So glad everything was consolidated into a single thread! It's a bit of a jumbled mess right now, because of how many threads there were, but now we can get on with post-con discussion.
I'm just going to copy/paste what I put in the official form:
I had a great time at the con, but I felt like a lot of it was despite the con itself, not because of it. Most of the activities I did that really stood out as amazing experiences weren't con-specific, and were more private and social.
Though, a few highlights:
- Cosplay gatherings seemed to be run really well this year, all around. I went to three (Cowboy Bebop, Final Fantasy, and Homestuck), and all three seemed to go very smoothly
- Karaoke is one of my main draws, and it was fantastic, as usual. Never get rid of the KKD as your karaoke staff, as they really make the experience. One highlight of karaoke was on Saturday night, when the members of ROOKIE'Z IS PUNKED came into the karaoke room and performed one of their own songs. I'm not a fan of theirs, but it was an amazing performance, and a really nice touch for their fans. They seemed to enjoy themselves, as well.
- THE COSPLAYER HANGOUT. This seriously saved my entire con. Everyone in there was really super nice and polite and HELPFUL. I had cosplay emergencies two days in a row (both with rather large horns not wanting to stay on my head), and the wonderful, wonderful people in there were able to get my horns stable on my head with all of the materials there. They really helped me out a lot, and I love having a photo-free room with a repair station and seating areas to rest in, especially in some of those rather large cosplays of mine with limited mobility.
- Not something the con can really do anything about, but everyone I met was amazing.
- The open hallway at the front of the gaming room. Genius. Really helped with the flow of traffic in that area, especially for people like me who walk rather quickly and thus have a difficult time in crowds sometimes. the taped walkways throughout the convention center were also great, but no one seemed to really follow them.
- The 24-hour food vendor. While I didn't go there late at night for snacks, it is a really nice touch, and if that kind of thing is there at future cons, I might have to go pick up some snacks for late-night karaoke sessions.
While I had a great time at the con this year, the con itself was a disaster. Here are all the comments I can think of, and if I can get discussion on other channels (since it is being shut down on the forums) that produces further feedback, I will submit that further feedback.
- Lack of transparency/staff making excuses or giving no explanations/giving non-answers/generally being unprofessional/etc. This was my biggest issue with this year's con and how it was run.
Both before the con and after, staff have been silent about many issues, or, if someone has a legitimate complaint or question about how things are being run, they are shut down (the staff give a "that's how it has to be because of reasons" type answer and lock the thread without actually explaining what the "reasons" are, the person is told to go volunteer, the thread is simply locked, staff ignore the question or answer it in a way that isn't actually answering the question, etc.).
There are many major examples that I'm sure you guys can find and already know about, but to show how pervasive this is, I'll use a rather minor example from, of all things, the Black and White Ball music request thread. I posted a waltz, was told that it was a Viennese Waltz, which is not done at this event (understandably), so I looked up what the difference is, and found that a Viennese waltz is faster, so I found a slower version of the song, posted that, and asked if it would be okay, and then asked where exactly the cutoff is between a traditional waltz and a Viennese waltz. The staff in the thread pretty much just told me that Viennese waltz will never be done at this event. Alright, perfectly understandable, and I get why, I just don't know exactly what makes it a Viennese waltz vs. a traditional one, so I was asking, and trying to find a solution. I never actually replied to the thread, but I had -two or three staff members- come in and rudely tell me that Viennese waltzes are not done, and why they aren't done, without ever addressing my actual question. (Someone else asked the exact same question later in the thread, and they got a prompt and helpful reply) Maybe my own question was somewhat unclear, but I thought I asked it in a clear enough way, and felt that the responses I got were rather unprofessional and unhelpful, even if not -overly- rude.
This is just a very minor incident of this happening. I've seen this happen with much more powerful staff in much more important areas (Artist's Alley, Registration, etc.), giving non-answers, rude answers, and locking threads when people ask important questions about how things are being run and why.
Then there is the issue with the feedback for this year. Instead of allowing even one thread on the forums to allow for open discussion, which would not be difficult to manage at all (I have forum moderation experience, on a somewhat large fan forum, and know that it is not entirely difficult to keep everything that belongs in one thread in a single thread) and would not be difficult at all to read, as all the information would be in that one thread, Fanime has opted for a private feedback system. Yes, there are assurances that all of the feedback will be posted, but that isn't the same. It feels like Fanime is trying to hide something, and trying to stifle discussion of their con and how to improve it.
Besides, if Fanime doesn't know what is wrong with their con, there are more serious issues going on than anything a fan could give feedback on in a comment form. It seems obvious.
I feel like this year, Fanime has been really behind in many ways (getting EVERYTHING up late, the registration disaster, etc.), and that the con really needs to find out how other large cons run themselves as smoothly as they do and get their own act together. I understand that there will always be hiccups with running a large event, but this year was more than a hiccup, it was a huge, poorly-run, mess. I thought that last year was bad, but it has only gotten worse. Staff's response to feedback has been extremely unsatisfactory.
(The most helpful, polite, and nice staff that I dealt with all con, both on the forums beforehand and at the con? Karaoke staff, by far. It helps that I know them all, I'm sure, but one of the staff went out of his way to help me with a question about one of their songs, and I'm thankful for that. Why can't any other department seem to be that helpful?)
