Tikkabik

So Bonnie and I stood in line for five and a half hours today to get our badges for Anime Boston at the Hynes Convention Center. Mind you, we pre-registered, along with the thousands of others who were in the exact same line as us.

That doesn't hold a candle to the poor bastards who, for whatever reason, had to pay on site -- their line was even longer.

You know, after half a decade, I'd expect the people who run the show at Anime Boston to have a clue as to how to move people in and out of registration or badge pickup lines easily and quickly. But year after year, they fail -- and fail miserably.

I understand that the New England Anime Society comprises volunteers. I understand that they're not professional trade show people. But you figure that most of the people involved at the top, anyway, have been to other events, like Anime Expo or Otakon, where this process is much less miserable.

At one point, about an hour into it, I even decided to try to flex my press muscle. I went to the operations office and spoke to the guy in chart of vetting press badges. He told me no can do, for the simple reason that the registration line was so overloaded they couldn't do any more press badges.

Anyway, an inauspicious beginning to what we had hoped would be a fun weekend for us. The wait in line ended up causing us to miss several panels and other events we had hoped to attend.