On Saturday, I was supposed to meet two people from Tucson in the morning, then spend the afternoon with one friend from Phoenix and the evening with another. When I got to the convention center, however, I learned that my morning playmate was unavailable. Then, I saw what was a ridiculously huge crowd at the registration desk where I’d work the day before, and a number of new volunteers. The problem looked like the experienced ones didn’t really have time to stop and show the newer people what to do, so I stopped for a while and helped out. Good thing, too – the “rush” of Saturday morning attendees lasted until about 2pm. The Saturday-only passes were sold out well before noon. I wouldn’t want to guess at how much cash/credit was flying about, but you can imagine that it was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Saturday programming was much like Fridays, but more so, with surprises around every corner. And once again, the attendees put on just as good a show as the special guests, with costumes ranging from Spartans (yes, with pretty much nothing but a metal loincloth and a cape) to futuristic outfits, from classics (I particularly liked one Penguin outfit) to pure fantasy including princesses and furries and lots and lots of anime schoolgirl outfits (on both men and women).

I missed much of the evening events (dinner out with friends – it was delicious, but not really on-topic), and by the time I got back to the Masquerade the event was packed and they’d already closed off the doors. This would be another excellent reason to volunteer for next year’s event – and perhaps get into some of the bigger events a little bit easier.

Even though I wasn’t IN the con venue, I did stop for a bit at the grill across the street, where it turned out there were lots of other Comicon attendees. I spoke with a number of people from the film festival (though I hadn’t seen any of the films) and also with a couple of the sci fi authors. Most of the time, my Phoenix friend and I chatted with the couple who run the Think Weasel web comic. Nick’s got a couple of great shots on his Comicon Flickr set.

It was a lot of fun, and I was shocked, just shocked, I tell you, when they kicked us out at closing time.