Expanded Artist Alley?

Started by Hirotona, July 28, 2008, 12:48:21 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Hirotona

With the ever growing popularity of the Artist Alley at Fanime and increasing push/desire for table space I wonder if is being considered next year to have more tables for the AA. With high profile art guests such as kidchan considering attending next year I think it would make sense to try and have more avalible table space for her and the many other new faces that are strongly considering attending, including those that were disillusioned by the poor treatment they got at the hand of AN's AA. Having a strong AA does and will attract a lot of people to come, even if just to meet their favorite artist. Expansion, if doable, should be something that should have a lot of thought put into it.

Oniko

I think that might have been one of the biggest possible rooms already... aside from the dealers room.  anyways it was about 200 tables. xx was intense!
06- Ragnarok Huntress / 07- Haruhi Suzumiya
08- Shana / 09 - Luluko
10 - Holo / 11 - Flaaffy
12 - Inga / 13 - Lizbeth

ewu

We are considering adding more tables. The dealers room and gaming rooms are larger and the same size. It is still pretty early in the planing process so stay apprised and we will have more info for you all.
Eric Wu
FanimeCon Chairman
FanimeCon Forums Moderator

ericATfanimeDOTcom

Hirotona

Thanks for the consideration : 3 I'm currently using my connections to the art community to try and bring new blood to our AA so making sure the tables are there for them is important. Expect alot of great artists to show up if these efforts prove successful.   

ph1shf00d

That would be awesome.  It seemed like there was a bit of a scramble this year, but I think things got smoothed out, which is great.

I don't know if this is totally relevant to the thread, but in addition to an expanded AA, it'd be good to exercise a little bit of caution when dealing with artists or other congoers.  There was recently a colossal shitstorm in the Otakon AA because a certain artist booked 14 different tables throughout the alley.  Long story short, things pretty much exploded and now there's a ragefest going on about the artist in question along with the Otakon staff for not doing anything.  I'd hate for that sort of thing to happen in the Fanime AA ;_;

Hirotona

Haha I was actually thinking about mentioning that and linking the thread from the Otakon forums about it >____>;; Don't know if I should add that in this thread of open a seperate thread about it though.

We did manage to hold them to four this year but two or better yet zero should be the goal. After gaming the system so hard repreccussions should follow.

Nyxyin

If an artist is that big, they should go to the dealers room.  One artist taking 14 tables is insane.  Given how cheap the artist tables are, I think it's perfectly fair to put a cap of a maximum of one or two tables per artist.  Furthermore, I think "artist" should count as the person who did the work, not the person sitting at the table.  An artist getting fourteen friends to register different tables and simultaneously sell his/her work isn't very nice either.  Artist Alley should be a place where new artists come to try things out, not where established artists can easily make a profit.

Hirotona

Think I'll add the link to the thread about what we're talking about here:

http://board.otakon.com/index.php?showtopic=15035&st=0&start=0

I think some of the suggestions being made here would be worth looking at for our alley as well.

Nyxyin

Quote from: Hirotona on August 14, 2008, 05:52:36 PM
Think I'll add the link to the thread about what we're talking about here:

http://board.otakon.com/index.php?showtopic=15035&st=0&start=0

"Sorry, the link that brought you to this page seems to be out of date or broken."

Do I have to register to see it?

Hirotona

#9
Ugh my friend was getting that message last night to when I was trying to show it to her.

Yeah I'd register and try again.

EDIT:

http://tanqexe.deviantart.com/journal/19894132/

Great sum up of the various misdeeds done. Should be read by anybody involved with Fanime's AA, artist or volunteer/those in charge.

Nyxyin

Quote from: Hirotona on August 14, 2008, 06:38:55 PMhttp://tanqexe.deviantart.com/journal/19894132/

Grr!  That's just... unspeakably sleazy!  I can't believe people would go so far and demean themselves and the spirit of art alleys everywhere just to circumvent one small, basic, common-sense rule.

I also saw the copy of Otakon's response.  That group went through such great lengths that I can sympathize with the Otakon Artist Alley staff.  The style similarity might be blatant and obvious to experienced artists (I'm a total newbie, and I'm not at all sure I'd be able to tell), but I imagine it'd be very difficult to try to explain it to lawyers and judges and what not if things came down to that.  If they're selling different pieces at each table, if they have someone else claiming that the work is theirs, if they even make different deviantart accounts for different pieces of art, how can the people who run art alleys prove the violation enough to throw people out of the artist alley while the event is happening?

Hirotona

Well at the very least with more awareness of what is going on and vigilance people will be more on the look out for this kind of thing and if need be re-write the AA policies to try and clamp down on these kind of misdeeds.

Personally I'm very dissapointed at Otakon's response. Only so many people can all say the same thing about those prints before it's more then a simple "he said, she said" kind of deal. I'm relying on Fanime and other cons to at least step up and prevent this from ever happening again.

ewu

Quote from: Nyxyin on August 15, 2008, 05:48:35 PM
but I imagine it'd be very difficult to try to explain it to lawyers and judges and what not if things came down to that.

Listening and reading.....and I'm gonna hopefully be a lawyer and maybe a judge too....4 birds one stone?? O:-)

Thanks for the info guys. We have been looking into the operation of AA and also looking at how we can balance the AA and the dealers room better.

