The summer Wonderfest 2008  was held at the Tokyo Big Sight on Sunday Augest 3 on a hot and humid day in the summer. 

 First I’d like to talk about the escalater incident which you may or may not have heard of.  Click here for more details in English.   To tell you the truth it happened right in front of me and scared the heck out of everyone who was in the building.  I  hope everyone who got hurt recovers from injuries quickly and the people at the Big Sight and Wonderfest make sure something like this never happens again. 

Now on to the report.  I’ll be writing about what a day spent at Wonderfest is like.  The items seen at wil be picked up on another post. This is mostly a report on what’s it like to go there.

I got to the Big Sight at around 8AM and already the tempature was close to 34 °C (Around 94 °F) with the  humidity really really high.  The train station in the photo is the Kokusai Tenji Jou Station ( International Exhibit Hall)  which I used to get there.  Though the Big Sight can be seen in the distance and may seem close it’s actually a 10 minute walk to get there.  That Star Wars battleship kinda looking thing you see in the third photo is where we’re going.

The scary thing about this Wonderfest was that despite the heat and humidity the lines were a lot longer then the lines for the winter Wonderfest.    The first photo was where the line curved and went in a different direction.  In the end the story was that the line got two train stations long before the event started.  I know it looks like a refuge camp but don’t worry it gets worse once you climb that stairs you can see in the distance.

We’re now at the stairs you saw before.   This is believe it or not around the halfway point and there are still tons of people in line above us.  A look behind tells you how long the lines are.

Even after you climb the stairs it’s the same story. Lots of people in lines waiting to get in.  

A few minutes later the first sign that shows this is actually the Wonderfest can be seen.  Of course we’re not quite there yet so there are people still in line.   About 800 crazy people usually get in line the night before the event so most of the people you see here probably have spent the night in line.

Finally we’re inside and looking down on the company booths that were set up in the center.  As it hadn’t started yet it’s not crowded yet but once the doors open you can bet it’s going to be a jungle in here. I’ll be doing a detailed company booth report later so check out that for what they had at each booth.?

Ever wonder what’s it like to get in line for a event limited item? The first photo is what the CM’s booth looked before the show started. You may notice the pile of Ride Armors that are on the table that’s a part of what they were selling this year.  The second and third photo were taken when I was in line to get them for a few friends.  It took around 15 minutes from once we got in line till we got to buy the actual item.

After the event I didn’t take too many photo’s of the crowd but the few I took looked like this. The first was taken at the Gurren Lagann booth around 30 minutes after the doors opened.  How peaceful it looked when it wasn’t so crowded can be seen in the first photo of the now I’m inside section above.  The second and third were taken around 1PM at the amature section when the crowd is at their worst.

As a bit of humor I took a photo of the vending machine there at around noon.  Already most of the drinks were sold out and guess what was remaining?  You guested it a few cans of coffee and a energy drink were all that were left.  In the end coffee won the war and officially was declared the drink you don’t want most when you are dehydrating.     I may sound like I’m joking but it was that hot and sweaty I may add.

I’ll be putting up posts each day from the Wonderfest  covering everything from the company booths to the Godzilla hand puppet that was seen at our booth at AX so don’t miss it.