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.)

Op Drop at Fan Expo: Dia 2

Hail to the Geek!

Though Friday’s Op Drop had surpassed even my wildest expectations, I still had a lot of work ahead of me: I was only roughly a third of the way to my goal of dropping 100 Alizée music samplers and ‘Fan Starter Kits’ before the weekend was out. It was a daunting task, but given how smoothly Friday had gone—with every one of the over thirty disques I’d dropped apparently having been picked up, some just minutes after I’d dropped them—I figured Saturday would be a cakewalk, given that it was traditionally the busiest day of the three.

What I didn’t realize is that this would be both a blessing, and a curse. While it meant more people to whom I could potentially introduce Alizée, it also meant more people, period. A lot more people…people who would get in my way, congregate around (then refuse to walk away from) prime drop locations, “helpfully” hand back to me the disque I’d “accidentally” left behind, catch me in the act and force me into an awkward conversation explaining exactly what I was doing, and generally make it harder to disque drop in the smoothly clandestine manner to which I’d become accustomed.

The sheer crush of humanity—a larger portion of whom were now dressed in bulky and outlandish costumes in preparation for that night’s masquerade—caused traffic patterns to shift wildly, rendering some of Friday’s best drop locations useless and inaccessible. It also brought increased vigilance both from security and from the retailers in the dealer room—more than once, I’d drop a disque on what I’d thought was an unattended table or display, only to have it a volunteer I hadn’t seen hand it right back to me. (Or, in the case of one memorable exchange, actually throw it at my head.) As the day wore, and the building continued to fill up, it became harder and harder to even find an inch of empty space on which make a drop…and then, once found, to manage it without being completely frackking obvious.

Father Christmas vs. The Daylight Detective


(I should probably explain that—I mean, who cares if a half-dozen of my fellow comic geeks notice me dropping it, right? One of them might even be motivated to pick it up out of curiousity. The only explanation I can give is that it violates my personal “rules” of disque dropping as I’ve come to think of it. Discovering one in a random public place is meant to be kind of magical and mysterious…like coming down the stairs on Christmas morning and finding presents in the empty stocking you put up the night before. Getting caught in the act of a drop…I always feel like it robs it of its mystique, somehow…like Batman fighting crime in broad daylight, or something. There’s also the fact that I’m painfully shy around strangers—particularly cosplaying cuties in extremely abbreviated outfits—which makes having to explain a bungled drop somewhat akin to slow torture, but that’s neither here nor there.)

In short, as far as drops went, the day proceeded slowly. Despite my being there nearly twice as long, by the time the doors were set to close on Saturday, I’d barely managed to match the all-time record high I’d set on Friday. And for the first time in my career, I was actually forced to make a few humiliating recoveries, as disques I’d dropped first thing in the morning at what had been prime drop locations the night before had remained there the entire day without so much as being touched. At the end of the day, I actually did better in just five hours on Friday than I had in nine hours on Saturday.

Still, thirty-plus drops in a day was nothing to sneeze at, and I was still on pace to meet my goal of dropping a hundred. All it would take was a little over 20 drops on Sunday, and I’d be golden. Surely I’d be able to drop twenty lousy disques in seven hours, especially given that the hall wouldn’t be nearly as packed as it had been on Saturday, right?

Right?

Op Drop at Fan Expo: Dia 1

Holy Cosplaying Cuties, Batm--er, Alizée!

Friday, as indicated by the post I made that day, was kind of a mad panic as I rushed to get the last of that day’s disques burned and labeled before heading out to Fan Expo—40 disques altogether. The stressful state of mind wasn’t at all helped by the fact that I’d decided to change gears at absolutely the last minute, and make half of them the new Mark III ‘music only’ CDs, which necessitated a slight redesign of the labels.

Mark III Back

Mark III Front

As you can see, proofreading was not my strong suit that morning. Nor was it for the rest of the weekend…I only noticed the rather glaring typo in the track listing as I pulled up the image just now. Argh.

I was also feeling surprisingly nervous as I made my way down to the convention, much as I had the night I made my first few drops. Though I’d since gotten pretty good at dropping them inconspicuously, without feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb, it had always been in relatively small quantities, spread out over large areas. And at that point, my career total of drops had been in the high teens. Dropping a hundred disques over the course of three days in a relatively confined and crowded space was daunting to say the least. Surely, sooner or later, somebody was bound to catch me in the act and start asking questions…and I really, really didn’t want to have to explain to anybody—particularly security—why I wasn’t a terrorist, or something.

