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Messages - sakaki

#1
@rawien In the past they didn't allow non-anime costumes. Of course i last competed a while ago so stuff maybe changed since then? The rules don't seem to allow it though. Go figure?

@Amanojaku Nah dude the problem with crappy judges is that the quality of the show will be brought down even more. Look at this year and how there were so few entries. I haven't competed since 2013 because nothing has ever gotten better (thought about it in 2016, then thought better of it). And i can tell you in 2013 there were a ton of amazing entries. Having novices win Best in Show with crap costumes DOES effect everything. Also not much motivation to enter when it sounds like most of the winners got $100. They had better prizing in the past.

I was mixed on the hosts. It seemed like some people enjoyed them. They were ok, not really much different from last year. And i mean at least they were better than some past shows (sorry Wendell).
#2
OK now that i'm not hungover any more i have to say something about the masquerade.  WTF is going on??? This year was such a freaking joke it is not even funny. So it looks like the judges were giving awards to everyone who did anything but a skit, like it's some kind of talent show. Oh, girls were dancing with their butts hanging out. Clearly that's good enough for Best in Show!!!! Oh, a Doomfist (WTF is Overwatch doing in the contest anyway??) did a flip. That's good enough for an award!! And the Space Marine got nothing and it looked amazing!! If non anime things got awards why didn't he?? This thing has become such a joke with terrible costumes winning the biggest awards. No wonder the good cosplayers stay outside and just take photos.
#3
My group hasn't received any information after the initial email saying we were in, either...or any response to our questions.

This is smacking of 2013, which makes me REALLY scared. It was hard enough to get my group to agree to enter again because of the disaster that year.

Please get back to us soon....
#4
Quote from: SquallLHeart on June 05, 2013, 01:53:00 PM
i've been hearing and reading so many different suggestions.. and each one has either been tried in the past before.. is actually still implemented in some way.. or something else completely different. the con environment is dynamic and things change from year to year.. for the better or worse... but it's an ongoing evolution with changes constantly made.

as i've mentioned a few times, the system that Fanime Registration was using this year was actually good.. and allowed for things they weren't able to do before. there's always going to be complaints.. and what they lacked in manpower and implementation of their system caused the problems everyone saw.

as a long-time con veteran who's been there and done that, that's my personal opinion.. they needed more volunteers.. more people... but it's not just that really, there were people who said Fanime should have just grabbed people from other departments.. or shift manpower to support reg.. as if it would easily work that way.. people require training to be able to follow the proper procedures.. to get it done correctly. such flawed logic from people who think they know better.

Wow. You know, I'd said my piece about the terrible, huge waste of time Cosplay Failure event and thought I'd be done with the forums. Reading this, though, makes me want to open my big mouth again.

Why do people think it's an excuse that the convention is run by volunteers? Almost *every* anime convention out there is run by volunteers. Big freaking deal. Not every convention out there has terrible line problems. Registration sucked in every single way possible. I'll reiterate in case you missed points other people have made:


  • No signage. I arrived at 7:15 and went to the ballroom as was mentioned online. Was rudely told by a volunteer that the line began outside. At that point in time, the corridor/stairway was clear of people - no indication that it was going to be that bad.
  • Made my way outside and had to find another volunteer to indicate where this long, snaking line of people began. Said volunteer was busy chatting away to other volunteers and it was difficult to even get her attention to answer this question. Again, no signage.
  • Waited. And waited. And waited. Saw some people further back with folding chairs and wondered what the heck has happened in the past to make some people even anticipate that.
  • Poor girl in front of me had her leg in a cast, had a crutch, and even fell down while waiting in line. She was told she could go up and skip the line but her two friends could not. She proceeded to wait in line for over an hour before someone else apparently told her she and her friends could go. Mighty kind of you, Fanime.
  • No one gave any indication of how much time everyone would be waiting in line. Had I known it would be over 6 hours I would have left. I should have read it as a sign of things to come - cough Cosplay Failure.
  • I did however hear some funny jokes in line upon reaching the Ballroom over 4 hours later. It was sad some sort of Stockholm Syndrome had set in and people would cheer and give high fives as each group of new prisoners was brought in. "Line inception" and the "levels of line hell" were heard.
  • Things really got bad though when I realized that room didn't actually have the registration. We'd all be forced to go into yet another room. People around me in line asked whomever was wandering that cattle call what the next room was like. "I don't know" was the only answer they got.
  • Finally reached the last and final room - and another 20 minute line. Everyone's spirits rose - only to find out that there were a total of 9 people checking people in and each person seemed to take 30 seconds or more - great.
  • After checking in, got into the last line. The booths (loved your last minute, hand-scribbled signage there!) were arranged alphabetically by first name!??! FFFFF. Who does this ever?
  • Absolutely loved the girl in charge of I believe K-L names. I politely walked up and handed her my id. She snapped at me "It's not printed. It will be 10 minutes." Um...excuse me? I said fine, I'll wait right here for it. She proceeded to yell at me for being in the way. I turned and looked - there was no one behind me. She also proceeded to be snippy to the next girl who did walk up to that booth - and of course, her badge wasn't ready either.
  • For that matter- no one had badges ready. All down the lane of names not one person was receiving a badge. I did have fun watching a volunteer continuously put the badges in the wrong spot, though. Oh, and no one told any of us that group pickups were handled at some other table. Awesome.

