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TalonMan's Epic E3 Journey: From Patty Melts to Booth Babes - P3

TalonMan's Epic E3 Journey: From Patty Melts to Booth Babes - P3 - Article

by Pat Fass , posted on 21 June 2010 / 2,185 Views

Introduction

In the articles that follow, I will be bringing you along my fantastic adventure through Downtown LA - from the pre-flight jitters to the mess my final leg of the journey became, I will detail every exciting moment of this trip. I will outline what the E3 experience delivered for me - while giving you a glimpse into what it was like to meet some of the 'anonymous' personas of VGChartz that up till this weekend, I had only known through IM's and avatar pictures.

So, take a break from the bombardment of E3 media for a few minutes - sit back and enjoy the ride, as we hit the ground running and explore my very first E3 journey...

Part 1          Part 2          Part 3          Part 4          Part 5          Part 6

 

Monday - June 14th, 2010
Pre-E3:  Who Would Have Ever Imagined a VGChartz Sponsored Party?

9:30am - First day I've slept in a bit, although now my back is starting to fill me in as to why sleeping on the floor isn't a great idea. I'm damn near crippled. Jacob rolls out of bed and I shoot him a death dagger, but I'm over it quickly. Brett and Dean are off to go cover the MS conference, I decide to head over to Yolanda Aguilar Spa and see if I can get an appointment to have my back straightened out. If you've never been for a massage, you have no idea what you're missing and I highly recommend them to everyone! Lucky for me, they have an opening at 12pm - beautiful!!! I head back to the hotel, check up on the site, rifle through some emails, watch Patriot Games with Liam, and then head on back for my massage.


11:30am - I arrive at the spa, ready and raring to go! A quick shower and steam in the men's locker room, and I'm whisked away for my full-on body massage. 1 hour of Swedish massage coupled with hot stone therapy, and I'm ready to conquer the world. I will kill Jacob if I wind up on the floor again.


1:30pm - My spa complete, I wonder over to a Greek fast food place called George's Greek Cafe which is right next to the spa. After a very tasty gyro following my wonderful massage, I'm feeling invincible! And it's a good thing too because in about 5 hours or so, we are going to be hosting our very first party and the turnout is expected to be great!!!


3:00pm - I locate Brett, Dean, Liam and Jacob eating at a Mexican restaurant.  While they are eating their lunch I decide to head down to the Convention Center to get my badge holder and officially register for the conference. I pop inside the hall for another quick mini-tour to see how things are coming along. People are still running all over the place, but things are starting to come together now. After my once through, I head outside to have a smoke. As I'm sitting there, a couple of guys come over to me - one asks me how I got my badge because he really wants to get in. I show him that I work for VGChartz and he asks me what that is - before I get a chance to answer, his friend says "Oh, they're that website that does all the videogame sales monitoring!" Notoriety? Complete strangers know who we are??? AMAZING!!!! I absolutely LOVE IT!


6:00pm - We are all gathered back in the room when Nick and Brian arrive, prepared to head off to setup the bar for tonight's party. They are lugging 40lb boxes and are looking for volunteers to help carry all of this stuff about a mile, over to the bar...    ...uh, I have a car (an SUV no less) - hello?!?!?  So I convince them to let me drive them over - we pack up the car, I pay the $35 charge for the privilege of parking my car one night at the hotel, and take them over to the bar. I dump them off, attempt to make my way back to the hotel (I guess I should mention, LA seems a tad busier on a Monday at rush hour, then it did on a Sunday afternoon), and finally get back to the room to see everyone's already left. Grrr. Good thing I'm becoming familiar where this place is! After having been there the night before and driving aimlessly back to the hotel after dropping the guys off, I'm beginning to learn this place pretty well.


7:30pm - I walk over to the bar (by myself!) and see that a queue of people has already started to form. Yes, you read that correctly. There is a queue of about 50 people already waiting to get into our VGChartz party - INSANE!!!! Who would have thought this? Is this really happening???? Seems surreal.

I make my way inside and start helping with the setup. Brian seems to have things way in order - almost scary precision. Everybody's got a job to do, most of us are wearing very nice VGChartz polo shirts that have our names embroidered on them, and if that wasn't enough - Brian had name tags with titles for everyone (my title was Code Monkey). The band was setting up, Chris had the raffle table for the Child's Play charity in order, Brett and Nick were going over last minute instruction with the bouncer - smooth as a baby's bottom!

I make my way up to the 2nd floor balcony to have a quick smoke. Liam is already out there with his cigar and Keith eventually joins us. Keith and I are both still taken aback by what's transpiring. As we look over the side of the balcony, we can see an easy 100 people now in queue and it's simply mind blowing, to say the least.


8:00pm - Doors are supposed to open, but the food was a little late on arriving. Everyone decides that the staff should get the first crack at food before we open the doors. We all shovel some food down, take one more quick jaunt through the two floors, and then get in our positions to get the party started.


8:15pm - We open the doors and people start pouring in. I'm working the first shift raffle with Chris and things are going VERY well. We had pulled in close to $1k before my one hour shift had ended!!


9:15pm to Closing - The rest of the time at the bar was a blur. There were people piled in the bar, the bands were banging out awesome music, somewhere along the line I managed to win the Harvest Moon bundle from the raffle (actually, I had won a SECOND bundle but Chris decided to rob me of it!!!), Brett was shmoozing it up with almost everyone in the bar. It was simply amazing, and I can't say that enough. To have so many people packed into a bar to party with VGChartz was AWESOME!!

Around 1am as the crowd began to thin out a bit, Brett and I really started to tie one on. All I can say is, you are all damn lucky a laptop wasn't close by - Brett might have banned every single last one of ya!!!


2:00am - The last of the people had left and we were politely told to get the hell out. I'll give you three guesses as to where we wound up and what we ate...


4:00am - We stumble back into the room, our minds trashed on alcohol and stomachs full of patty melt - it dawns on me that we have to be up at 8am to get to the Nintendo conference the next day. **barf**

I look at Jacob and without saying a word, he's already carved out his spot on the floor. Thank you, Jacob. My back thanks you and my wallet thanks you - for if I had to spend another $150 at the spa, I would not have been pleased!


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3 Comments
Theo (on 22 June 2010)

So was that a snide remark about Nintendo? The thought of having to wake up so early after all the late boozing? Or did you literally up heave your maccy d's?

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