STGCC 2011 Day 1 - Before Doors Opened

When Red Dot Diva foggily woke up at 7.45 am Sat morning, she read a tweet from ReedPOP's Peter Tatara saying that a line for STGCC was already forming at Level 3 of Suntec. Then, she noticed that his tweet was sent an hour before she had even crawled out of bed!

When she arrived at the Suntec convention hall at 9.20 am, there was a line snaking round the 3rd floor towards the main escalators. This evidently showed the level of interest for this year's STGCC despite all the complaints and naysayers.

From the way, the hype has been going, Red Dot Diva was well aware that most of the early folks were targetting for Hot Toys' gorgeous limited edition exclusives - the 12" action figures of (Batman (Batman Begins)), Shadow Predator and Ironman Mark IV.

To find out how early the first few people had lined up for, she spoke to the very first guy at the VIP line, sales assistant Mr Roshadiyanto bin Ibrahim. Roshadiyanto confessed that he was already at the Suntec convention centre after work, which was about 10.15 pm the night before!

Because the convention centre's main doors were closed, he had waited at the bus-stop outside the building. This was just so that he could be the first person in line when the main doors opened again at 6 am. Such dedication!

Roshadiyanto, who is very familiar with the Asian comics artist guests, was aiming to get signatures from them especially Carlo Pagulayan's and Ardian Syaf's.

Another pop-culture fan, Jeffrey Lee, who was standing about 30 persons away from Roshadiyanto, was waiting in line since 7.45 pm. He had decided to buy the VIP pass because he wanted to be able to get on the fast-track lines for autographs and signings. Jeffrey was at STGCC particularly for the toys this year because in his opinion, there were not many "big-name" guests at the Walk of Fame this time round.

It did seem that if one was aiming for the hot Hot Toys exclusives on Day 1, the chances for anyone getting them would be very slim if one was not in line before 9 am!

Red Dot Diva trolled the waiting line for a geekette to interview, but the sex ratio of the attendees were skewed towards the men! The few women who were dotted along the queue seemed to be +1's.

How would Red Dot Diva know who is a geek girl, one asks? A geek girl would *know* a geek girl when she sees one. Trust the Diva.

So the lack of geekette-ness at the waiting line was a little disappointing. Guess full-time geek girls are still like unicorns on this island!

Red Dot Diva was not shy about her nerdiness though, as evidenced here:

Island Diva NERD represent!

While collecting her media pass at the booth outside the exhibition hall, Red Dot Diva bumped into STGCC's Special Guest of Honour Paul Levitz, who remembered her from the media preview. Paul noticed Red Dot Diva's t-shirt immediately and gave an amused chuckle. "I like that! There's no reason not to be proud to get your Nerd on!" he said.

A1 Approval from a Legend. W000t!

Standing just outside Hall 401 with fellow blogger Ryan, Red Dot Diva was introduced to a rather hyper Lance Fensterman (head honcho man from ReedPop team). They also had to comfort a rather lost-looking Mike Armstrong.

Mike isn't sure where he is

She further noticed award-winning Andy (from popular blog, ToysREvil) waiting to enter the hall, and spotted the GnB folks strutting by her with a retailers' pass.

Not long after, doors opened punctually at 10 am and the happy VIP-ers were let into the exhibition hall first, followed by the press people.

Red Dot Diva had a busy schedule on Day 1. But that did not stop her from geeking out in a major fashion!

She wanted to post more stuff up but her tired brain cells are now protesting, so more STGCC Day 1 goss will just to be published later!

Stay tuned!