I ran one for almost ten years. ^_^ Here's some of the quick and easy tip info - I'm sure this is going to exceed the chara limit so may be in several parts:

1) Prepare yourself mentally and physically. It is going to be busy busy busy busy! Be prepared for crowds, lines, and heat. Prior to the convention get a lot of sleep and eat and drink well so you are well nourished and well hydrated when you start. You might want to take vitamins too to help ward off the inevitable exchange of colds among that many people.

2) Read the con web site - you will find many snippets of information prior to the convention including:
Logistical information - where to go to sign in (aka register), what to bring with you to confirm it's you at signin, what hours the registration desk is open, where to park and whether parking costs money or alternately where the con is so you can plan bus routes, etc.
Event information - planned guests, types of panel topics confirmed, how to sign up for various contests or limited-number entry events if you wish to enter. Hours of the art and model show, hours of the dealers' room and so forth.
Hotel information, if you are planning on staying over. It costs money but honestly I would never do a con again without staying there, it makes it hugely easier to stay for later programming and to get up at a sane hour and still make it to early programming. Of course, I'm usually hauling a trolley full of stuff along with me to *run* said programming, but it works the same for participants, *laugh*.

3) Pack! If you are staying over, make sure you have a light change of clothes for every day along with another layer you can add if it gets cold (as I recall evenings this time of year there can be damp and chilly). Toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, all the stuff you would pack for a vacation trip. Make sure to bring a good bit of spending money - hotel food is expensive, and you're highly likely to find a startling amount of desperately needed junk in the dealers' room. This is why I own 300+ small cute keychains. LOL

Take $20-40 and put it in a separate compartment somewhere and Do Not Touch It, this will be your emergency fund for food, transport, etc. if anything goes wrong with the plan or budget. If you are not staying over, a backpack works to carry the items you will need each day. Go for a stripped down list so you don't break your own back. I recommend: At least two pens, one will surely leave you, and you will need one for step 4 - a small notebook to write down info/tips/sites you hear about in panels or address info for new friends you meet at con. A second layer of clothing as mentioned above for chilly evenings or highly refrigerated video rooms. Deodorant! Apply it freely in the morning after your morning shower and reapply during the day (or if you have a room, take a second shower). "Fanboy funk" is famous because some teens have not yet learned that their body smells different now than when they were 9, and with all the bodies together the heat goes up fast - do your best to outclean them all. Water and deodorant are precious things for personal comfort. A camera! (and extra batteries or a charger cord for said same - if you have an extra memory chip, it is worth it to carry the .02 oz extra weight. A portable gameboy or lightweight magazine is ok to help keep you busy while waiting in line, but if you want to jettison that weight, there are other peeps around you in line to talk to for entertainment. ^_^ A bottle of water - drink early, drink often, because you don't notice how much you lose in heat and activity. A sandwich or two, or other portable source of nutrition in a pinch, both because it's hard to stop sometimes for hours on end and because it will be much cheaper coming from your house than from the con area. I recommend something like peanut butter and jelly that keeps well, gives you both a quick kick of energy and long-term protein, and avoids problems with going bad quickly that mayo would have. Worried about soggy jelly bread? The tea party tip for crisp sandwiches is to spread a thin layer of butter between bread and anything damp.

Things you will surely add to the weight of your pack include the con program, schedule, map, any interesting flyers or odds and ends from the flyer/promo table, and very possibly things from craft panels or odd giveaways that might come in your convention package if you pre-registered.

4) At con! Show up early!!! Wear Comfortable Shoes.

The first thing you should do if you have a room is check in to that if it's checkin time yet. Drop luggage in the room - but never leave anything irreplaceable/highly valuable in the room if you can help it, there is always a possibility of someone breaking in. If no room or not checkin time yet, next priority is checking in to the convention registration. If you read the site prior to con hopefully it'll have directions, but normally it's a big ol' desk at the front of everything with lots of people in line and leaving with convention bags. Lines are typically sorted by pre-registered vs. people registering on site. If you didn't pre-reg this year, and you like the con, I recommend pre-reg'ing next year as the price is much cheaper pre-con and you often get goodies in your bag that new reg folks don't get, and typically the line is shorter.

Once you have gone through the registration line, the first thing you should do is get thee to a quiet corner where ever you can find one (this does *not* count sitting in the middle of hallway traffic, despite some folks' apparent belief) and look through your con registration materials. You should have a badge - attach it firmly and securely to some part of your front upper torso where it is really easy to show to security folks in 5 seconds or less and thus avoid annoying you, them, or the people behind you when going in doors like the dealers' room. Make sure it's secure, as they're a pain to replace, requiring at least another trip through registration and often a modest replacement fee. Second - pull out the program book! Check for new guests you didn't see online, new events you didn't see online (there is always stuff confirmed well after the program book goes to print since the deadline is weeks prior to con), scan the con rules and information about artist alley, art and model show, dealers' room etc. There will be all kinds of details you may need to know, and it's good to absorb what you can in advance for planning.

