ApollyCon 2024 Recap: Part One

It's that time of year again. The time I try to get my ApollyCon recap up before I forget everything. Fortunately, this year is a lot easier to recap, simply because I didn't just attend, I had to volunteer during the major signing days, so no author pics during those days. I did get stuff signed though, despite being uber busy.

 

First, I'm gonna share the 10 books I brought with me to get signed. They included five JLA books, two Rebecca Yarros ones, and a book each for K.J. Sutton, S.M. Gaither, and Carissa Broadbent. I didn't think I'd be able to get more than that signed, so I didn't feel like lugging around the others if I wasn't sure I'd get signatures. I kind of wish I'd brought a Wendy Higgins book, though. She was pretty close to me,and I feel like I would've had some time. I did bring a Stacia Stark book that I didn't get signed, but she seems to attend every year, so I'll try again in 2025.

I'm going to start off the recap with what I did on Wednesday. I had to get up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport on time. Thankfully, my dad offered to drive me there for my 8:40 a.m. flight. Once I arrived in D.C., my friend, Sara, and I settled into our hotel, did some sightseeing, and ate at Nando's. You can see the Gaylord Convention Center, the ApollyCon location, in the bottom pic (above). It's a neat area. We wanted to go on the Ferris wheel, but we wanted to wait until dark, and unfortunately, by the time dark rolled around, we were too exhausted to go back. We ended up helping with moving bags and boxes of books for registration. They were very heavy. Our arms were dead afterwards. We crashed, ate some BBQ nachos and bread pudding, and slept after all that.

 

The next day was all about JLA. First up, was the volunteer signing with Jen and Rebecca Yarros. Both authors were extremely nice to offer volunteer-specific signing times. I wish more popular authors had done that, it made life so much easier. I'll cross my fingers it happens for next year too. But this pic is just me waiting in line to get my stuff signed and meet the authors.

Rebecca was the first line we went to, so I got Fourth Wing and Iron Flame signed by her. She was nice. I didn't have much to talk about with her, as everything about book one pretty much flew out of my head at that point and I hadn't read book two yet. I know I thanked her for doing a separate signing time for volunteers. But that's all I got.

  JLA was next up. I got Cursed and four Lux books signed by her. She actually remembered Sara and I from previous years, so that was cool. She talked to me about Kansas City east vs. west, which I know very little about. I live like four hours away from KC. My friend does live near it though, and I think JLA was continuing the conversation she had with her, thinking I also lived in that area. Haha.

The next couple of hours just consisted of us being dorks and taking photos in front of the various signage around the convention center. They even had pawprints along the carpet to represent wolven for the FBAA event later that night, called the Nite of the Rite (NotR).

Before that though, we got to see the Blood Forest set up again! That was cool! It was just in the waiting area for the NotR event. I, of course, had to take pics with all of the cardboard standees again. How could I resist? Unfortunately, the Kieran they had from the Blood Forest event was inside, so I didn't get to take pics with him until later, but I still love Poppy and Cas too. And Delano, of course.

The NotR and every JLA event are the entire reason I go to ApollyCon. I don't think I'd go if she didn't have something like it every year. With last year's being the Blood Forest and this year's being the NotR, I'm thinking 2025 will be Sera and Nyktos themed. They don't have standees yet. But anyway, there were a ton of new standees this year, and of course, I had to take pics with all of them. They had a new Poppy and a new Cas, Kieran as a wolven, the main trio together, a spot for taking pics at the Willow, a very cool background that looked like the inside of the castle party, a new Kieran, a Tawny, a new Cas, Viktor, and a Cas and Poppy in their Rite attire. Aren't they all amazing?!

I also bought myself some prints and a keychain where they had merch stations. I missed out on the free Jemlin bookmarks and other goodies. I was so disappointed about that. But thankfully, they seemed to be the same artwork as what's on the Prettygal cards I already own. Now, technically, I didn't receive all of the items that are pictured here during the NotR, but they either revolve around the NotR or FBAA. Of course, I had to buy the shelfie versions of the standees they had for sale. Though, my friend wasn't able to buy them for us until Friday. I also got more of the preorder incentive bookmarks and temporary tattoos from 1,001 Dark Nights. I think this is my third or fourth set of all the bookmarks. I don't know what I'm going to do with all of them. I also nabbed a NotR Daneer bookmark off an empty chair when the attendees left the event. If no one else wanted it, I figured why not? Ha ha. 

 

JLA also had a discussion and a Q&A panel with her publishers. She talked about the TV show process, Kieran and Cas's penetration abilities (lol), and just the same basic info she normally discusses at these events. I did miss some of it, as volunteers had to stand at the back of the room, and my legs were too tired to just stand, so Sara and I went back to the standee area to continue taking pics and buy some merch. But, that was all we did on Thursday. I'll share Friday and Saturday exploits with you at some point. I figured this post was getting too long to include all of the days, though.