- Lines. Enough said. I waited well over four hours for prereg on Friday. As I had to drive down from Sacramento in the morning, I missed almost the entire day, and by the time I got my badge, it was night and almost everything was closed. I was going to enter the karaoke contest, and couldn't (good thing I was only trying for at-con signups and wasn't already signed up, as I would have missed my spot by a few hours). I missed a cosplay gathering I really wanted to go to. I worked hard on a cosplay for a cosplay group that my friends and I were going to do but couldn't because half of us were stuck in line for over four hours. I feel like I missed an entire day of the con because of this. I was one of the lucky ones, too, as many people waited twice as long as I did for Friday prereg pickup. The system needs to be improved, simple as that.
- Drunk people. Fanime is a dry con, yes? I have no problem with people drinking in private room parties, or in bars, or otherwise not -wandering around the con totally sloshed and carrying open containers of alcohol-. It isn't just an annoyance issue, it's a safety issue. Last year, the drunk people at the con were worse than I had ever seen it. This year, it was twice as bad. I had a rather inebriated gentleman harass me in the karaoke room. Thankfully, he left before he got too bad, but then he came back (again thankfully, it was right before my last song of the night, so I was able to abscond after I sang and hide in the restroom with my sister because he was following me). Why hasn't more been done about this kind of thing? I saw MANY, MANY PEOPLE walking around the con, obviously drunk out of their minds, carrying open containers of either thinly disguised or not at all disguised alcohol. Paper and styrofoam cups that obviously smelled of booze. Flasks. Actual bottles. People who smell so strongly of alcohol that you can tell from halfway across the hall. People so drunk that they can't stand upright by themselves. Are the staff not seeing this, or do they simply not care? In past years, there have been drunk people, but most of them were kicked out right away. Please enforce your own policies better as to ensure the safety of everyone involved, both the people trying to enjoy the con sober and the drunks.
(For the record, I am of legal age, but choose not to partake in alcohol myself, and get extremely uncomfortable around random drunk men constantly hitting on me, following me around the con, etc., for obvious reasons, as I am a rather petite woman and would not be able to easily defend myself if something happened. Also for the record, though it is totally irrelevant, when I had the drunk gentleman follow me, I was dress as Mom Lalonde from Homestuck, which is not a skimpy outfit at all, so don't anyone dare think that it was because of my choice of costume.)
Please get your act together. Please be more transparent about why things are done the way they are. Please enforce your own policies. Please don't shut down open discussion. Please. I love this con, and I have been going for more years than I can count on my fingers, and would hate to see anything happen to it because of PR issues and because of how poorly run it has been the past couple of years. I'm hoping that next year is better.
One last thing, feedback on this form itself -- I personally put down my full name and the ability for staff to contact me because I have nothing to hide. I will be posting all of my comments publicly. I do ask that any comments of mine that get published are done anonymously, as I do not want my real name tied with any of my online accounts. I am putting way more trust in Fanime by putting down my real name, knowing that it may be published, than I maybe should. I am also not a fan of the idea of bribing people to contribute with their real names and contact info by allowing them to win a badge, so I have opted out of the raffle, though winning a badge might be the only way that I am getting one for next year, if things don't approve.
I will continue to attend, and hope that once the construction is done and once all of this feedback is processed, that next year will be a satisfactory convention, because it was not this year.
Some of this maybe shouldn't be posted publicly on the forums. I don't particularly care at this point, since everything needs to get out there.
I have since thought of a couple more points:
- While I liked the 24-hour food vendor booths, I didn't like that archery room. It's cool to have, but every time I went or looked in there, nothing was going on. It seemed like a huge waste of space. I'm sure it was cool when it was happening, but that seemed to be rarely, and there was no schedule anywhere for it.
- I didn't post my feelings on AA because they are mixed. I haven't talked to any artists to know how sales were compared to previous years, but I do know that I gave a LOT of people directions there. I only went there once myself because of the distance. While it isn't exceptionally far from the con, it is a bit of a trek when you have to navigate crowds, cars, cosplays, high heels, etc. It also seemed extremely dark in there, even though I went in the middle of a sunny day. I did like the sheer amount of space, though.
Also, now that there is a place to discuss:
What can I, personally, do about drunks bothering me? This fellow wasn't harassing me to a large degree, but he was hanging around where he clearly wasn't wanted, followed me, and kept leaning in closer to me. I'm always afraid to say anything directly to someone like that because he was obviously not getting a hint and since I am a fairly small female, I'm always afraid of some type of retaliation. Could I have told a staff member and they could have done something? He wasn't overly bothersome, just...very uncomfortably close. Could he have been kicked out simply for being drunk in the halls? Does staff even care about that these days? The drunkenness in the halls seemed WAY out of hand this year. I'm hoping to get some staff input on this one. I don't have much faith in the staff helping me out much with something like this, since while he made me quite uncomfortable (and followed me out of the room), but wasn't harassing me in the traditional sense, and I've heard plenty of horror stories of Fanime staff not properly addressing this kind of issue, and seeing as no one seemed to care that the boozing seemed 10x worse than ever before, I honestly don't know if staff would even -care- if I brought it up. This is becoming a huge problem, and I might not stay out late at the con in future years if there is this much rampant drunkenness, simply for my own safety and comfort, since things could have been a -lot- worse. (It isn't like this was my first year at the con or staying up late, so I've seen the levels of drinking before and how it was handled before, and there is a marked difference between the past two cons and my ~10 Fanimes before that.)