Third - pull out the event schedule and your handydandy pen. The schedules are normally done in a grid of times down the side versus places across the top. Look at the place names and find them on the map that should be in your program book to get an idea of where they are in the hotel. For a large con, there may be two hotels or two convention sections split by a looooooong walk - it is always good to be aware of this before trying to get from one panel to another in 30 seconds or less. Use the pen to box in or otherwise mark the panels and events you are interested in - if there are two at once, mark them for first and second priority - that way if you find that the prior panel session is impossibly far away, you can switch to your second priority, if you show up and one is full, you can switch, and if your whim just changes later you have the second interest already marked so you don't have to search for it again. Check out your logistics - if you have panels on opposite ends of the hotel back to back, sit at the rear of the first panel room so you can leave five minutes before the end if you need to without disrupting the session. Did you leave an hour in the middle somewhere to eat??? Did you leave a block of time anywhere for the dealers' room? I'd recommend at least two hours your first time at a con - Friday has the best selection, Sunday afternoon has any markdowns that are going to happen. Autographs may be listed on the bottom of the schedule or back side - videos may be listed on a separate schedule. Honestly, I'd recommend skipping both - it's more valuable to hear a guest speak on a topic than to get their scribble in return for hours waiting in line while you miss the rest of the con, and videos you can do elsewhere although many people enjoy seeing them on a big screen. There might be special events in the video rooms, that's one thing to check on the schedule. There is also likely to be a video game room and gaming room - good for folks who want a chance to do this competitively or cooperatively with others, but I also tend to do that outside con time since it's not a once-a-year activity for me. Leave at least an hour on your open time for seeing the Art and Model show too - it may or may not be your cup of tea but you should see it at least once to decide, as there's often nifty stuff in there.

5) Con etiquette and sense - eat, drink, sleep at least 4 hours a night, more if you don't have Monday off to recover. Try not to squish up in a line until you're standing on someone else's feet - I've noticed this happens more on the East coast, but it does happen a bit in most places as people get bored and want to move forward even though the line itself has not moved. Be ready with a smile, feel free to say "nice costume!" or "hi there!" Although there is the occasional jerk, anime fandom as a whole is vastly more friendly than the outside world. A question like "did you make that yourself?" can lead to a happy hour talking. Please, thank you, excuse me are all great words as usual. If a guest session allows questions and they request one question per person, do not make it a "three parter."

Try to make staff's lives easier - while there is an occasional power tripping dork volunteer in security, for the most part every rule and request will be made with a sincere wish for your health and well-being and the well-being of the convention as a whole. If you don't understand why something is the way it is, feel free to ask, although if it's quite busy at the time, you might want to post the question to the web site contacts post-con instead - you're more likely to get an informed and fully thought through answer that way anyway as it's likely to be management answering vs. the volunteer who only heard half of what was said at the staff meeting. Bear with them, they're probably already fatigued on Friday from doing all the work it takes to set up the con, but if they are being obnoxious, make sure to get the *name* of the person vs. "It was this kind of medium sized person with brown hair, they might have had glasses but I'm not sure..." because management really does like to try to make sure all volunteers are fully trained and helping kindly but they need names to get the right one out of the two hundred on site. ^_^

If anything goes horribly wrong, go to Ops!!! If you lost stuff, they can help find Lost and Found, if you are hemorraghing they can call an EMT. Ops (short for con operations center) is there both to keep things and people running smoothly on the convention tracks and also to keep attendees running smoothly where they need a serious helping hand. On the other hand, if your main problem is you do not know what a "yaoi" is, go to the Info Desk and try to ignore their giggling. ^_^

If you search for convention tips or guide online I am sure you will find many more thoughts and helpful ideas. ^_^

Expect it to be busy, noisy, exciting, loud, crazy, crowded, very weird, fun, friendly, manic, and exhausting.
I hope that helps!
Becca

Cons are crowded and noisy but a ton of fun. I second the others in saying you should bring as much money as you can afford. There will be panels with artists and the like. It's kind of like going to listen to a speech or a seminar. Las time I was at Sakuracon in Seattle there was also an art room and rooms where they showed anime. Have you checked to see if Anime Boston has a website? They probably have lots of info there about the speakers and activities you can do.

Above all, HAVE FUN!!

~Leigh

Will work for anime collectibles....