You reached out to my soul.

When most of the audience was headed out, we sat with my friends a little bit and then a member of the staff came to us selling the little towels with lower price. Of course I bought one, since I had the right amount in my pocket.

And here they are, my small purchases.

And the butt ass expensive hoodie

So there you have it. after long wait you finally got to know my thoughts on this concert. I hope you enjoyed XD

And a little extra side note here: mail finally brought me the membership card of HERESY. We'll see if I get anything from this membership.

In more news, MIYAVI and An Cafe are heading to Finland next March, so I'll be at those concerts too (I hope). See you guys there!

Bye~