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So, let me get this perfectly clear that I might be a tiny bit biased because I got extremely lucky throughout the entire convention, but I will still try and treat it as fair as I possibly can. I also want you to keep in mind that I was also not given a VIP pass nor a free pass to the convention, so I was given no special treatment. However, I was offered a free one day pass for the panel that I declined because I had already bought a General Admission 3 day pass.
So, first off, my name is Andrew. If you were at Halo Outpost Discovery in Houston you may have noticed me by my fancy golden jacket (thank god people didn’t remember me because of my height). I did a Machinima panel on Friday at Halo Outpost along with several others Machinima creators and voice actors.
Anyway, I’m going to go through each day and note what I liked and didn’t like:
Day 1:
First thing I do is get to the badge line as early as possible, then look for the autograph signing for Steve and Jen. This was the most grueling part of Friday because I had to wait in line for like 4 hours and wait for them to fill up to 80 people so they can hand out these tickets. Basically these tickets reserve a spot in line for an autograph, and you can check out the rest of the convention. You just have to get back by like 1:30 pm or half an hour before the signing begins.
However, we got stuck there for four hours because it was a slow day and by the time we got to 80 people, it was already 1:25 pm! So we just decided to wait (obviously).
I think what they could’ve don’t to improve it is hand the tickets out to the first people who showed up, which has been brought up in the other thread which ske7ch addressed (thanks ske7ch!) We did bring it up with the people who were there, and they told us they couldn’t yet, but they understood where we were coming from. Shout out to Matt (hope I got that right) and the others for coordinating this as best as they could, I know it isn’t easy for them, especially with these two.
One other thing they could’ve done to improve it is maybe have a sign that points to the autograph/VIP room. If you’re going in Anaheim, keep in mind: THEY ARE NOT ON THE MAIN FLOOR. They are in a room separate, and honestly you don’t even have to go through the security gates to get to it. Literally all I had to do was go up an escalator.
Anyway, we went in to see Steve and Jen, and Jen actually recognized me from seeing my jacket in a twitter photo earlier (oof, the feels bruh), and it was such an amazing experience for me to have both my childhood and adulthood in the same room with me (because Jen used to voice Princess Peach when I was a kid and Steve is Master Chief, duh.) I was starstruck.
I do recommend going AS EARLY AS YOU CAN to get a reserved spot to see them. It’s easy to complain about not being able to see them, but take it from my firsthand experience, I can understand why and honestly the current system is probably the best they can make it with a few tweaks here and there.
Anyway, after I met them, I met up with my voice actor and went to the armory to get ready for my Machinima panel, and talked with the cosplayers in the armory. They are really awesome people to chat with. I had some time before my panel and decided to check out the Hall of History.
Hall of History is... pretty much what you would expect. It’s a Halo Museum. The props and such are really awesome to see up close, and are freakishly large all things considered. They really did an awesome job with the statues and such.
Anyway, after that I went to go and get an autograph from GrimBrotherOne at the post exchange and thanked him for giving our panel some attention (thanks again Grim!) before I headed to the armory and wait for the others n my panel.
They finally arrive and we get the panel all ready to start up, and surprisingly we got a really great audience. This is surprising because we actually had a panel at the EXACT SAME TIME as Steve and Jen’s panel (OOF). But we got a really great crowd, and if you showed up, thank you so much for attending! You can find our panel at this link if you missed it: https://youtu.be/OZTOqQii4c4
Anyway, after the panel, we decided to head to the Ring Experience, which had an empty line thankfully, and it was sorta like an expansion of the Hall of History. I feel like they could’ve put up some animated billboards for the part where they talk about the Honeybees, because it felt awkward staring at a painting of them lol. But I get it due to budget. The highlight of the experience is the end where you see the ring from the perspective of one of the Honeybees, which is pretty cool. It was really trippy too. Hopefully they upgrade the projectors to try and make it a bit brighter. Still, it’s worth a look!
After the Ring Experience, we caught up with some of the other panelists and decided to do Pelican Training Simulator. This one we were in line for a while, and we were actually the last General Admission people to do it because it was so late. Anyway, Pelican Training was pretty cool, probably could’ve cut off the training video before that big ol’ scarab from Halo 2 bursts through to blast them into bits (we joked about it in the whole line). When we got in, we had a guy acting as a sort of sergeant drill instructor come in and give us a sort of orientation. Someone give a bonus to this dude because he really came in character!
Anyway, there’s 8 stations that 8 people man (or 7 people with one manning two), and you’re given instructions on what to press and such. It takes a lot of working together, and you have to pay attention to your screen as well as your other teammates. We didn’t successfully complete the thing because one of us was trying to film and do the stations at the same time lol. It was still awesome to see the inside of a pelican and it was pretty immersive.
Anyway that was day 1 of my experience.
