Anyone else let down by this year's Fanime?

Started by xBladeDragonx, May 29, 2011, 01:02:22 AM

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PyronIkari

Quote from: Pengin-san on June 01, 2011, 09:08:06 AM
To address the maid cafe, I think it looked great and I wish I could have gotten a chance to sit at it. The maids looked cute, I saw plenty of smiles and laughter, and some seriously happy guests. I'm really inspired to be a maid now.

Please send an email to maidcafe at fanime dot com and you'll be put on a mailing list about tryouts when they start coming up sometime near the beginning of 2012. (UNLESS THE WORLD ENDS! In that case you may not get an email and I apologize).

udonoodle

mods, should this be merged or linked to the feedback pages?
It was a fun year! (I'm a 4-year attendie (does that make me a veteran?))

B&W: A little hectic getting in!
Schedules: I know a lot of people of said this...
Dealers>gameroom>artists alley switch: I think it caused more traffic?

mods, should this be merged or linked to the feedback pages?
Thank you!
p.s I wish people on here would stop saying "the con is dying" because thats not helping anything :(
(btw i don't believe it!)

SquallLHeart

the only con i know that's dying (*cough*.. died..) is AX..  ::)
Trung D. Nguyen
Fanime: Autographs Head '11 | Rovers '01-present | Gopher '99-'00
Anime Expo: AxCon '07-'2009
ComicCon: Vol '04-'05

staff/vol. for misc. conventions all around the nation... ranging from 30.. to 130K+ attendees...

Jelly Soup

Quote from: Yuu on June 01, 2011, 02:53:25 AM
Quote from: bebop on June 01, 2011, 02:51:46 AM
I'll be damned if I just successfully got trolled.

Eh, he successfully trolls quite often. You have to be here a while to learn just to ignore him/.

Or just use the forums handy dandy ignore button. 4+ years of Pyron-less posting and counting. :)



sakura175206

I was not let down by this year, but I did not go last year so I can't compare, but I did go like 2 or 3 years ago and I had more fun this time than when i went then. Their were some problems, like the no schedules part sucked, and black & white ball issues etc, and other various tech issues, but every Con has their problems during the convention so it's normal. I saw how some people complained about nothing to do!! There was plenty to do in fact I had several things I wanted to see that were at the same time so I had to choose! I think what makes convention's the most fun is who you know and who go and hang with! I think that really makes a difference in the experience. I had fun just taking pictures and hanging with other cosplayers and just talking etc.

TC X0 Lt 0X

#165
Quote from: PyronIkari on June 01, 2011, 09:13:53 AM
Quote from: Pengin-san on June 01, 2011, 09:08:06 AM
To address the maid cafe, I think it looked great and I wish I could have gotten a chance to sit at it. The maids looked cute, I saw plenty of smiles and laughter, and some seriously happy guests. I'm really inspired to be a maid now.

Please send an email to maidcafe at fanime dot com and you'll be put on a mailing list about tryouts when they start coming up sometime near the beginning of 2012. (UNLESS THE WORLD ENDS! In that case you may not get an email and I apologize).

Don't worry the world is supposed to end on Dec 21, 2012, so we still get are Fanimu.


"Never beg. You earn. By Winning.
Or else you won't get anything..."

Pro-Pocky Movement

GOT HYPE.

Yuu

Quote from: Jelly Soup on June 01, 2011, 10:45:28 AM
Quote from: Yuu on June 01, 2011, 02:53:25 AM
Quote from: bebop on June 01, 2011, 02:51:46 AM
I'll be damned if I just successfully got trolled.

Eh, he successfully trolls quite often. You have to be here a while to learn just to ignore him/.

Or just use the forums handy dandy ignore button. 4+ years of Pyron-less posting and counting. :)

Yep, same here. Well, not four= however long I've been here. 2 maybe?
" Your aren't taking sides if you spread out violence evenly"

Christophe

While personally I had fun overall at Fanime 2011 due to friends in attendance - I'd have to say this was the most problematic Fanime there ever has been - and I've been to all of them (yes, even the free one up at Cal State Hayward that used classrooms for a dealer hall).  While I went to the post-con feedback panel to give my two cents (and was hopefully heard), the management I spoke to there suggested I contribute to the forums, so here I am.

I've never seen so many people stressed out about rovers, peace bonding, and security - and it no doubt affected the "vibe" of the con.  I felt it all around me, and heard so many complaints it felt like everyone in the con got hassled, or at least knew someone who did.  I'm a cosplayer who hangs out with costumers of all types as well as non-cosplayers, con veterans, and staffers so I witnessed many cases while trying to avoid confrontations myself.