So let me see. What exactly was good about all of that? I would even argue that no, they didn't lack manpower. They lacked brains. Why were multiple people just walking around the ballroom - unable to assist people with questions, not keeping line jumpers in check (yes, that happened in that room too) - just being absolutely, 100% worthless.

LOL it must be SO hard to follow registration check-in procedures. Sorry to break it to you, it probably wouldn't have helped. If it takes upwards of ten minutes to print out crappy black and white *labels* - they either needed
a) more printers
b) pre-printed badges
c) more brains - oh sorry, this was a given
d) better planning - oops, there I go again

Flawed logic my right gluteus maximus. Probably could have put a thousand monkeys in a room and registration would have been faster and less painless- albeit with more Ebola virus.
#5
Totally agree with you. I too have a locked thread regarding the Cosplay Spectacular and all the issues there, and was super disappointed no one bothered to respond to any of it.

You know what? I also realized that the only fun I had was because of the people I was with and the people I met. And you don't need to attend a kluge like this to do that....

Thread locked in 3...2... ;)
#6
@ Angelx624 & luluko - you guys dodged a bullet. Consider yourselves lucky ;)

@ 01 - so you were supposed to be singing live to your video? That's absolutely terrible they didn't have a working mic for you.

@ Hakaru_Chan - No, you are absolutely wrong regarding the "Zeldamen" performance. You're mistaken if you think that I'm complaining about it because most of the participants are shirtless - that's not it at all - while I do take issue with their so-called "costumes" (a hat and underwear? okay....) - did you miss the part around 2:09 where two of them (red and purple) jumped onto another man's crotch (tingle and green) and are physically gyrating on them? How is that appropriate again? A number of people I spoke with were disgusted that this was let onstage at all. It is absolutely not PG and yet another instance that Fanime did not bother to enforce their own rules.

@ jemz - ridiculous. If you seriously think no one can be "hired" that's a complete joke. Did the band play for free? I'm sure most everyone would have preferred one knowledgeable organizer over that band. And I'm sorry, I don't believe the logistics most of us are complaining about are "fairly intricate." How hard is it to know that if you are asking participants to supply music via CD that you will need something to play said CD? How hard is it to know in advance that participants will need some indicator that they are participants in order to to go backstage and have that prepared? I could go on and on. I'd argue the only truly intricate part that a volunteer thrown into the whole thing should have difficulty with is doing stage lighting, sound configuration and emceeing. And I don't believe that any new volunteer was asked to do that. Seriously, if Fanime is somehow in such a bind that they are unable to attract any volunteers of quality they COULD hire someone on a contract basis to assist with certain things.
#7
@Bisouspapillon - OMG. Those strobes were terrible and while I don't have any epileptic issues I have friends that do and holy moly those should have never been allowed. I don't even remember why they were used but I closed my eyes because it was just THAT bad. And your overall experience paints a very clear picture of exactly what happened to just about everyone who participated. If anyone is still confused why all of us are upset, THIS is it.
#8
I pretty much agree with everything everyone has said.

@Erik - I do remember you and we all noticed that you were making a huge attempt to try and get things running smoothly. Unfortunately it seemed like someone was working against you because we were yelled at the minute we entered the wings that we were going on NOW (guy in black, headset, baseball cap?), despite the fact there had been multiple people in front of us.