BTW, AA and Dealers are departments under Fan Services (see signature below) =D

Does that count as a 5th bird, or am I pushing it?? O:-)
Eric Wu
FanimeCon Chairman
FanimeCon Forums Moderator

ericATfanimeDOTcom

ewu

I just really want to thank you guys again. It's the fan contribution and the blurred lines between staff and fans that make Fanime such an awesome experience. Thanks again, and keep your eyes out for how we can make the con better!
Eric Wu
FanimeCon Chairman
FanimeCon Forums Moderator

ericATfanimeDOTcom

Hirotona

#14
That's very comforting to hear and makes me very happy in general : 3 I knew I could rely on those in charge of the best convention to come through : D

I'm looking forward to seeing what the new balance will be and how things will enfold in regards to both the AA (which obviously I have a rather large vested interest in) and the dealer's room. Fanime should be the con setting the example to be followed. 

EDIT: Btw my suggestion dealing with those two would be to premanantly blacklist them. Fanime need to keep the tables for those who play by the rules. Also blacklisting them would make the AA alot more attractive to some artists who are deciding between selling at Fanime/AN/and ABoston.

ph1shf00d

Quote from: Hirotona on August 15, 2008, 06:33:44 PM
Well at the very least with more awareness of what is going on and vigilance people will be more on the look out for this kind of thing and if need be re-write the AA policies to try and clamp down on these kind of misdeeds.

Personally I'm very dissapointed at Otakon's response. Only so many people can all say the same thing about those prints before it's more then a simple "he said, she said" kind of deal. I'm relying on Fanime and other cons to at least step up and prevent this from ever happening again.


While a swift and decisive punishment would probably be pretty gratifying to a lot of people, I can understand why Otakon is being sort of "soft" on these two.  Like stated earlier, it's hard to turn this into a stark black-and-white sort of situation in a legal sense, so it'd be difficult to come up with a proper answer to this problem.  Somehow, I think other cons explicitly blacklisting those two might bring up more problems.  After all, we haven't had such an incident happen specifically at Fanime.  In a legal sense, I think it's kind of dodgy to punish people because of things they've done at other conventions.  Buut that's all up to the convention staff.

Whatever happens, though, they're still going to be feeling the effects of their misdeeds.  They might still make money at the conventions they go to, but you can be sure that they won't be making as much as they used to and that their experiences probably won't be very pleasant considering how darkly they've tarnished their reputations.  They might have to watch their backs from now on. ;]

Hirotona

Otakon responds:

http://lists.baka.org/pipermail/animecons/2008-August/018282.html

I'll think up a proper response to this later but everyone I mentioned to considering fanime liked the idea of them being blacklisting and is factoring strongly into them going or not. Recall we have not only AN to contend with (despite their terrible general AA policies) and ABoston this year all on the same weekend > >;; And I think there's nothing wrong with it at all, they'll try and bend and abuse the rules as much as possible unless you strongly limit everyone freedoms (the stupid AN approach) or you just punish those who abused the rules in the first place. Tables are a tight squeeze as it is, they all should be avalible to those who are honest and play by the rules. I'd much rather have tables open for PB, Kidchan, Koinogenki, Joodlez (all new people strongly considering going) then try and play nice with those would would gladly take ten plus tables > . >;;

And most of the fans are just total idiots and not even paying attention. All you need to do to witness this is see all the fan-people responding in Ramy's journal despite all the evidence against him.

Nyxyin

On one hand, I agree that I'd rather not have the culprits show up at Fanime.  Kimochi warui.  On the other hand, I agree that the idea of blacklisting people due to something that happens somewhere else also leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  There's just something very fascist about the idea.  :/  The culprits have never been interested in Fanime before, have they?  I only go to Fanime, so I can hope it stays that way.  I like to think all those unsavory types (the people who value money more than art, as well as the "total idiots" who support them) decide to go to the other conventions and avoid Fanime.  Also, like Otakon's worries about lawyers, I'm also worried that, if Fanime were to declare a blacklist on them, the culprits might consider it a challenge to circumvent the blacklist and suddenly become interested in Fanime just because the blacklist exists.  "The grass is always greener on the other side" and all that.

I think it'd be great for Fanime to get more ideas about how to effectively enforce its rules so similar problems can't happen at Fanime, but explicitly banning the culprits goes a bit far, and blacklisting doesn't do anything to stop potential copycats.  Ramy and Sylvia probably aren't the first two artists ever to succumb to greed, and they probably won't be the last two either.

Hirotona

Make everyone else alot happier though plus save more space for those who merit it plus there's two other cons for them to try their luck at anyway >>;; And who's to say they wouldn't try, before this year they didn't even have any tables and this time they had four. I doubt that being blacklisted would try to get them to get around the rules, we know the material they'd sell and if anyone tried to sell it via proxy for them then we could boot them out to. The rules we have our fine actually with a bit of tweaking; no need to go the stupid exterme of AN. There is something to be said of the usual good character of our artists though we should be very proud of. Still think Fanime should be the one stepping up to the plate here though.

wakaranai_de

I'd add that, if possible, it might be helpful to some artists to have power outlets available (for an added fee, if necessary), most notably musicians, game coders, etc.  Maybe a limited number of powered tables could be made available in the future?