I have to be honest, I got a lot of my inspiration for this from dejavudea's video from 2013 -- and while it's really helpful, it's two years old at this point and I know that I rely heavily on visuals, something that I felt was missing from her video.
This is a guide specific to Katsucon, and I'm going to skim over a lot of general con rules because I feel like that deserves its own post. This is mainly for someone who hasn't attended Katsucon before and wants to know a little bit more before it happens.
Also as a disclaimer: I've never stayed at a hotel for Katsucon. I've always commuted from home. I'm leaving out any details regarding staying within National Harbor itself because I feel like Dejavudea covers staying within the Gaylord well and I have no additional information to give.
This is going to be fairly image-heavy, so I'm putting everything under a cut.
First of all: cosplay-related suggestions.
It's going to be really cold. It's February. The Gaylord is situated right on the Potomac, and there's usually an icy-cold wind coming off it at all times. There's also the possibility for snow. If your cosplay is more suited for summer, please make sure to have adequate jackets / other clothing that can be easily put on / taken off for if you get cold within the Gaylord or if you leave to go eat. It really sucks to have to walk outside for dinner with any sort of skin exposed to the elements. Make sure you're prepared to have to be "normal" in the case that you actually get cold. (And along that line, the Gaylord staff is likely to ask you to cover up if your cosplay is really revealing or if you're not following the shirt / shoes rule. Make sure you're prepared so they can't give you grief.)
Also along the lines of "normal people clothing": the lines to pick up badges can be really long, and that means you're standing on a concrete floor for up to a few hours. The convention center is also pretty big, meaning you're probably going to be going up and down stairs quite a few times as well as walking back and forth across the building. If your cosplay shoes aren't very comfortable, make sure to have backups! Go for slip-on sneakers if you can.
Food!
There's a good amount of restaurants within National Harbor, but a good portion of them are sit-down and / or fairly expensive. The only restaurant I've gone to during the convention is Potbelly's. I can't remember what time we went to get dinner, but it wasn't terribly slow and it's easily within budget. There's also a McDonald's nearby, but that probably requires driving to because it's not really accessible by sidewalk (as far as I remember). There's also a CVS within National Harbor if you're okay with that (and assuming they carry enough food to feed a convention crowd), and a Subway a couple blocks away that I never knew about until just now.
I tried to mark the map, but if it doesn't show up, Potbelly's is at 146 National Plaza and Subway is at 110 Waterfront St. If you're going to either of those, I would suggest turning left on Waterfront St once you walk out of the Gaylord and follow it down. If you're going to Potbelly's, turn left at the first intersection you can, and it'll be on your right. (I don't have any advice regarding Subway, sorry!;; )
No matter what, though, I'd really suggest bringing snacks. Lots of them. And lots of water and / or Gatorade. I think Katsucon would be the best con to have "bird meals" (frequent snacking instead of normal meals) out of the ones in the area just because the surrounding food situation isn't the greatest. If you have the money or an open time window, though, I'd really suggest getting at least one decent meal a day while you're there just to make sure you've got enough fuel to keep going.
Parking
The Gaylord's parking garage is $19 for 3 - 24 hours. There are three other parking garages within a few blocks that are $13 for 12 - 24 hours. Your choice is really up to your cost vs distance tolerances; we've parked in both the Gaylord's and the public garages, and they're about equal when you balance the extra money vs having to walk more in the cold. Look here for more information since I haven't actually driven down to Katsucon myself to know all the specific details;;
#Lobbycon
Katsucon and Anime USA are great in the fact that you don't have to have a badge to get into the building itself -- they're in hotels, so there are going to be non-congoers as well. The atrium is a great place to camp out if you don't have a badge, especially down by the fountains. The fountains are a popular gathering / photoshoot place and are accessible without a badge. There are tables scattered outside of the fountain area that are great to camp out at if you can grab them. They're located in fairly high-traffic areas if you want to people watch. There are also little ledges / half-walls that you can sit down on as well if all the tables are taken.
I know last year they were checking for badges around the gazebo, and I'm assuming they're going to keep up the practice, so I don't think you'll be able to camp out on that level. The sitting area just off the entrance / check in area is great, though, and if you do it right you may be able to watch both the gazebo and the fountains.
Anything outside of the atrium usually requires a badge, though. I think it may be possible to walk around the main stairwell / hallway in the convention center itself, but I've never really tested it out.
Building Layout
To me, the Gaylord has a kind of strange floor plan. It took me a while to get used to how to get between levels, and even last year I made a few mistakes. I borrowed a couple images off the internet and drew on them to hopefully help. I don't own any of the pictures below.
I tried to keep the same color scheme between all the images, so hopefully if one of them is really hard to read, you can at least match the colors up together.
(This picture and the next one are from here. I realize the green text is really hard to read, sorry;; it says "above entrance level".)
There are three main levels in the atrium: gazebo, lobby, and fountains. The main entrance from Waterfront St leads to the lobby level, which is marked with teal. You have to go upstairs to get to the gazebo (marked in green) and downstairs (marked in blue) to get to the shops and fountain areas. The escalators are split up so there's only one direction (up / down) and stairs on each side of the lobby. I tried to mark the map with the direction the escalators go, but I may be wrong since I'm relying on my memory from last year.
The yellow and pink star / asterisk shapes are going to correspond to another photo down below!
I don't go to many panels, so I'm not very familiar with the rooms other than for registration and Dealer's / AA. I marked the general area of the stairs -- the staircase for the bottom two levels is a straight shot, but the stairs to the third level is at 90 degree angle to that. So, if you're going from registration to a panel on the third level, you'd go up two flights of stairs and turn right to go up another flight.
(This photo is from here.)
The yellow and pink shapes come into play here! This is what the lobby looks like right inside the Waterfront St entrance. The hotel desk is to the left. If you want to get out to the atrium, you can either turn right before the desks (the yellow star) or at the end of the hallway (the pink star). The pink star also leads towards the convention center part of the Gaylord.
(This photo is from here.)
This is what the atrium looks like from above! It's the same information as the first map for the most part. If you want to get to the convention center part from the atrium, follow the orange arrows!
So that's basically my crash-course on Katsucon! I know there's probably a lot of information I haven't covered, but this is the stuff I've learned that I could easily share in a blog post. If there's still something you're curious about, I would suggest looking for vlogs on YouTube. Dejavudea and the other members of DTP have good Katsucon vlogs, and I'm sure there are other vloggers who have covered Katsucon before. Do lots of research!
Above everything though, I really hope you guys will have fun! Katsucon is always my favorite, and I hope you get to experience a fun and carefree / stress-free weekend!
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