ApollyCon 2022 Recap: Day One

I've finally recovered enough emotionally and physically (mostly physically) to write up my 2022 ApollyCon recap posts. Today's post will cover Day One of ApollyCon, which mostly consisted of registration and one late-night event, but I'm also going to talk about the day before. Travel day. Yay! Not. Oh, and just to make it clear, this was my first time attending ApollyCon. It was also the first time I'd been on a plane and traveled out of the state since pre-pandemic days.

So my journey from Missouri to D.C. began on Wednesday, July 27. My first connecting flight to Atlanta had already been delayed multiple times due to the pilots being unable to fly without a certain number of rest hours in between flights. So the trip was starting off great, especially with the eight books I was lugging around in my suitcase and my backpack, as shown above (Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater not pictured since she canceled last-minute, but I still carried it halfway across the country, first. Yeesh). Funnily enough, though, I did run into a friend from high school who was on my same flight. That was fun. Then, when I landed in Atlanta, I walked all the way to another terminal instead of taking the underground bus service they offered. Because I was stupid and didn't realize how much walking I'd be doing over the course of the trip. I should've saved my legs. Lol. But eventually, I made it to D.C., and then I took a Lyft to the AirBnB my friend and I were staying at. It was not an ideal unit, mostly due to cleanliness reasons. The area outside was fine, but the inside was a little icky. The trash hadn't been taken out, the carpet was dirty, and there was only one blanket on the bed! No other blankets in the cupboard or anywhere else! There wasn't even a second sheet on the bed! It just wasn't ideal.

Once I was finally settled at the AirBnB and since my friend had already arrived a few hours ago, we went out to buy some empty boxes and bubble wrap at the nearest UPS so we could ship all the extra books we figured we'd receive throughout ApollyCon weekend. (This would turn out to be a very smart plan, but more on that in my future recap posts.) And we also stocked up on drinkage and snacks for the next few days at the Whole Foods across the street. We were pretty tired by then, so we decided to watch a movie on Disney+, The Jungle Cruise, which neither of us had ever seen before, while we ordered DoorDash and prepped for the next day. We got Man vs. Fries for dinner. They basically just put fries in a ton of different food options. We each got a giant burrito that was the size of a small child along with some fried Oreos. My burrito was a chicken bacon ranch one. It was very delicious. Obviously, neither of us finished our burritos in the first round. Both of ours lasted as leftovers throughout the weekend. The Oreos didn't make it past the night, however. Haha.

After getting a fairly decent night's sleep on a bed that squeaked every time you moved, we got up super early (like 5:45 a.m., even after losing an hour), to begin our trek to the Smithsonian National Zoo. We took a Metro line, which was quite the nostalgic moment for me as a previous New Yorker. It almost felt like I hadn't left NYC, though D.C. was a lot cleaner than the Big Apple. Smelled nicer too. Eventually, we made it to the zoo after a short trek off the Metro station. I don't feel like you all need a list of every animal we saw at the zoo, but I will say that our feet were very tired by the end, and we only stayed for a few hours.

 

Around noon, we left the zoo to make our way to ApollyCon registration, which started at 3 p.m., with lineup starting at 2 p.m. We took the Metro and walked some more before briefly stopping at a restaurant to grab a bite to eat. We split an order of fries and each got a shake (mine was a Black & White) at Good Stuff. And yes, it was good stuff! Haha! Then, it was off to the hotel again.

  Registration was a disaster, which I now know could mostly be blamed on the hotel staff overbooking event space, but some things could've been better on the ApollyCon team's end too. Like the fact that my friend and I had to split up because my last name fell in the A-L category and hers was in the M-Z category, despite saying in the Facebook Group that if friends lined up together, they could get similar ticket numbers. Well, we didn't end up getting similar ticket numbers at all. No one did. Because they gave numbers out randomly for some strange reason, so there was no need at all for anyone to have lined up early. This made me pretty mad. I was even madder that most of my tickets were in the 200+ range, despite me being only 30th or so in line. My JLA ticket was #509! It was very aggravating. Plus, it was very hot and crowded in there. The masks also made it stuffy and hard to breathe. I'm honestly surprised no one passed out. But we got our badges and Titan bags. That's all that mattered. And with the Titan tickets--the highest ApollyCon ticket tier--came one more very special thing...

The exclusive ApollyCon edition of A Shadow in the Ember by JLA. My core motivation for attending the event. I also got a few other books and some swag items in the Titan bag. The books were Perfect Assumption by Tracey Jerald, Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau, and Blood Laws by Lexi C. Foss. My friend got the same in hers except one. I can't remember which one she didn't get, though. I just know she got a contemporary romance witchy book instead.


