Op Drop at Fan Expo: Dia 3

Are we there yet?

Friday’s Op Drop at Fan Expo had surpassed all expectations, despite it being the shortest day. Saturday’s performance had been underwhelming, in spite of it being the longest and best-attended day of the convention by far. This had all run exactly counter to what I’d predicted—it was like I’d somehow wound up in Alizée Bizarro World. Given that Sunday historically fell somewhere between the two, both in terms of length and attendance, I wasn’t sure what to expect anymore. All bets were off at this point.

The only two things I knew with certainty were a) that I had only to drop a little over 20 disques in order to reach my goal of 100, and call it a day, and b) I was so exhausted that I desperately couldn’t wait for it over and done with, so I could call it a day. And looking around at my nerd and geek brethren, I could tell I wasn’t alone. Even the ubiquitous cosplaying teenagers were beginning to look a little haggard and rough around the edges. The con fatigue had definitely set in. There’s only so much unrelenting nerdery (and nonstop advertising) a body can take, after all.

You can see where this might have created a bit of an obstacle for Op Drop. Though there was still a relatively steady (if thin) trickle of Expo virgins heading in from the registration tables, the vast majority of the attendees were tired, two-day veterans who weren’t in the mood to pick up or look at anything, anymore. Discarded posters, fliers, postcards and promotional materials of all kinds littered the con floor, and every available surface. And this was the environment that I was trying to drop twenty more disques into. It wasn’t exactly a winning strategy.

Still, I set about doing what I could, clearing obvious piles of garbage off chairs, tables and payphones and replacing them with freshly-dropped disques. This earned me quite a few thankful—if puzzled—looks from the maintenance staff, and at least one stern talking-to from a security guard (who had apparently noticed me on and off all weekend—whoops—and assumed I was trashing my competition’s advertising in favour of my own).

It was kind of a dicey moment, especially when I admitted that I didn’t have a vendor’s pass and hadn’t been authorized to distribute promotional materials by the convention’s promoter…but after I showed him one of the disques, and he read the message on the back, he surprisingly gave me the thumbs-up to carry on, as long as I continued not to harass anybody or interfere with the paid advertising. He even went so far as to give me his name in case I got stopped again, so his colleagues could check that I’d cleared it with him. I just wish I could remember it so I could thank him here—he was very cool about the whole thing, much more than he had to be, or than I had any right to expect. Couldn’t convince him to keep the disque and give it a try, but at least he smiled and wished me luck as he handed it back.

(I sincerely doubt he’s reading this, or even remembers that the exchange took place, but just in case he is—thanks for being Commissioner Gordon to my Batman, sir. You rock.)

Emboldened by my new quasi-almost-official endorsement, but still desperately needing to unload almost twenty disques, I immediately set about pushing the boundaries of it. Though I’d stayed away from the registration area so far, heavily patrolled as it was by security guards and convention volunteers alike, I was beginning to sense that appealing to the Expo virgins right as they walked in the door might be my only hope. Fortunately, with the influx of newcomers being much more manageable compared to the endless sea of humanity that had been fighting to get through the doors on Saturday, the registration staff had been pared down to just two volunteers. Even more fortunately, they appeared to be much more interested in flirting with each other than in anything I might be doing, making it very easy for me place an Alizée disque or two next to each pile of registration forms.

The next several hours passed slowly as—bored and broke—I paced up and down the convention’s three floors, checking on the status of the disques I’d dropped, replacing the precious few that had been picked up, and recovering and re-distributing those that had gone hours without seeing any interest. I cursed when I returned to find one disque sitting bare on a payphone, after hours of not being touched, having been stripped of its cheap vinyl clamshell case and discarded. (Oddly enough, though, after deciding to leave the bare disque there and see what happened, I returned an hour later to see that it, too, had been picked up.)

The disques in the registration area seemed to be moving better than the others—and the two volunteers had progressed to a full-contact tickle war—so I gradually began moving all of them up there…until finally, at about five thirty, a half hour before the convention was set to close, I did one last circuit of the show floor, and discovered that there wasn’t a single one of my disques left to be found.

I’d actually done it. 100 disques dropped in three days. Picked up by one hundred people who (hopefully) took it home and let it infect them with Alizée-fever. It seems like such a paltry amount—less than 1% of the over 50,000 people who reportedly attended the show—but it was surprisingly hard work.

Was it worthwhile? Will Alizée-fever take hold? Will it spread? Could this be the humble beginning of a Lili-demic? Only time will tell…

(Well, time and you. If you’re one of those 100 people who picked up a disque at Fan Expo, please do speak up…either in the ShoutBox to the left or the comments below, or email me at disquedrop@gmail.com. Let us know where you found it, what you thought of it, and what you’re planning to do with it next.)