Conventional Wisdom

Okay, so some genius pulled the fire alarm on Saturday. The whole Baltimore Convention Center had to be evacuated, everyone was out in the streets, it was total pandemonium, and it’s the one thing just about everyone will remember about Otakon 2010… and I totally missed it. I don’t just mean that I wasn’t in the crowd when the sirens went off, I mean I had NO idea anything had even happened. I was eating lunch in the hotel the whole time. Heck, I actually manged to head back afterwards, walk from one end of the con to the other and back, and STILL not realize anything odd had happened until I got back to the hotel! Clearly, Otakon is freakishly good at reestablishing normalcy.

(Historical Notes: Two things to add in retrospect.  One, I’ve since heard it claimed that the Baltimore Fire Department staged the evacuation deliberately in order to test the BCC’s compliance with various fire codes.  I believe this about as much as literally anything else I’ve ever heard a wound-up congoer claim, and I’ve heard kids insist that their hotel’s elevator skipped the 4th floor because of the Japanese weirdness about the number four.  Which is to say, I don’t particularly trust the source at all, but it IS a claim I’ve heard.  Two, this has gone on to be one of the most enduring pages of Conventional Wisdom ever, I guess because so many people DID go through it first hand.  What’s more, so many other conventions have gone through this that even people who’ve never even been to Otakon have probably put up with a fire drill at one con or another.  Animazement, Katsucon, MAGFest… heck, I’m writing this a week after Ichibancon, and even they had fire alarm scare.  This is what fire safety gets you, nothing but inconvenience.)