 

The swag items in the Titan bag were pretty cool. There was an ApollyCon pen, a Jennifer Estep notepad, an ApollyCon luggage tag, a fun paper doll romance dude, a Romantasy word fridge magnet set, a micro first aid travel kit, and two ApollyCon screen cleaners (at least there were two in my bag). Most of the items that were in the bag you can see in the picture above, though the Feeling Stabby badge, raffle coupon, stickers, and extra pen did come from other event swag bags. You can also see my yellow ApollyCon A group lanyard and badge at the top. ApollyCon B group ticket holders got a black version, which I thought was cooler, but I do love my yellow badge too.

Once we got all our stuff, my friend and I booked it to find food before we needed to line up for an event later that night. First off though, I needed to go to the nearest CVS because I ended up forgetting my phone cable charger for my portable charger. It wasn't exactly a close walk after all the walking we'd already done, but it wasn't terrible. We were so tired that we just ended up eating chicken nuggets at the McDonalds nearby. Then, we headed back to the hotel to wait around before we could line up for the Sourcebooks Casablanca event at 7:30 p.m. There was a rule in place that no one could line up until an hour before the event started, but a lot of us who were there early kind of gathered together and ended up forming an unofficial "line." Since there were only 300 spots available, we were lucky this worked. We were able to get in. My friend and I sat at the Sheath table. (All the tables were named after weird romance/dirty/strange sayings.)

I guess I should back up and say that as we walked through the entrance, we were able to nab a free book. My friend and I both grabbed a copy of Maria Vale's The Last Wolf, as it was really the only paranormal/fantasy-type book on the table. We were also handed our "ticket" which was a giant poster with the words "Slow Burn... or Smutty?" on it. Because I was flying across many states, I decided to fold mine up. It was just way too big. But after all that, we grabbed a cookie and an ice cream and sat down at our Sheath table. From there, chaos ensued.

The Sourcebooks presenter (I cannot remember her name), kind of struggled to take control of the room, so it was super loud in there. She introduced the attending authors, one of which you can see at the mic in the above pic. It's Laura Thalassa discussing how her books will now be published through Sourcebooks. And, with Madison from the Princess of Paperback Booktube channel, the presenter tried to describe the trivia game we'd be playing. Again, it was super loud, no one could hear or see the tiny projected screen, and it was kind of a mess.

Sadly, our team didn't end up winning any of the trivia rounds. And though, Laura Thalassa did sit at our table briefly, she sat too far away from my friend and I to even really talk to her. (It would have been too awkward for me to feel comfortable talking to her anyway. I don't enjoy forced interactions like that.) I did get a couple questions right in the trivia game, however. One was about Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy getting together. If I remember the other, I'll try to include it here later too. Haha. Now, even though we didn't win the big B&N gift card prize, everyone got a little red "Slow Burn or Smut?" bag which had an ARC of Katee Robert's Wicked Beauty in it. A book that had already been released. I guess Sourcebooks just had a bunch of extra copies laying around. Lol. I hadn't read it yet, so that was okay with me. My friend on the other hand was a little miffed that she'd already read the book.

When all that was over, we could line up to get our poster tickets signed by the attending authors. Attending authors included Laura Thalassa, Scarlett St. Clair, Amanda Bouchet, B. Celeste, Xio Axelrod, and Maria Vale, among others I can't remember at this time. Because it was so late, my friend and I only stood in line for Amanda Bouchet and Laura Thalassa. We would've stayed for Scarlett too, but we were just exhausted by then and the line was too long. I think it was 11 p.m. by the time we actually got out of there. But anyway, you can see Amanda Bouchet's table in the above pic. We got to tell her that her series was one of our book club reads, so that was fun!

After all that insanity, it was time to make the journey back to the AirBnB. We ended up taking a bus, but the walk to the bus stop was soooo long. And it was in a kind of shady spot next to a gentlemen's club. There were a lot of random dudes walking around with very few women in sight. But eventually, our bus showed up and we got on. And we didn't pull the stop cord in time to get off at our stop, so, yay! More walking! The driver did ask me what my shirt said as I got off the bus, which was kind of a fun conclusion to a chaotic night. It was a Dean Winchester shirt, just FYI. But, needless to say that once we walked back to the AirBnB, we pretty much crashed. Well, we tried to prep for the next day as much as possible. Some were more successful at that than others. However, that's a story for the next recap post of Day Two. Stay tuned!