Day 2:
First thing I did day 2 was go to see Frank O’ Connor and Max Hoberman. This time I thought they were in the post exchange, but they were actually in the same area as Steve and Jen. I barely made the cutoff for reserved autographs for them. Talk about dumb luck! Frank and Max were awesome too, I got them to take a picture with my Joyride Halo 2 figures (the Master Chief and Arbiter action figures from the show Arby ‘n’ the Chief), which Frank was a fan of, and we chatted for a bit about that show and how he helped save it from Machinima.com’s mass purge. Both great guys.
After that, I decided to try my luck with laser tag. It was like a 3 hour wait, and I was ready to start a campfire. But by god, an angel appeared in the form of a lady asking if there were any single people, to which I raised my hand since I wasn’t with a group, so I got to skip the line. So, make a note to go as a single rider, you might be able to skip ahead! Anyway, I got the most kills on my team, but we lost anyway due to blue team spawn killing us. Maybe a good way to make it a bit more fair is to have them not come up to the spawn area in our face? Other than that it was extremely cool to play laser tag.
Also shout out to Sgt Cruz’s actor for being so invested in his role in the instruction video, he was great to watch. 343, get him into Halo Infinite, I will pay for a legendary Sgt Cruz Edition personally.
After laser tag, I decided to try out the Halo Reach demo. I think I was one of the few people who actually beat the level, because literally the second the last cutscene finished, my 15 minutes was up. I was playing on normal lol. Anyway, Reach is surprisingly good on the PC, I love that there’s no more motion blur. Only thing I raised an eyebrow at is when the assault sapper chest clipped into my spartan’s chest lol, but it’s really fluid aside from that.
After that, I checked out the Pillars of the Community Halo Panel by Dust Storm (who also hosted our panel), and then I realized the Machinima Director KnightmareFilmz was there, so I met up with him along with some guys from my panel and we all played Halo 5 LAN for a bit, which was awesome.
After that, I was prepared to leave, but before I did I turned around to go get one of my dog tags I earned from Pelican Training and ran into Gus Sorola from Roosterteeth, who also voices Simmons in RvB. I went to go ask him for a picture, which he was awesome enough to say yes to. It’s cool because he was only doing meet and greets with VIP and I wasn’t even VIP! Anyway, it was awesome to do that, and I felt I lucked out!
Day 3:
Day 3 I didn’t do too much, I decided to try my luck with Steve and Jen again and was put into the overflow line. However, this time, they actually had to do a cutoff for overflow at 80 so we got another ticket.
Anyway, after we got our tickets, I went downstairs and took some pics with people I met at the convention (if they were there), and then had a bit of time for the Virtual Reality. Again, another long line, but RNGesus must’ve been looking out for me because they asked for a single rider AGAIN and I skipped the line! VR was badass! Just the experience of being in actual Halo Valhalla is just... it’s something you have to experience for yourself. It’s amazing. I actually got the most kills again (even though our team lost) but I didn’t care because it was just an amazing experience.
After that, I got in line for Steve and Jen again (should’ve went to their panel though, they did actual live readings with people in the audience), and I barely got in via overflow. So, if you’re in overflow, just keep your fingers crossed that you’re still allowed in!
Anyway, that was a pretty poetic way to end the convention, the same as I started it.
I didn’t go to the target range or covenant escape (honestly I didn’t really wanna do them), so I can’t give an opinion on those. The food was pretty good, I got some pizza and ice cream (pizza slices were freaking huge). The staff was really awesome, they were all super friendly and a lot of them complimented my jacket (that’s always nice.)
I had also met John Friend (head of consumer products at 343) Thursday night at a restaurant, and we chatted a couple of times throughout the whole event, really nice guy to talk to. He introduced me to some of the Herschend guys (they helped set up the convention) including their CEO who coincidentally has the same name as me.
We chatted a bit about the VIP stuff and how it could be sweetened, and he let me know that they were likely gonna make more of the main areas more VIP priority likely. A good idea for VIP is maybe to have a fastpass line for many of the attractions like at Disney.
Another cool thing was a lot of people came and asked me for pics after the Friday Machinima panel on Saturday and Sunday (after they had watched a few episodes of my fanseries continuation Arby ‘n’ the Chief: Next Gen on YouTube) which really improved my experience.
Anyway, like I said, I just had a REALLY lucky experience, so mine may differ from yours. I took a lot of opportunities with my time there, and didn’t procrastinate. That’s my best advice to you guys, don’t wait, go to stuff as early as possible!
Honestly, I’m happy to say it looks like they greatly improved things from Orlando, Philly, and Chicago. It IS a first year convention, so there are things to work out, but honestly, it is one of the conventions I’ve had the most fun at, and I’ve been to a lot of them! If you had a bad experience, sorry to hear that, it sucks when that happens. But for those of you still thinking about going to the Anaheim one, don’t think too hard on the bad reviews and give it a try for at least one day!
I personally had a lot of fun, and for a one year convention trying to pull off stuff as ambitious as this? Honestly, it’s a miracle it even remotely works! I give it a 9/10, one of the best conventions I’ve been too personally.
Anyway hope all of you who went also had a great time like I did! Thank you 343 and Herschend Family Entertainment for pulling this off!
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