Fortunately, I needn’t have worried. Despite all the years I’d been coming to Fan Expo, there were two things I’d overlooked about it: first, that it’s almost impossible to look conspicuous in a roomful of cosplaying teenagers in full Stormtrooper armor or barely-there anime outfits as they strike poses, stage mock-lightsaber battles and play spin-the-Pocky with each other. Second, that if there’s one thing these people understand more than anything, it’s what being a rabid fan of a semi-obscure foreign celebrity is all about! Though I failed my stealth check more than once over the course of the weekend, almost without exception, my stammered and embarrassed explanation invited polite—and in at least a few cases, genuine—interest.

Though Friday was the shortest of the three days, running from 4pm to 9pm in the evening, it was also by far my best day in terms of drops and pickups. After casing out favorable drop points on the show’s three floors—pay phones, food court tables, unmanned booth tables and unguarded displays, and what few precious empty seats were scattered around the hall—I settled on a route that would let me drop disques as efficiently and inconspicuously as possible, while still letting me see everything I wanted to see.

The first circuit, which must have taken me the better part of three hours—mainly because I kept getting distracted by one thing or another—saw me drop about half of the 40 disques I’d brought with me. And as I began my next lap, I was excited to see that virtually every single disque I’d dropped had disappeared, and the few that hadn’t at least looked like they’d been picked up and given a look-over. Encouraged—and foolishly believing this meant the rest of the weekend was going to be a snap—I decided to pace myself and take it easy, breaking off from my mission for long stretches to shop, look around, and attend a few panels.

I’d be kicking myself to that come Sunday. I’m almost certain that if I’d really pushed it, I could have exhausted the supply of disques I’d brought with me, and then some. If I had to do it over again—and who knows, in a year’s time, I just might be—I think I’d aim to drop at least half, if not two-thirds of the weekend’s total payload on that first night, while everybody’s still excited to be there, and before they’re sick to death of having a flier, a promo comic or some other piece of marketing thrust into their hands every thirty seconds. (Lord knows I certainly wasn’t interested in picking up anything else come Sunday afternoon…but we’ll get there.)

I wound up dropping just over thirty disques that first night, right on target to reach 100 drops by Sunday evening, and more than doubling my career total. And it had been so easy, too—I hadn’t been spotted once, and as far as I could tell, every disque I’d dropped had been picked up. I was practically giddy with excitement over how well it was working. As I called it a night and headed for the subway home, I briefly considered dropping my few remaining disques along the way, as had been my standard M.O. up until that point.

“Nah,” I said to myself. “Why waste them? You’ve got the whole weekend ahead of you, and tomorrow’s going to be even easier than tonight was!”

Uh huh. Little did I know what the rest of the weekend had in store…

Success! (Well, kinda...)

"...and boy, are my arms tired! Wocka wocka!"

I just got back home from FanExpo. After three days there, I am possibly more exhausted than I have been in my entire life leading up to this moment. So this is going to be a very short post…for real, this time. I’m happy to report, however, that Op Drop’s mission at Nerd Prom was an unqualified success: despite some difficulties encountered on Sunday, 100 disques were successfully dropped over the course of the weekend.

Go me!!

Of course, what remains to be seen is whether any of these disques manages to successfully convert themselves a Lili-heathen. Sadly, I didn’t receive any responses over the course of the convention, neither here on the blog, nor on any of the other sites that the readme file points to, which was a little disheartening. But then, I didn’t become an Alizée fan overnight, either…it was probably about two weeks after seeing that first ‘sexy fish dance’ video before I made the effort to track down who the pretty French girl in it actually was. All I can do is trust that I’ve planted the seed, and hope that the contents of the disques I’ve dropped will sustain it until it blossoms into full-blown Lili-fandom.

Speaking of the ‘sexy fish dance’ video, I want you to take a look at this outfit:

Wearing this, Alizée would have fit right in at this convention. She may have even been severely overdressed. Booth Babes and cosplaying teenaged cuties alike, I bless you from the bottom of my heart. You gave me the wherewithal to keep going, even when I was at my weariest. (Cosplaying dudes too, actually—not that I swing that way, but there were some seriously wicked-awesome costumes going on at this thing. Next year I am definitely bringing a camera!)

A full report of the experience is to come, probably doled out in multiple parts over the next week, but for now I am going to bed. In lieu, please accept this video summary of LTNY’s successful assault on Times Square last weekend:

P.S. A Message to West Coast Alizée Fans:

Last weekend, Operation LTNY:

• 300 Cards
• 40 CDs
• 15 Posters
• 3 People
• 2 Days

This weekend, Operation: Disque Drop:

• 100 CDs
• 1 Dude
• 3 Days

You West Coast folks have some catching up to do.

I’m just sayin’…

Found an Alizée disque at FanExpo? Welcome!

Welcome and bienvenue, visitors from FanExpo! Thanks for joining us here at Operation: Disque Drop, a one-man (so far) grassroots fan effort to spread awareness of Alizée and grow her fanbase here in North America. If you or someone you know found a CD in an inconspicuous place somewhere in the convention, and that disc led you here, thank you for proving that this crazy idea might actually work!

