Probably Lucy's Blog: Yogscast @ Rezzed 2014: Going it alone!

All aloney, on my owney.
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So, Rezzed was a few weeks back now, but I thought for my first post, why not let you know about the weird weekend I spent in Birmingham, all in the name of Hatfilms and The Yogscast.

Before I tell you about my day, there's a few things you need to know:

Thing 1) Rezzed 2014 was at the NEC Birmingham, its a gaming convention, and this year there was special Yogscast panel with Hatfilms. For £40, one got access to said panel, but also a bagload of goodies, a chance to meet the guys at a signing, and the opportunity to awkwardly follow them around, watching them play video games. I mainly did the latter.
Thing 2) I went on my own, as the title suggests.
Thing 3) I am a huge fan of the Yogscast, and especially Hatfilms. Not on a scary teenage fangirl level, but I think that they are all great.
Thing 4) I have never been so hungover in my entire life.

So, with those things in mind, let me set the scene.

It was the warmest day of the year so far, and the British Isles was experiencing a Saharan sandstorm. Yes, you read right. A Saharan. Bloody. Sandstorm. So the sky was a very weird shade of yellow, everything was dusty, the air was very dry, and you woke up with your eyelashes glued together. So imagine my joy at these conditions when I woke up at 9:00 on Sunday the 30th of March (Yes, Mother's day) with a stinking hangover. A hangover I completely and utterly blame on my slightly younger cousin, Alex. He kindly hosted me at his student house so I could get to the convention in time, but on my arrival at a particularly terrifying train station in Birmingham, he wasn't there. He should have been there. He wasn't. At this point, I begin to panic as a tall figure, clearly drunk and nearly unable to walk, sways toward me. This is it, I think. I'm going to be mugged and killed and thrown onto the train tracks, I shall meet my sticky end here, in urban Birmingham. Fortunately the drunken man was indeed my cousin, and after about 3 minutes of deliberation, I decided to join him on his American Football Team bar crawl.

So as I said, blame for the hangover goes to Alex.

Somehow, we'd both got up, had bacon sandwiches, and were out the house by 10:00 ish. Props go to Alex for being able to drive given the conditions, the absolute trooper cheerfully dropped me off at the NEC before heading to Nottingham himself (I later found out that he'd had to stop and take a nap in somebody's driveway on the way down. Poor chap.)

And there I was. The NEC in all its glory, its huge aircraft hanger-style convention centers basking in the yellowy humidity of the great Birmingham Air Pollution crisis of '14. I arrived to find the place quite quiet. I'm not sure what I was expecting as I watched Alex drive off, but I thought it would be a bit more... busy? I walked in, got my bright green Yogscast wristband, collected my merch (Yogscast bag, poster and shirt, CHUFFED), And headed out onto the floor. It was at this point I realised what an absolute fish out of water I was. When it comes down to it, I know NOTHING about gaming! I love them, I love playing them, but I've never had the money nor a laptop good enough to really get into all the games I'd love to play, so I'm no good at holding a real conversation with game developers and the like. Which, in hindsight, was probably a blessing given that I was supposed to be getting a History and Philosophy degree. Either way, I was quite proud of myself for deciding to indulge my love for all things Yogscast alone, but it did leave me in a weird position. I wanted to have a go on the games, but self-consciousness got the better of me! There was no mate to awkwardly 'have a go' at something with. But this was the only downside, to be honest. Which when you think about it is quite a big downside when attending what is basically a huge room full of video games.

So, after a lot of walking round in awkward circles clutching my ipad for company, I was relieved when I noticed the line had begin forming for the Yogscast Q&A. This was it, this was when the internet world, a world kept so separately from my real-life, met reality. It was really strange walking in and seeing all the guys up on the stage. When you are a fan of YouTube, it always feels like a solitary experience. You are laughing at jokes on your own, you are screaming at your laptop when Trott goes on a hunt for ink and you can see, quite clearly, that Alsmiffy has a stack of eight in his inventory. So it was a really cool experience to be in a room of like-minded people, who were all sharing laughter at the one thing that we all loved, comedy YouTube gaming. I was sat about 4 rows from the front, right on the edge by Tom Bates, a 'behind the scenes' member of the Yogscast who was filming the panel. And, I have since found out, I was just behind the King of the 'cast, Lewis, who was sneakily sat right at the front of the audience. I even have a photo where you can see the back of his head! Sneaky hobbitses. Anyway, the guys answered a few pre-asked questions that had been emailed in, and then it was time for the floor to be opened for audience questions. I think I was the first to jump up, but by the time I'd ran round the back of the seating block, some kids had got to the mic before me.

