C2E2 has finally arrived and the first day of the annual event at McCormick Place in Chicago was packed with adventure for this journalist.
Bringing along the whole family, we made an attempt at attending the Lord of the Rings main stage panel, but boy did I underestimate the crowd. The place was filled before I could even figure out where it was happening, but no worries: we had a scheduled photo op with the group later.
Instead, we took the kids to Star Wars Story Time, featuring the Mandalorian and Child. My oldest is an avid Star Wars fan (just like her daddy) so she always enjoys the Star Wars cosplayers and the set props located in the Family HQ. Our youngest is a bit too young to know what’s going on, but seemed fascinated as well by the costumes.
Star Wars Story Tim was a hit with our family and many others. (Damien Dennis/TPM)
We followed this with Drag Story Time — because we support our Queens! And then it was lunch.
After meeting up with some friends (specifically TPM contributor over the years Shannon), I left the wife and friends as they joined Looking For Party – Speed Friending. Stephanie and friends bounced from group to group as they made new connections based on a series of questions posed by moderators.
Looking For Party was a take on speed dating/friending that proved quite popular at C2E2. (Damien Dennis/TPM)
After that, we decided to meet the voice actors behind Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 (John Marston and Arthur Morgan). In our early relationship, the wife and I played RDR1 online while doing long-distance. By time RDR2 came out, we were living together and I played it so much the wife got mad. This is a story we retold to Rob Wiethoff and Roger Clark.
The end of the day may have been the highlight, as the family as well as our friends wandered into Improv DnD, hosted by the Quest Bros. Our oldest child (and by extension myself) got selected to be the villains of the story, while the real hero was the NPC named Craig. Watch that below!