I hope you enjoy your first exposure to the wonder that is Alizée. If you haven’t already, I invite you to explore your disque and open your mind to some new music. I think you might have just found your new favorite artist!

Then, in either the Shoutbox to the left or in the comment section of the blog below, let us know how and where in the convention you found it, what you thought of it, and what you're going to do with it next! (Also, if you could mention which version of the disque you received—music-only, or music-plus-videos, that would be cool, too.)

If you’d like to learn more about Alizée, and interact with other North American fans on the web, the absolute best places to start are Alizée America and Lillytown USA. Both communities are filled with fun and friendly fans who absolutely love welcoming new converts, and would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Links to other Alizée sites on the intertubes, including her official MySpace, Facebook and YouTube pages, can be found in the upper left-hand margin of this page.

If you’re curious about Operation: Disque Drop (or ‘Op Drop’ for short) and what it’s all about, you can either check out the archives down at the bottom-left of the page, or start here at the first post and work your way forwards. (Don’t worry, it won’t take long—I’ve only been at it for a couple of weeks.) If you have any questions that I haven’t answered exhaustively in the blog—I know, I know, I tend to run off at the mouth, a lil’—please feel free to again either leave a comment, or shoot me an e-mail at disquedrop@gmail.com. I’ll be checking both the blog and my e-mail periodically throughout the weekend, so keep an eye out for a reply sooner rather than later!

Thanks again for visiting. I hope you enjoy your stay!

Birthday-girl Alizée and Op Drop: Partying it up, nerd-style!

Go Lili...it's your birthday...go Lili...it's your birthday!

Before we get started today, let’s take a minute and join the rest of Lili-fandom--particularly NarutoSoul and all his conspirators at Lillytown USA-- in wishing our girl Alizée a very emphatic (if slightly off-key) ‘Joyeux Anniversarie!'

It was twenty-four years ago today that Corsica’s gift to the world first saw daylight, and she’s been spreading magic (and pixie dust) in her wake every day since. Happy birthday, Lili! I hope you get everything you wish for this year, and more!

(If you'd like to take a moment to send Alizée your own heartfelt wishes, here's some handy links to her official MySpace and Facebook pages!)

So how is Op Drop going to be celebrating Alizée’s birthday weekend, you ask? That’s easy—we’re goin’ to a party. A very big party…for nerds…

That’s right, kids—Operation: Disque Drop is gonna be geeking it up in full effect for three days at FanExpo, Canada’s largest annual comic/sci-fi/anime/gaming/horror convention, and the third-largest show of its kind in North America (a.k.a. Nerd Prom), and I could not be more excited if I tried! We’re gonna be rubbin’ elbows, pressin’ flesh and gettin’ down with everyone from TNG’s Data, Smallville’s Lex Luthor and B-Star G’s Admiral Odama, to the pimp of the LoTR trilogy himself, Sean Motherlovin’ Astin. (And lest you think it’s all just a big sausage party, Kristy Swanson, Gabrielle from Xena, and Kara from the last season of Smallville are also gonna be there…)

You know who I’m the most jazzed about, though? The Fonz, baby. Ayyyyyy!

Tonight we're gonna party like it's Nineteen-Nerdy-Nine!

As much as this sounds like nothing more than a non-stop, fun-filled geek orgy, though, it’s going to be a working weekend for Op Drop. With over 50,000 fans in attendance, most of them (let’s be honest) single eighteen-to-forty-year-old males, FanExpo presents possibly the single greatest opportunity all summer to spread awareness of Alizée to as many members of our target demographic as possible!

And that’s why I’ve set a rather daunting task for myself, as a birthday present to Alizée, to take on the single biggest Operation: Disque Drop to date: to drop no less than one hundred of the newly upgraded Mark II ‘Alizée Fan Starter Kit’ disques over the course of the convention. Sure, it sounds like a lot, but with 270,000 square feet to cover over three days, I ought to be able to manage. Heck, I think I’ll barely scratch the surface!

Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t use some help! If you’re an Alizée fan who’s planning to be in the Toronto area for FanExpo this weekend, and you’d like to get in on the Op Drop action, I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a line either here in the comments (or in the ShoutBox to the left), or e-mail me at disquedrop@gmail.com, and we’ll set something up! C’mon out and help me show our fellow geeks, nerds and dorks some Lili-love!

Oy, look at the time…I’ve got about forty more disques to press before Friday. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about a possible shift in strategy for Op Drop, brought on by a comment from none other than the man and the legend himself, Ben from Operation: LTNY. Tune in then, Op Drop fans…same Lili time, same Lili channel!