@Dany - I hope didn't come off like I was saying anything mean about Wendell! He did try to do his best and I felt really bad that he was thrown into that situation - since he was the "face" of the show I was worried some of the audience might blame him for whatever was going on. And yeah - the band choice was the least of the problems that night but a bunch of us were miffed by it and how it seemed like having them there really gummed up the works.

@der Glitzkrieg - That IS totally unacceptable - probably what happened is the auditorium staff was told things would be cleared by 9 so they could shut down....and when things weren't over at 10 I bet a lot of them got really mad. They never should have taken it out on cosplayers though - it's not like what happened was your fault =/.
#9
There were so many issues with this year's Cosplay Spectacular it's not even funny. Now, for the record all of the staff I talked with were nice and tried to be as helpful as possible. Unfortunately I don't know where the blame for all this lays and I don't really care - what happened, happened, and this is the gist of it:


  • Rehearsals made no sense. Why not have a sign up list in advance assigning blocks of time to people? And why were some groups allowed 15 practice attempts and others only 1? And barring that, why was there not a signup sheet onsite? A lot of people were lucky to just practice once, some didn't even get to practice at all. Partly this was due to:

  • No laptop?! We couldn't even find out if our audio was okay because CS head had no laptop. We know other groups got cheated because they had video which of course a netbook with no cd/dvd drive couldn't handle- and don't know what was up with favoritism where some groups eventually did have video playing during their performance and others did not. We asked multiple times over the course of ~4 hours and just kept hearing "the laptop is coming!"
  • No sound check? Cosplayers were rudely cleared off the stage so people could setup the band equipment. This happened before 3pm and we never did see the band perform a sound check. Was there seriously a reason that the band had to have their equipment setup over 3 hours before their performance? And the band suffered from poor audio levels - and it was really hard to hear the singer, too. And on a side rant- why was the band even there? How did that relate to cosplay? At the very least they could have performed while the judges deliberated.
  • Why did it begin so late? According to the online schedule, as well as the CS head, seating was to start at 4:30 and the show to start at 5:00. Seating didn't even start until around 5:40.
  • And then dragged on...The show ended around 10. That's WAY TOO LONG. Almost all the audience was gone by that point. Probably because of--
  • SO MANY technical problems. This is totally inexcusable. Why did so many people have their audio mess up? Seriously, what is the reason for this?
  • Inappropriate content. Something like the cosplay burlesque was a little risque but totally appropriate (and awesome dancers!). The male Link "performance" was totally inappropriate and should never have been allowed. Lights and audio should have been cut the second they started gyrating on each other, if not earlier- things started going downhill pretty fast. Family friendly? Heck no.
  • Ordering problems. Not only were all the performance numbers changed at the last possible second but some groups were rushed on stage before they should have been. This was really not conducive to having good performances. Especially when people have large props and set pieces, this is just not acceptable.
  • Last minute emcee. The emcee seemed to be heckled quite a lot for things that weren't his fault - apparently he was thrown into it at the last minute and was trying to make the best of a really bad situation. It is also inexcusable that things were so disorganized that he didn't even have a list of the performance names until like an hour in - thank goodness that wild laptop finally appeared -_-.
  • Favoritism? Not only with the aforementioned video thing (some groups got to use their video, others didn't) - how come the Madoka Magica performance got a redo and the Hetalia performance didn't? Their audio cut off early and they weren't given the same opportunity- why was that?
  • Complete waste of a day. Due to all the disorganization a bunch of us were basically held hostage at the Civic Center the entire day- waiting to rehearse, waiting to see if audio/video were functional, waiting to find out 100% sure what time the show was supposed to start, etc etc. I wonder how much the band got paid to perform when the rest of us got nothing but are a big part of Fanime- to be clear, I'm not asking for anything but complete organization so we could get in and get out so we could maybe, you know, actually enjoy the convention. And maybe some kind of snacks available- who else was practically dropping over from hunger since we thought the show would be done 8 at the latest and it dragged til 10?

Myself, my group and a bunch of other people we talked to are seriously considering not attending Fanime nor participating in the Cosplay Spectacular again. It wasn't fun, it wasn't organized, it was a huge mess and I think everyone should be aware of this for the future.

Sakaki