ROVERS

It seemed as though rovers were misdirected as to their purpose in many cases, and instead of acting upon imminent threats or problems, they were watching random con people until they could find a REASON to hassle them. Some examples:

- Respected, professional photographer is having a photoshoot with a subject in 1F Conv Center late night near the registration area, no other attendees within 100 feet.  2 rovers approach, with no one else around, they come to where we are, INTERRUPT the shoot and ask to see some prop which is a piece of a broom with fake blood matching the costume - obviously not a weapon in any way as its basically a plastic stump, and spend time looking it over... for no apparent reason other than to nitpick.  Nothing is being swung, there is no threat - its a photoshoot for cripes sake.  Rovers tell us its not allowed and to remove it from the premises once we're done.  This was completely unnecessary. If things like this happen I will absolutely not recommend Fanime as its simply uncomfortable for cosplayers to do their thing, and this inconvenience would not have happened at ANY other con.

- Watching stage zero from a concrete pillar near the tape-marked walkway.  Not IN the tape marked walkway, but near it, and I was told to move.  So I did.  No biggie, but completely unnecessary.

- Pregnant woman (who happened to be a staffer) is harassed for stopping to rest near the Hilton side balcony, and is told to get off the floor and move!

- Cosplayer spends half an hour in con ops to get peace bonded and approved, with paperwork - for a character that has a body stocking - to insure that it meets standards and there will be no problems, and is approved.  Cosplayer then goes to hang out, sits in a chair for 2 hours (basically not really visible to anyone unless they TRY to look for trouble), and is approached by rovers and told to leave, in a traumatizing way.

- Black and White Ball line; participants are waiting a LONG TIME, so some of the female participants take their high heels off because, apparently they can be painful.  Keep in mind this is now outside the venue in PUBLIC property on a sidewalk.  Rovers harass participants saying that they have to wear shoes.  Same rovers repeatedly harass participants about the length of their heels even after they had been measured.

There are many more stories I could tell, but these are the ones that happened to myself or close friends, and is enough to paint a picture that Fanime Con is no longer a pleasant place to be.  It actually felt as if it were against the rules to have fun, or even just be there without some rover finding a reason to ruin your con.

So, what is the purpose of rovers again?  Is it to look at every attendee and scan them and find something to "pull them over" for?  I don't think that is their INTENDED purpose - but I can fully see that it may be an easy mentality for new rovers to fall into depending on HOW they are trained.  I really think that an overhaul needs to be made as to what situations should be acted on.  We attendees are NOT all troublemakers, and some of us are responsible people in general.  If we are not doing anything that is imminently threatening, we should be LEFT ALONE.  Even if I didn't have any incidents as bad as those of my friends, just knowing that we are being WATCHED in such a creepy way - and that these rovers are 'given full power' to kick us out for any reason, makes for an uncomfortable environment.  The overbearing policies are NOT necessary.  I go to 15+ cons a year, of every size and type, all the way up to SDCC with 100,000+ attendees, and NONE of them have come close to having the kind of nitpicky rover/security harassment that Fanime Con 2011 was plagued with.  Size isn't an issue.  At its core, it has to do whether your management TRUSTS its attendees, and RESPECTS them as customers.  You make harsh rules because one person broke one rule or caused a problem because that *one* person was a troublemaker - and those rules cause *hundreds* of attendees to have bad experiences.  As someone who considers Fanime to be their "local" con which I grew up with, I am saddened and realize this may be the last chance to reverse the damage and rescind some of these over-reactive policies.

Not to say that all rovers are/were bad - I'm sure some of them did their job great and didn't hassle people who were just trying to enjoy the con.  But you have to start with the core principles of their function and *make sure* these same people WANT people to enjoy the con as the highest priority - and that 'hassling' should ONLY be done in case of problematic attendees clearly causing trouble.  You may not think its a big thing but one rover harassment can RUIN the con for some people - and with more out of state people attending the convention than before, there is more on the line as people pay much more than the price of their badge to experience the event.

There was a con in the past that messed up pretty bad because of overzealous badge policies and flagrant attendee harassment - Anime LA 2007.  But they took the numerous complaints SERIOUSLY and with conscious effort turned the situation around and made the con into a much friendlier event - turning their rovers into people who not only insure safety, but that attendees are having fun and not angry about issues that may have arisen during the event.  I would really hope that Fanime Can learn from this year's complaints and *proactively* turn things around for next year.  I want the good con vibe to return!


