2015 Cosplayer Gatherings Department ~ 3/17

[BrightHeart76]

Naruto Gathering is my favorite every year (I wonder why?). 

2009 - I was lucky enough to have my sister and my best friend with me for this, something that rarely happens since my best friend lives in Missouri.  We had over 100 cosplayers and the atmosphere was great.  After the gathering we had our first ever Naruto Picnic.  Just a few of us really, but it was FUN.  Good people, fun times and some silly pictures. 
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/fanime09last001.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/fanime09last002.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/fanime09last003.jpg


2010 - What can I say about 2010 except for "WOW!" what a year.  We had something going on every day of Fanime.  My favorite part though was not the regular gathering or the FLOW meet up or even the picnic or checkers or the breakfast...good gravy we were busy this year.  No, my favorite part was the 10 pm Friday night "meet up and see who your fellow fans are" meeting.  It was SPECTACULAR!  I expected 4 or 5 people...oh no we had 20+ fans, some in cosplay some just hanging out.  It was an hour of fun, relaxed, all out silly good times.  I hope we get to do it again in 2011!
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1056.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1049.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1050.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1055.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1060.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd134/SlrSparks/Fanime%202010/100_1042.jpg

[BSaphire]

Organizers... PLEASE Read the 1st post. If you have questions please contact me via PM.
Thank you
BSaphire

[BSaphire]

1st post updated! Organizers please read!
Thank you
BSaphire

[maikiritori]

GAH! Every time you make the title of the thread something like CG Dept updates, I think it has to do with something other than you letting the peeps know what all is going on in the whole organization-y process you do.

[BSaphire]

GAH! Every time you make the title of the thread something like CG Dept updates, I think it has to do with something other than you letting the peeps know what all is going on in the whole organization-y process you do.

This thread is specifically for the cospeeps to know what we are working on, looking for, or other important info. After all, our staff are supposed to come into the gatherings section and look at what all the wonderful cosplayers are working on :) so it is a place where we can see 'what's happening' with the department and also a place where cospeeps can post their ideas and suggestions through out the year. Sorry if I have confused anyone :( not my intention, but I know as a cosplayer that I would like to know what I could look forward to besides all the wonderful gatherings and events. :)

[BSaphire]

New info on 1st post!

[BSaphire]

Staffing requests for cosplayer gatherings department will close @ midnight on December 31. If your interested please see the 1st post in the July postings at the bottom. Happy New Year!

Luv to the COSPLAYERS!
B

[azreale]

i have a question about my gathering and im hoping that this is where I ask. is it possible for me to somehow borrow a table or two for my tea or do I have to bring it from off site? and where/how would i get them? (gathering takes place fifhs off to the side though)

[BSaphire]

Update to first post and looking for your feedback!
Squidges
B

[maikiritori]

Ok, so feedback is like this:
Thursday: Fun
Friday: Kickback, relaxation, fun
Saturday: Fun, protesters=sunburn, fun, KH Gathering SUPERFUN!
Sunday: Suuuuuper laid back compared to Saturday, fun
Monday: Did I even work?

Overall, the staff was awesome, the members were awesome, and I had a blast. The best part was the Cosplayer Hangout. :D

[Yukari Kaiba]

Bleach gathering went well as usual :)
what I was surprised at was that there was an actual time limit for our spot - I was not made aware of this, and the official staff photographer who showed up at the gathering to take the big group photo was telling me we had to be out of the Hilton-side fountains spot by 12 (we started at 11:30). For a gathering of Bleach's size, half an hour is barely enough time to get all the group photos in. Was there an actual time limit for gathering spots this year?

[sael]

Thanks BSaphire for giving us a head's up about the patio, it was much appreciated. To avoid any sort of conflict we moved the tea to the courtyard near the Hilton and it worked out decently well. We did miss the tables, but the space gave us room to organize some crack pairings. Plus we avoided the trouble of having to butt heads with anybody.

I did feel that the Kuroshitsuji gathering was a bit of a fire hazard on the convention floor lobby, so perhaps we'll have to find somewhere else to hold our gathering.



All in all, great Fanime. I loved that the staff at the peace-bonding station always asked where I'd like the zip-tie to be. Mine were visible, but my roommates didn't mind having to stop and show their "concealed" (hidden at the base of guards) zip-ties when asked - they preferred not having them show during photos even though they were asked several times about peace-bonding.

A big thanks to the people who kept everything running smooth and, especially, to BSaphire herself.



My one complaint would be that sometimes I was approached by staff not wearing the headset or the shirt (or anything else distinguishing them from other con-goers) and was told to move or that I needed to get something peace-bonded (which was when I was on my way over). Being approached like this confused me more than anything else. I think I often gave them a blank stare and then hesitantly complied or just walked off.

[AnimefanJJ]

Rude Rovers and peace bound a flag pole, come on. They warned me about being in uniform. I ignored them ,but Fanime was still fun. Also next year Final Fantasy VII gathering will not be held after the Final Fantasy All gathering, no offense BSaphire, but you did over flowed into my time and my gathering only lasted 5 minutes because my group was upset and such. I hope next year is better.

[heeroyuy135]

I didn't like the fact that the staffer assigned to the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona Midnight Gathering left halfway through because "we were disorganized" despite the fact that the organizer never showed up and that myself a couple of other veterans in cosplay gatherings took it over and did the best we could in a short amount of time.

