Run, Con, Run

If you ever read my con introspective posts and reports you might wonder just how much effort I expend at cons. Here’s a somewhat objective measurement.

Since early 2012 I’ve been towing around a Japanese 3DS. While all I play on it is New Love Plus, I also enjoy the built-in games gratis from Nintendo. This means I get that “shoot people’s face” game as well as the Streetpass minigames, which gets a boost via the coins you get by walking while the 3DS is suspended. That provides me with a count of how many steps I take every day once I get back to the hotel after a day at a con. I’m trusting the 3DS pedometer to be relatively accurately, and from my own experience, it is pretty good.  (And of course you want to carry your 3DS, in suspended mode, at a con. Because that’s where the magic of Streetpass happens.) Maybe it undercounts, according to some people online, but I’ve not read anything authoritative.

Here is Gizmodo’s blog post of CES 2013 as the reporters wore various personal devices that kept track how much energy they’ve expended. To sum it up, here are their most active day and how many steps they took:

Casey Chan: 14,839

Brent Rose:  15,170

Peter Ha: 15,440

As for me? The only one I have on record was:

Ax 2012: 23,159

I’ve taken it easy at cons, I have done cons where I got home I lost like 6 pounds because I power-walked all weekend long while averaging 2 meals a day. Both are fun, one is more painful than the other. I probably get more sleep than the average press guy at CES, because there’s less smooching to be done and I sure don’t have to bang up a billion posts every day. But that’s usually what it takes to do my itinerary. It’s also easy to see why at AX you’d walk that much, simply because the way the con is set up, and things in California are just more spread out versus the East coast cons I visit. I think AX2012 was also the one con that I’ve gotten more press-y than any other con, just out of the number of 3rd party obligations. Anyway, a lot of walking was to be had.

Off hand I’m pretty sure there was at least a one con that I got over 30k steps in a day. Oh well.

Do you walk nearly this much at an anime con? I guess it really depends on the venue–I mean if I walk around AnimeNext’s complex (the con center and the hotel) it might take 1500 steps. It’s not that big. It might be 3000 steps to circle LACC. But even for a large con a lot of people don’t do much other than to pace through the AA and the dealer’s room, and sit in some panels or screenings. It’s not exactly the most active sort of thing. But on the flip side that’s not what kids do at cons either, just old people. When’s the last time you were a part of a Caramelldansen train? (Dead meme is dead, almost.)