PEACE BONDING and COSTUME / PROP POLICIES

The overly strict policies have been out of control for awhile.  In the fan community we joke around about Fanime being the "prop-nazi" con and peace bonding stuff like cardboard Yuffie stars and 50 cent squirt guns.  But it's no joke.  I like following the rules and whenever I show up on site I go to peace bonding, first thing.  There is something wrong when I walk in there and the staff in there basically gives me the impression that they will disallow whatever it is I'm holding by DEFAULT, and that if I have some kind of prop, that I MUST have it for the intention of causing trouble.  This year, I had my Castlevania prop - which is a self-illuminating sequence of plastic bottles, and I had it approved every year before.  The guy in the room was giving me these looks as if there was no way in hell they'd approve it, that "policies are stricter now" and that it must be dangerous.  It wasn't until I showed them that it was electronic and had circuit boards in the segments that they believed that I wasn't going to, you know, whip it around and like.. break several hundred dollars and countless hours of work.  So my prop got approved, but only barely, and that stresses me out about the future.

When people have a prop, you would think that most times WE don't want to damage our own stuff that we worked so hard on, and that we should be given a certain amount of trust.  Now that you are linking props to *badge numbers* in peace bonding (a great idea) and requiring that it have a corresponding costume - I believe that more trust can and should be given.  If someone does something stupid, you have documentation and can pull their badge - and can already cross-reference with their reg info, etc.  I hope that for next year we can be treated as "innocent before proven guilty" and Fanime's reputation with cosplayers can be restored somewhat.

The same concept applies to the strange new rules about military themed outfits - why not treat them similar to props, for instance a modest inspection granting an approval sticker - instead of banning them outright..?  If accountability is recorded, and rules are explained, then you will have an attendee who will be wanting to abide by them, rather than someone hating your con with their experience ruined.


MASQUERADE PROP CHECK IN

This was one of the most stressful situations for me personally, as I was not allowed to bring my prop into Masquerade to watch it.  I didn't have a hotel room or car as I'm local. My prop was small and could easily be held so it would not protrude into anyone else's space - but their policy was clear that all props had to be thrown into a random pile by the entrance and was told that this was done at OUR OWN RISK, and that no one would be watching it and if someone ran off with my one of a kind prop with hundreds-of-dollars of parts and effort, that I'd be screwed.  The lady at the door heard me out and I made enough of a fuss about it to "please remember my prop" and she said she would if she could - but of course when I left she wasn't there anymore :/  But my prop was, thankfully.

This could be improved/fixed either by allowing smaller props which obviously won't cause problems in, like in years past.  Or if a check in is needed, link each prop to a BADGE NUMBER on a list, and require a badge be shown upon removal of a prop.  Just that little peace of mind will help, and discourage theft, people messing with stuff, etc.


MASQUERADE TIME MISMANAGEMENT

I'm surprised no one complained about this yet.  For masquerade there was an overly lengthy opening performance; a band trying to promote themselves, followed by Ric Myers spamming his book along with other frivolous filler, then the karaoke winner (who was great) performed 2 full length songs... But I came to see the MASQUERADE (not a band, and not karaoke!) and it was about 1hr 15 min before the actual masquerade skits started.  Normally it wouldn't be that annoying, but then after the masquerade acts there was mysteriously NO HALFTIME SHOW..?  And then to add insult to the participants, the award ceremony was rushed and incomplete, and everyone was shoved out in a huge mess due to venue time limits.  Why wasn't the band and karaoke filler done at HALFTIME..?


SCHEDULES

I'm pretty sure this will be fixed for next year, but I just wanted to say that not having schedules sucks for the people working so hard on the programming, because without proper information readily available - people don't have a way of knowing what there is to go to, even if its something they are interested in.  Also I thought of an idea too late that might have helped.  On the whiteboard, to ask "WE NEED HELP PRINTING SCHEDULES! Do you have a Xerox machine? Work at Kinkos? FREE BADGE FOR 2012 if you HELP!"  I think that would have gotten you assistance, rather than driving people away with a sign saying "NO MAPS OR SCHEDULES! go to [website]".


That's my feedback for now.  Sorry its so long-winded!  Thank you for reading.  If YOU have experienced or witnessed any problems, rover harassment, etc, PLEASE post here.  Most people I know are just too pissed or busy to deal with it, but unless you TELL THEM the problems, and how it made you or your friends feel - there's no way they will get better for next year, and you will be stuck with a con where fun is not allowed.  I didn't want to get involved but after seeing the low turnout at the feedback session, they NEED to know, and be told in a constructive way.

I still hold out that my "home con" will get better despite the problems, and won't fall victim to becoming too big to remember what made the con great in the first place.