Shortly after that person left, rovers came up thinking that we were unauthorized gathering and using a megaphone at nearly midnight and it took some time to figure that out without a staff member present. By the time the rovers OKed us to continue, we were passed our assigned half-hour and thus the gathering was over.

Either than that, the department did a wonderful job!

[raenef]

Great fanime all in all, and I second chaosbark's appreciation for you coming over and telling us about the bbq people! I sent you a pm asking about next year, and possibly getting a place where we can sit down and have food ;D

My only complaint is that sometimes the people with the really big flagpoles weren't being too careful with them. I know one of my friends got her mask broken, and I almost got beaned in the eye by one of them.


Thank you again BSaphire, without you the kuro teaparty would not have happened!

[BSaphire]

@ Yukari: All returning 60+ have one hour in their locations. When a gathering gets that big it just takes longer to get it all done :) On behalf of the CGD photogs... I think they might have mixed that up... sorry and I will go over it again next year. The CGD photogs shot 14,000 photos (yep!) Saturday taught the department many things like making the staff working crowd control by the protesters take a break for an hour and limiting the amount of time they are out there, 39 gatherings on one day is too many even with 4.5 department photographers out there, and CGD will need to revamp it's set up again because we have defiantly out grown how it is now. So with that said, know that next year you have one hour in your location for Bleach and be kind and remind my photogs... they learned sooo much to be prepared for taking photos that I think it might have slipped their minds.

@chaosbark: Glad that the heads up helped the tea to run smoother. I have already been working on a solution for our tea's and it means "Proposal Time" for CGD. The Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler gathering will need to be outside if it returns next year. It is to big for 1FCC LA or 1FCC RS, unless there is a rain emergency, and if you are going to head up both parts it would make things much easier. Large returning gatherings should have 2 organizers because who doesn't need help when it comes time to do the gathering :)

@AnimefanJJ:1st I want to say I'm sorry I ran into your time :( I thought I had managed to squeeze it into the 1 hr and I will work on that for next year. Also, it will most likely stay @ 1 pm on Saturday so maybe you can do VII around noon if you choose to do it on Saturday next year. More often than not I have found that the cospeeps that are in a large multi title gathering like their smaller single title gathering to happen before so they can do their fun shots before hand. You may already know this, but there are those out there that don't so I thought I would throw it out there.

@ HeeroYuy135: The 2nd SMT gathering listed for midnight was on the boards so that peeps would know it would happen. Once the CGD GET closes my staff is technically off. I did talk to the photog that showed up and I know that they did try to get some shots, but they were not really familiar with the title so they couldn't do as much to help. Also note that the CGD staff start their day at 9 am and were technically off by 7 pm, though many of us do go above and beyond.
Did you help them out with organizing it all? I sure hope so. As for rovers, most of them who were returning rovers were pretty on their game. There were those that were new that some of us had issues with, but I don't think they were trying to deliberately hassle you guys. That is one of the reasons why I made sure it was on the big blue boards :)

@raenef: You are more than welcome. I am so glad that I could help. I'm still sorry that the pretty Lolita's had to deal with the issue, but because they did I was able to warn you guys and if thinks work out I hope to have something worked out for all those "part 2" gatherings out there for 2012! :P
As for the flagpole issue, I worked with a couple of peeps who designed some "flag etiquette" for cosplayers to use as a guide, and I know that Rovers included it into different areas, but unfortunately there are those that don't read the program guide and see the "Flag Etiquette" section.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I am superduper impressed with how hard my staff worked this year and how much the training helped. I know that going into 2012 I will need to make some changes. Since I started organizing all of this back in 2005 one thing has remained true and constant.... no matter what the number of gatherings and events it has grown every year. If you are curious as to how much... well 2005 had 22 gatherings and 2 events. This year there were 79 gatherings and 20 cosplayer run events. Overhaul is going to have to happen. Please keep the feed back coming and let me know how 2011 Fanime was for you. For me, as a cosplayer, the best thing was the "Cosplayer Hangout" I'm soooo glad that we had a place to go and next year will be even better! The worst thing was all the hateful/hurtful things the protesters were saying about my staff and us, but like we have been doing... we will just roll with it and not let it ruin our FanimeCon!

[sael]

Thanks so much for your hard work, BSaphire. Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler will be back again next year with 3 organizers (raenef, ZeeVee, and chaosbark). We're working together on preparations for the gathering/tea and keeping in contact. If you message one of us with gathering information, we'll relay the message to the others.

[MikuMayhem]

Guess who's so coming back on staff next year?
;D

[AnimefanJJ]

@AnimefanJJ:1st I want to say I'm sorry I ran into your time :( I thought I had managed to squeeze it into the 1 hr and I will work on that for next year. Also, it will most likely stay @ 1 pm on Saturday so maybe you can do VII around noon if you choose to do it on Saturday next year. More often than not I have found that the cospeeps that are in a large multi title gathering like their smaller single title gathering to happen before so they can do their fun shots before hand. You may already know this, but there are those out there that don't so I thought I would throw it out there.

It is ok, I will do some time management so we can have the gatherings work off the other, but I won't worry about that until October.

[maikiritori]

@MikuMayhem ~ YAAY~ We didn't scare you away. ^_^