Every year around Blizzcon time I’d hear that the only thing that comes close to Blizzcon awesomeness is the parties held in the lead up to Blizzcon. My twitter would be filled with people seeing their friends and/or people they’ve been following on socials just hanging out have a great time being nerds together. Last year the wowhead party even streamed the night, which was amazing to see. So I knew that when we went to Blizzcon, we’d need to go to at least one of these parties (even though the very idea of them terrified me).

This time around choosing which party to go to was made a whole lot easier by merging of the Wowhead AND Con Before the Storm parties into one giant nerd fest! It was an easy decision to support the kickstarter again this time around, and even better to be able to attend!

Even though we had spent (almost) the whole day at Disneyland, nothing was going to stop us from heading to the Con Before the Storm party. Not just because we wanted to meet some amazing friends, but also because we had so many treats to give out!

Thor was the mastermind behind these goodie bags, and spent a whole bunch of time finding Australian treats to take over and give to people. The no brainer was of course Tim Tams, but he also grabbed some Picnic bars, Caramello Koalas, Minities, Fantales and other stuff. Then he ordered little toy koalas from ebay… he really is such a darling with a big heart.

So, once we were back from the hotel after Disneyland we had showers and made an attempt to make ourselves presentable. Because it was Halloween I wasn’t sure if people were going to be dressed up. I mean, it’s USA and they’re very big on Halloween there, so there was a chance. But I wasn’t certain, which made deciding what to wear an absolute nightmare for me (who was already freaking out about the whole thing anyway). In the end I found a really cute headband that had a little witches had on it, then just went with a plain black dress with bright orange tights and orange belt. I figured this was reasonable middle ground. And the hat was just too darn cute! ❤

So off we went! We were a little late because of being at Disneyland so we missed some of the earlier panels at World of Podcasts, but thankfully arrived just in time to catch the last half of Raven (from Girls Gone Wow)’s panel, which was awesome!

During the panel I realised that the one and only Thyst was in the same row as me. I’ve always had a bit of a girl crush on her, and I had a goodie bag for her, too, so once Raven’s panel was done (and I could see she was swarmed by fans!) I awkwardly headed over to Thyst. You know how you get an image in your head of what someone is like in person, even though you’ve never actually met them? You paint a picture based on their twitter and streams and stuff and it never really lines up with reality. That was true meeting Thyst, but in the best way. She was so much nicer and sweeter in person! She was such a darling, putting up with me being super awkward and stuff. I was so glad to be able to meet her and thank her in person for being such an awesome person for the WoW community. Here’s a pic of me being beyond awkward meeting her.

By this point I could see that the crowd around Raven was dispersing, so I made my way over to meet both Raven and EJ. This was such a special moment for me because the Girls Gone WoW podcast was one of the first WoW related podcasts I listened to, and one of the few podcasts I still listen to to this day. I was so nervous to meet them both. I needn’t have been – they are both a kind and beautiful in person as they are on their show. They were both such a delight! We chatted away for ages, and all ended up heading off together (because I’m an awkward “hey I’ll come too!” person) to grab a drink and chat some more. EJ and Raven really are the type of people you could sit around and chat with for hours on end. Even though we were all exhausted for different reasons, we had a laugh and shared our predictions for the next 2 days as if we’d all been friends for ages. It was so lovely. ❤

One of the perks of contributing to the kickstarter for the party was getting a free spin of the prize wheel! Loads of companies had donated prizes for everyone to win, and everyone was guaranteed to win something. So I got in line for my spin. I won a prize from Razer, and chose a new mouse. I actually madly love my current mouse (a Corsair Scimitar!), but this prize was never really going to be for me anyway – I chose the mouse so that I could give it away to a guildie as part of our (now?) annual guild Christmas party, so it was nice to have something to give for that.

It was around this time that Talisen and Evitel were at one of the the meet & greet tables, but oh my goodness the line to see them lapped at least twice. So we decided to pass. Thankfully, not too long later I saw that Frazley had his meet and greet! I was a bit nervous about meeting him, but again, I shouldn’t have been. The heart on this guy is out of this world. He is so kind and just a downright good person through and through. And he seemed to genuinely pleased to see me. It filled my heart, I tell you! I was so glad I was able to catch him before Blizzcon to say hello and give him to Aussie treats ❤

For the rest of the evening we went around handing out Tim Tams to random people. We went and visited all the artists in the store area and gave them some Tim Tams (I was stoked to meet Eggu! A few years ago I won a competition where she drew my shaman! It was lovely to thank her in person for that). All of the artists were wonderful, and we may have bought too many pins lol It was really fun surprising people with treats. We will definitely do this again in future.

We were pretty pooped by this time but unfortunately couldn’t head off yet as I had been fortunate enough to win an art piece from the art gallery. Woot!! I LOVED the piece we won, too. It’s Queen Azshara by Moonpix and I just love it. The colours are beautiful (not that you can see in my rubbish pic below!) Just need to find a home for her.

The line to get the art pieces was pretty massive and took awhile, but the team behind the scenes were doing such an amazing job of getting everyone’s art to them as quickly as possible. They were bloody brilliant the whole night – that crew certainly know how to throw a good party!

We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel. It was really late (well, for me, who wanted a decent sleep before Blizzcon!) but on the plus side, being as tired as we were meant we fell asleep relatively quickly and slept pretty solidly until Blizzcon the next morning. Wheeee!!!! Those adventures coming up in the next post… stay tuned!