Maskenlav

I feel everyone's emotions on this kind of set-back. I was the guy with the giant black and silver cross prop and I kept getting harassed by some Rovers poking fun at me for being "part of the protestors outside infiltrating the con" I mean it's not MY fault my specific anime had a main character walk around with a freaking giant cross I mean come on if your such a die-hard anime fan wouldn't you realize that it's part of a show? Just because some losers decide to waste their weekend by showing bibles down people's throats doesn't mean WE ANIME loving people are associated OR endorsing completely unrelated events such as the jesus protestors.

Scheduling- Yes! They definitely lacked there, and sooo many people were left out of gatherings and cosplay events! I'm sure about half of the attendees did NOT know that yaoi-bingo was being hosted at the same time as them sitting down and resting, that certain animes that they were cosplaying had gatherings at the same time also. So I feel deeply sympathetic to those who really wanted to attend those events!

Organization- They only had announcements pertaining to when the video game and card tournaments were going to happen. I wish they could have announced when the cosplay/gathering events were going to happen also, would have done the people left-out with some sort of knowledge that there was their type of gathering. They missed the opportunity to meet other fans and possible friends.

Black and White dance- Is it me or this year did they buckle down the dance? What I mean by that is they seem to have made the ball-room less roomy. Remember how last year they had all the chairs lined up against the wall and had several tables around the outer rims of the wooden dance floor? This year they just had several tables with chairs and it was hard to maneuver around them since they were all placed so close together, and it was VERY hard to find dancing partners since everyone was clumped together around the tables. I wish they had done it like last year and placed ALL the chairs against the walls and had separated the tables so people can maneuver between them AND find dance partners.

I hate to say this, but this year just didn't have the enthusiasm as previous years.
"I'll do it! I'll marry you!"

otaku_duckie

yay i agree lol this year seemed really stressful and you could sense the stress in the air owo still fun but there were times when you could tell the staff was stressing
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le_momo

Quote from: Maskenlav on June 01, 2011, 03:30:42 PM
Black and White dance- Is it me or this year did they buckle down the dance? What I mean by that is they seem to have made the ball-room less roomy. Remember how last year they had all the chairs lined up against the wall and had several tables around the outer rims of the wooden dance floor? This year they just had several tables with chairs and it was hard to maneuver around them since they were all placed so close together, and it was VERY hard to find dancing partners since everyone was clumped together around the tables. I wish they had done it like last year and placed ALL the chairs against the walls and had separated the tables so people can maneuver between them AND find dance partners.

The reason why we didn't have all of the chairs and tables was because we had a room almost half the size than what we had last year. Last year, all of the tables had chairs around them as well (I clearly remember my mother sitting at one for quite a while last year). We did what we could for decorations, but the tables and chairs were placed by hotel staff if I remember correctly. The fact that the room was smaller this year was already an obvious issue when it came to attendance, but unfortunately the hotel had booked the Imperial Ballroom (the much larger room we had from last year) without notifying us beforehand, so we as staff were in a predicament which meant less room, but did the best we could to maintain the atmosphere. The sheer size of the line and reaching capacity for the room within the first hour was proof enough that the ball is getting more recognition, not only by the convention, but also by the Fairmont in realizing that we might just need that extra floorspace. ^^;

Thanks for the input! We are definitely taking everything into consideration.

- Rebecca
2017-2024 Extravaganzas Head
2013-2024 Black & White Ball Head
2010-2012 Black & White Ball Instructor/Staff/Second
FanimeCon attendee since 2005

weirderraindrop

Though I didn't have as much fun as I did in previous years, I will still be going in 2012. I was a bit bummed about the schedules, but it left me a lot of time to rest at a nice hotel at a discounted rate (which is a blessing in disguise since I'm not as mobile as before). I have to agree with the people who were talking about the general attitude of some con-goers. Seemed kind of 'bleh' I guess. Here's to hoping things are better in 2012!

Mayhem

Quote from: SquallLHeart on June 01, 2011, 10:02:46 AM
the only con i know that's dying (*cough*.. died..) is AX..  ::)

I get to find out. I Missed 2008 and 2010, 2009 was lame. been hitting AX since 2000 myself, I covered AX as Press in 09 and some staffers had it in for us. I get to Cover AX as press this year and possibly AM^2 so I will get to compare all the big Cons.
Destination anywhere! So Far Gone, I'm almost There!

ewu

Mod (post-death) catching up on posts:

Please post constructive comments on the feedback thread...

http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/topic,16425.0.html

Thanks!

P.S. negative people make me sad...
Eric Wu
FanimeCon Chairman
FanimeCon Forums Moderator

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