That is when I realised that I was probably the only person in the line for the Q&A mic that was not a prepubescent boy. That said, after shortening the mike stand for the 10-year-old in front, there was no need to adjust it for little ol' me. I can't remember, but my question was something along the lines of:

"HEY" (Oh my god this is so terrifying my voice is shaking... I sound stupid don't I? Oh my god my voice sounds so weird amplified...AAAH) "I am a huge fan of Hatfilms... I guess the rest of you are alright too." (WHY BRAIN, WHY? Hopefully they saw the funny side. I think they probably did.) "Since it is mother's day, and I know I had a hard time explaining to my mum where I was going today and why I wasn't at home cooking her dinner like a good daughter..." (At this point a few people chuckled. At me? No... with me... Hopefully? Oh my god this is terrifying. I am so hungover. What was my question again? Oh right, yeah...) "I was wondering, how do you explain to people who are not familiar with minecraft or YouTube or gaming, what it is you do for a living?"

(Phew, question asked. Well done me, okay, now they are all looking at you. Erm, what do I do with my hands? Should I smile and nod as they are answering? Wow, that light is bright. It's really hot in here... Oh my LORD I am so hungover)

To be honest I can even remember what they answered with, I was too busy being a neurotic hungover mess.

The rest of the panel was great, and I ended up following the guys across the games floor on their way back to their greenroom because, well, I had nothing better to do. It was really weird seeing them being escorted across the room like total celebrities. Well, they are celebrities. But you know, it was still weird seeing these gamers, these average guys who just really liked gaming and started to record themselves, being followed by a posse of fans and a HUGE security guard. (I spoke to Ross about this security guard later, we both agreed he looked like a famous boxer... But we couldn't put our finger on a name...)

Between the actual events, like the panel, the signing, and the re-emergence of Hatfilms to play games and do their twitch stream, I spend much of my time wandering in circles, looking at other people play games, and tweeting about everything on my iPad, which had quickly become my go-to to avoid any awkward hungover eye contact with, well, anyone.

After I got my stuff signed, It was really nice of Ross to recognise me as the 'girl who they'd retweeted yesterday' and I got to chat to the hats very briefly afterwards too. They were all lovely, and a special shout-out to Katie Morrison (AKA @Littlenommer, AKA Trott's girlfriend and mod on the Hatfilms server) who I also got to chat to as we both awkwardly stood around watching the guys do their thing. Kind of wished I'd got to chat to her more! But as I said, my social skills has definitely taken a beating from the previous night's jeager bombs. So I'm sorry to whoever I did end up having an awkward half-convo with. I tried, I did.

Turps kind of surprised me with how chilled he was, I only knew of him through his Gary's Mod videos on Sips' channel, and I didn't realize what a huge part of the Yogscast he was. He compared the panel, and had done so for all 3 days, and between all that he was just wandering around, letting the guys know where they needed to be, and chatting to everybody. I was exhausted after about 3 hours of being in that dark, stuffy warehouse, so well done to all the guys who were actually working. Anyway, at one point Turps actually grabbed my iPad and offered to take a photo of me and all three Hats, he ended up taking about 15, but no complaints there!

This was a pretty long post, but it was a pretty long day. ['Awkward' count: 9] Here's a few photos from my iPad, and an embedded video of the panel from the Hatfilms YouTube channel. (https://www.youtube.com/user/HaatFilms)

Photographer: Turps. Thanks for the photo guys, I bet you were all exhausted.

World's most awkward selfie, I thought the bodyguard was going to kill me for trying to take this. My iPad doesn't have flash and has a terrible light sensor. Next time: ACTUAL camera! Also, my face looks like a pumpkin. Anyone else?