Me and Heather (w/friend) must have just missed each other - I got there yesterday at around 11:30 as well. This time I brought my camera to take a few pics - mostly of the exhibits, etc. Tried to upload into RZ but something about secruity is stopping it!? Oh well, I'll try again later. The hot spots of course were the autograph lines and gatherings around the info desk. There was a problem a little after 12pm concerning the schedule - which are announced an hour ahead - so you have dozens of people just staring up waiting for the change - then the chaos (OBM was probably in the group) of getting to the lines quick enough. (*My feelings on that later) Lucked out with Jay Bruce because he was signing autographs in the Redheads area (he's this year's spokesperson), so I snapped a few pics of him there. Picked up a few Grapper ornaments handed out along with the baseball cards (and coupons).
They talked about the Caravan on the main stage but I didn't see any schedule (but they did have the HUGE tour bus they will be using on display).
Once again, I tried to avoid the food - and it smelled great - but did break down to buy 4 cups of ice cream (which were a gooey mess by the time I got home)...
* For those of us (me and including the Teamsters) who remember past RedsFests know that the hour scheduling is just a recent (2? years) addition to the event. It used to be that the schedule was already set for the 2 days and you could plan ahead. The problem (both with the photos but mostly with the autographs) were that people would camp out, sometimes more than an hour ahead causing major logjams. Also, there was no limit (IIRC) on how many items you could have autographed. They tried a voucher system for the autographs for one year but that was a MAJOR headache because you had to stand in two lines. So, since I'm a "photo" person I like to blame the autograph seekers for this pain in the butt...
That's really the reason for me not getting too many photos of the players - I luv my Reds but I don't have the patience to hang around waiting for the opportunity. BTW, saw many people with suitcases full of stuff to be autographed...
Hello, ebay!