I recently went to TwitchCon for work! The trip was important for many reasons, and it marked the first time I was returning to physical conventions. I think this con was a great way for me to ease myself back into face-to-face interactions with the community and my coworkers. Super glad we all got to go!

One of the reasons I was looking forward to this trip was that I and the other 2 community team leads would be meeting as a trio for the first time. I had previously met both of them separately, but we were ecstatic to get to do a proper hangout. We talk to each other literally every single day on our work Slack—and even outside of it. It’s safe to say that I love working with C and A dearly.

That’s the main reason why I chose to take a flight plan that would make me for travel for 10 hours instead of a direct option for my flight into San Diego on Friday. The direct option would’ve had me landing at 9 or 10 PM that Friday night. So instead, I woke up at 4:30 AM in Vancouver, took a flight to Denver, and then did a layover to finally get to San Diego at about 3 PM. That meant we’d have a good amount of time to meet up, have dinner, and just hang out!

Arriving at The US Grant, I was wow-ed by the 5 star service and how pretty our hotel was. But I was also immediately met with an issue. My corporate card had a PIN, but I didn’t know what it was (or had it properly set up). They wouldn’t let me use the card’s tapping feature… so my card got declined. Luckily, A flew in about an hour after me and she gave the hotel her corporate card. Phew! The two of us quickly freshened up, and I visited CVS for water and a sandwich. I hadn’t eaten since 5 AM that morning, so I was ravenous. Then it was time for us to meet up with C!

C was in several meetings that morning and afternoon, so she couldn’t get to us until dinner. We opted to go to Juan Tequila for our meal. A asked our waiter what drink he’d recommend, and got whatever it was he proposed. And ended up hating it. C finally got to us and offered to take A’s drink so she can order another one. A then panicked when the waiter came back and ordered the same drink but in a different flavour. We had a good laugh about it 🤣 It was SO good to finally sit down with both of these girls for a proper meal!

After dinner, we opted to not hit up the parties that were going on in town…but instead went to Trader Joe’s and Target. BEST DECISION EVER. C and I both came back to Vancouver with our luggage full of snacks and supplies from the States. We then went back to our hotel, ate snacks, and talked into the night.

The next morning, I woke up to meet some business partners at the Grant Grill—our hotel’s restaurant. I ordered a smoked salmon bagel and it was loaded! They had this crispy salmon skin and egg roe on top. But I guess for $18, it better be a good bagel. After a lovely chat and a good attempt at finishing my bagel, I finally went down to TwitchCon to meet A again at 11 AM.

The two of us patrolled the convention, checked up on the Twitch Rivals stage to get our bearings, and then we grabbed some Nessies from the hundreds we had shipped to the convention to give out. We were looking for community members who were cosplaying characters from our game, and we also ended up handing some out to artists in the Artist Alley who had put up Apex fanart! It was loads of fun, and lots of people came up to to ask us how they could get a Nessie. Lucky for them, we had loads to spare, and we revealed to them that if they went to the Twitch Rivals stage when it was time for the Apex Legends games they might be able to get one.

I grabbed some goodies with me that morning: Canadian contraband! I bought a bunch of Canadian candy for our American friends and coworkers, and I walked around the convention with them. I gave lots out to our team, but also some to old friends I managed to catch at TwitchCon.

Our Twitch Rivals event ended up going overtime, and we also had to shorten the agenda. But the crowd was awesome and I hope everyone enjoyed it! It was then time for us to meet the rest of our Apex team for dinner.

We ate at Pendry’s Provisional Kitchen. We ordered a bunch of appetizers to share. Our side of the table consisted of J, M, M.D, and myself. We ate like 3 plates of the fatty bluefin tuna—thank you D for covering the bill! 😛 I also got the dry-aged New York steak as my main which was pretty yummy. A little bit of fat, and it was done relatively rare. I heard from my coworkers that the pizza was pretty mediocre, and the rigatoni was lacklustre too. I had two drinks here, and the first one was normal. My second one came with a fun celebratory straw, which was pretty random. But I ain’t complaining.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel to change. We then headed out again to meet up with our other coworkers and tried to hit up various parties. We ended our night at Trailer Park After Dark and took some silly photos to commemorate our trip.

The next morning, we hugged A goodbye. C and I would fly back to Vancouver at about 1 PM, but A’s flight was at 9 AM. We saw her off, then headed to Eggies for breakfast! I somehow had it in my head that it would taste exactly like Eggslut so I felt like it missed my mark. Which is silly because it was a really good breakfast sandwich still. When we got back to the hotel to pack up the last of our things, I opened my fridge to realize A had gotten us donuts from the day before and we still had to demolish them! I was thoroughly stuffed by the time we got to the airport.

I loved how everything we did was in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego. Everything seemed like it was a 10 minutes walk away, meaning I always felt like I could access my hotel if needed. The Gaslamp Quarter reminded me a lot of Gastown in Vancouver. It even kind of smelt like it?

San Diego’s car ride from and to the airport is so beautiful. They make everyone drive along the San Diego bay as you arrive and you’re immediately met with the amazing bayside views.

Super glad I got to go on this trip ❤️