ApollyCon 2023 Recap: Day One

Well, I'm sort of recovered and back together after the craziness that was 2023's ApollyCon, so I decided to write up my recap of day one. Day one includes registration, the Blood Forest event, and a Bookish Box sale on Thursday, April 27th. I won't share much about the flight in on Wednesday, April 26th, just know that I had to get up early, my dad and uncle drove me two hours to the airport, and I packed a bag to check and took a duffel as a carry-on (which was a mistake, as you'll see at the end of this recap series). Once I got to D.C., I waited for a couple of hours to meet my friend at the airport, ate some Dunkin', went to the hotel on a shuttle, unpacked, and then later that night we went to an Italian restaurant nearby that was okay. It wasn't anything special. Oh, but I do need to mention that I packed 11 books to take with me to get signed, and, I thought it was pretty smart of me to pack them in an empty plastic comforter bag with booksleeves, plastic Ziploc bags, and regular plastic bags to protect them from the downpours that were predicted throughout the weekend.

Amazingly, my friend and I didn't have to do anything Thursday morning until registration, which we couldn't line up for until noon. So, we decided to get breakfast at a diner. Again, it was okay. Nothing special. I got a cheese omelet and she had waffles. Your basic diner food. We also prepped a bit to make sure we were ready for the Blood Forest event that night, which we planned to dress up for in your basic Ren Faire attire.

Registration this year was so much better than last year. While my friend and I got there early, since getting there early guaranteed better JLA signing tickets, we didn't really need to. It seemed like things weren't as crazy, and a lot of people decided to just wait and come down for registration later on in the day. It was so much less crowded and chaotic. It helped that my friend and I didn't go to the zoo and get all sweaty/tired beforehand too. That was a bad call for last year. It made us exhausted the entire convention. I ended up getting a JLA signing number in the upper 50s, which was a vast improvement from my 200/300 number from last year's registration fiasco.

At registration, we got to pick up out Titan bags, which are filled with the main draw of the convention--the ApollyCon edition of A Light in the Flame. But surprisingly, the Titan bag also came with a lot of other books, some we knew about in advance and some we didn't know about. I knew about the gorgeous edition of The Longing of Lone Wolves by Lana Pecherczyk and the paperback of Magical Midlife Madness by K.F. Breene, since they'd shared the info in the ApollyCon Attendees Facebook group. However, I didn't know we'd have a bunch of other books in the bag. Honestly, it was so many that I had to leave some behind at the hotel. The ones I decided to keep were My Lucky #13 by Piper Rayne, We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian, A Court This Cruel and Lovely by Stacia Stark, and A Dragon's Promise by Katee Robert. The bag also came with a booksleeve and some other goodies. Oh, and I almost forgot! Before registration, we did stop by the Barnes & Noble room. I bought the foiled edition of A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire. I wanted to buy all three of the foiled ones they had for each of the first three books, but I knew I didn't have enough space in my suitcase for that.

We got through registration pretty fast, so the only things left to do before the Blood Forest event that evening at 6 p.m. was to eat and pick up the cart we were borrowing from a fellow attendee. We ended up dropping our Titan bags back at our hotel, which was a short walk away from the convention hotel, the Hyatt, since we had to kill some time, and then we walked back to the Hyatt to pick up the cart later. Cart secured, we then went back to our hotel (lots of walking back and forth this day) to get dressed up and ready for the event.

  We waited in line at the event and it was warm, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the lines we'd experienced in 2022. Those things were sweaty to the max. Plus, the staff was handing out water bottles throughout the entire weekend, so that was nice. We didn't have to purchase any more water than the large bottles we bought at CVS on Wednesday evening. The Blood Forest event was the one I was most excited for, as FBAA is my favorite series right now, if you couldn't tell by my numerous posts about it, so I was happy I didn't have to get sweaty waiting in line. And when we walked in, it was pretty cool. The walls were covered in the Blood Forest scenery and the cutouts of the main trio with Delano and Vonetta as wolven were there, just waiting for us to take pics. My friend and I got two photos together for each side first, but we went back later to get individual shots with each person character. I won't show the shots with her in them, just to respect her privacy, but they were decent photos. I like the one-on-one versions better, though.

They also had funny cutouts for head placement. Now, I tried to put my head in these things, and I just looked so dumb. So I'm not going to share those photos here, either. But you can see the empty versions. They are really cool, though, and Jemlin did an amazing job with the art. I honestly wish I could have prints of the versions without the holes in their faces. I do have shelfie/standee versions of the regular cutouts, but I'll show those later on. I'd like versions of these too because I'm greedy, though.

There were also cupcakes, but they were small and I got one that wasn't very fresh. My friend said hers tasted fine, so I think I just grabbed a bad one. But that's okay. I wasn't really there for the cupcake. After taking a few more pics of the scenery, my friend and I grabbed a seat to watch the JLA panel. We ended up getting a pretty decent spot, despite taking some time in the photo line earlier, so that was good. We also took a couple more photos up front as well.

JLA's panel was only an hour long, so she didn't get into too much I hadn't heard before. But, as always, her and the 1,001 Dark Nights/Blue Box Press publishers make for a great time. They're always funny and passionate about the series. I'm just glad that someone asked a Kieran question in the Q&A portion, and JLA confirmed we'll see more/a different side of him in A Soul of Ash and Blood..

Once the panel concluded, my friend and I went back to the cutouts to take some more photos while every one else was in line for their goodie bag. We were alone for a while, but then a crowd started coming, but we didn't let that deter us from getting a one-on-one photo with every character. I just had to do it. Sorry to everyone who had to wait. Lol. But after that, we took a couple of photos with the faceless cutouts too. Again, I'm not sharing those. They look so dumb. And then, we filed out of the event and got our bags.

Inside each Blood Forest event bag was the ApollyCon edition of A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, a mug (which sadly didn't make the cut on the way home. It was too heavy to try to get back into my cramped bags), and a small box. The small box was supposed to have a gummy in it that represented something that happened in The War of Two Queens, but sadly, mine didn't have the gummy in it. Not that I would have eaten it, but it was just kind of disappointing. We also got a hooded Blood Forest blanket! Now, while I do love the blanket, and I plan to use it, it wasn't a very practical choice to include as a free gift, since trying to get it back for the people flying in is a little difficult. But, I've already decided that next year, if I get tickets, I'll have to bring the carry-on suitcase, not just a small duffel, in addition to the giant checked suitcase. Ugh. 

With my favorite event over, we then went to my second-least favorite event. Well, technically, it was an event I was actually looking forward to that ended up disappointing me completely. The Bookish Box event was advertised as a place to meet authors, buy BB special editions, and get free prints signed. And while BB did have books for sale, they wouldn't let non-subscribers buy certain ones because of all the backlash they'd received online about selling subscription books to non-subscribers when their November, Deember, and so on boxes hadn't even been shipped out yet. Well, they didn't bother telling this to the ApollyCon Attendees group, because I was so excited to buy a copy of Between Wrath & Mercy from them. I got there, and they wouldn't even let me buy it. I was so mad. It was the one thing I wanted to buy. But my friend ended up buying a book, so the event wasn't a total waste. And we met and talked to a few of the authors (Holly Renee, Emma Hamm, Chloe C. Penaranda, and Lilian T. James), though not all of them had prints to sign, which was weird considering that was something BB advertised in their announcement as well.

After all that insanity, we took some time to collect ourselves, rearrange our bags of stuff, and then head back to our hotel to prep for Friday. The day that had us lugging around the most amount of books in the pouring rain! But don't worry, we were prepared! You'll get to read all about it in my day two recap, whenever I decide to write it. 😄