Retropalooza 2 diary -or- The fun-est butt kicking I’ve had in a while

A few years back, I discovered a YouTube channel called “The Game Chasers” as a result of watching a series called “The Video Game Years.
It features two average dudes from Grand Prairie Tx driving around looking for video games a-la American Pickers and I immediately became a big fan (even though I am not an active gamer)
I went to the first Retropalooza last year and had been bugging them for even longer to work with them in some capacity
My persistence paid off and they asked me to work the panel room at Retropalooza 2

My job would be to record video of the panels as well as provide a projector and screen for the panelists should they decide to use video
I already had a 5 x 5 video screen but wanted something bigger just in case, so I tried to build a screen using two tarps that had recently fallen into my lap
After learning how to install grommets and constructed a frame out of speaker stands and drum rack parts
It ended up being about 8 x 11
Here’s a picture I snapped before I stretched the canvass

It took a long time to set up but I was confident that I could get there early enough to have time

Billy Chaser told me to be at The Arlington Convention Center at 6am! to set up and I made sure to be there on time
I was in the middle of setting up when Shady Jay came to me and said that their PA plans had fallen through and  that the DJ  had nothing to play though
So, I stopped what I was doing and drove back to Dallas, broke down my PA (actually it was Trey the bass players from GIRL’s PA) and hauled it back to the ACC
This left me very little time to set up the rest of my video projection/recording rig but I managed to finish just before the panels started at 10am
I had never worked a convention before so I was going to have to learn as I went along
That’s when I realized I was on my own

There was a PA and Mics set up for the panelists but no one was there to keep the panels running so I took it upon myself to keep everything on schedule
This meant that I was now running video, recording video, running the PA and keeping the panels on schedule
It seemed like I was always 5 minutes behind on the first day but the second day went a lot smoother
The panelists were all very patient and gracious with me and I can’t say everything went perfectly but i can say that everyone was happy with the results
I met a lot of cool people and made a lot of connections for the future
Some of my favorite moments were the Boogie 2988 who helped me realize how I could be a more positive person, The Pat the NES Punk game challenge as well as the massive panel at the end where just about everyone was on the stage at the same time

I was very proud of my abilities to improvise on the spot and provide all of the panelists with what they needed
Billy and Jay want me to work on next years’ convention and I came home exhausted but completely wired
I would have taken ppictures but I was so busy that I forgot
I have to get all of this footage to the panelists as well as editing it for my own, so there will be video coming soon

This was one of the most positive weekends of recent memory and it has given me momentum to start accomplishing more