Fanime Con 2014 Website

[M]

I don't know if the final page will be different, but the panelist page does not respond well to mobile. The viewport is locked, preventing the user from zooming in or out. This is fine on the splash page, since everything is fluid and responsive. However, the panels page has not been optimized for responsiveness, which is a tad disappointing.

(Hmmm.... Maybe I should apply to the web dev team next year....)

We did test on mobile devices, but the viewport issue wasn't there. Going to forward to our dev teams. Thanks!

[Edit: this has been corrected]

[Admiral Donuts]

/panelinfo works fine on my tablet, except for the background. It enlarges when I zoom in but re-centres itself.

[CatToy]

We got more buttons on the website thanks to the website suggestion thread, but I agree that the site needs to get its act together and communicate to us in some way what is happening and why there is so much of a delay. All we can hope for is that management next year will be better since they rotate every 3 years or so.

All that rotating staff means is that your con chair is a rookie every three years or so. It's a great way to ensure that nobody gets good at their job.

[M]

We got more buttons on the website thanks to the website suggestion thread, but I agree that the site needs to get its act together and communicate to us in some way what is happening and why there is so much of a delay. All we can hope for is that management next year will be better since they rotate every 3 years or so.

All that rotating staff means is that your con chair is a rookie every three years or so. It's a great way to ensure that nobody gets good at their job.

The staff doesn't rotate - only the Chair does and the Chair is always someone that has been a staffer for many years to ensure that it's not someone that comes in without knowledge of FanimeCon.

[CatToy]

We got more buttons on the website thanks to the website suggestion thread, but I agree that the site needs to get its act together and communicate to us in some way what is happening and why there is so much of a delay. All we can hope for is that management next year will be better since they rotate every 3 years or so.

All that rotating staff means is that your con chair is a rookie every three years or so. It's a great way to ensure that nobody gets good at their job.

Regardless of how many years somebody has spent on staff, being chair of a con takes a different mindset and different skiillset. This system ensures that any con chair is either a rookie, has one year of experience, or is a lame duck.

The staff doesn't rotate - only the Chair does and the Chair is always someone that has been a staffer for many years to ensure that it's not someone that comes in without knowledge of FanimeCon.

[PassingTheBuck]

"All that rotating staff means is that your con chair is a rookie every three years or so. It's a great way to ensure that nobody gets good at their job."

Reality is that the past several Chair's for FanimeCon have been very educated on how a convention operates and what needs to be done.  They have all held Division slots for several years (which means that had to have held department slots for several years before they were moved up to Divisional slots) before they were offered the opportunity to be interviewed for the Chair position.  All of them were interviewed by a panel of their peers, the candidates had to be reviewed by Senior Management and their past convention work experiences were discussed.  It's not a simple process and while the Chair Team can bring in their own team members, like vice chairs or special advisers, the vast majority of the staff remain in place.  I know personally, because I've gone through it.

As for the staff, there is always going to be staff rotations every year, no matter who is in charge.  That's just a fact of convention operations life and if you had any experience with it, you would have known that small piece of information.  You have people who burn out on the job, people who transfer between departments or division and people who just want to take a year or two off, because of college, family life or personal life changes.

[Barnes]

^ Good to hear from you again, sir :)

[Purelovely]

When is the website going live? What does "really soon" mean? Will it be this week?

[Admiral Donuts]

"All that rotating staff means is that your con chair is a rookie every three years or so. It's a great way to ensure that nobody gets good at their job."

Reality is that the past several Chair's for FanimeCon have been very educated on how a convention operates and what needs to be done.  They have all held Division slots for several years (which means that had to have held department slots for several years before they were moved up to Divisional slots) before they were offered the opportunity to be interviewed for the Chair position.  All of them were interviewed by a panel of their peers, the candidates had to be reviewed by Senior Management and their past convention work experiences were discussed.  It's not a simple process and while the Chair Team can bring in their own team members, like vice chairs or special advisers, the vast majority of the staff remain in place.  I know personally, because I've gone through it.

As for the staff, there is always going to be staff rotations every year, no matter who is in charge.  That's just a fact of convention operations life and if you had any experience with it, you would have known that small piece of information.  You have people who burn out on the job, people who transfer between departments or division and people who just want to take a year or two off, because of college, family life or personal life changes.

Aside from that, a guaranteed rotation ensures things don't stagnate. A fresh body in the chair means you get new opinions. Conventions don't have stockholders meetings or elections or anything like that to keep the cycle going.

[Angelx624]

Well, at least they finally got panel applications up......

However I would like a full-fledged site. Is it so much to ask? And possibly maybe a guest announcement or two in the next couple weeks.......? Then again it probably is a lot to ask by now.......

[SpiritOfKairi]

Well, at least they finally got panel applications up......

However I would like a full-fledged site. Is it so much to ask? And possibly maybe a guest announcement or two in the next couple weeks.......? Then again it probably is a lot to ask by now.......

Can't help but agree here.  While the extra buttons on the site are a step in the right direction, can we expect to see the full thing by the end of the week?  If not, then when?  The answer of "very soon" works when you've been on top of things, but so far communication has been almost nonexistent, and the final product is chronically late.  Now even MPLe commented in another thread that it has taken ridiculously long with the site, so my question is, why is it taking so long this year?

[Kuudere]

I think at this point, I just feel bad that the website will only get a couple months of admiration before being wiped clean again for next year. As someone who has been involved in web design before, I know I'd be sad to see that hard work gone after such a short time. I really liked the design of last year's, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with, even if it has been a bit of a longer wait for it.

[megamanjoe415]

I know web designing is hard because of my previous work on coding and designing using html programs. But with my previous post on this same subject, being this late is unacceptable and help is needed. Not that I know better, but even Japan Expo 2nd impact is currently updating their site and telling us updates of whats going on. Again, my best years of Fanime has been since I started going in 2006, till 2011. I did enjoy flow being there for 2 years, and Momoi in 2011, that was great!!!

Please note that this is my 9th Fanime Convention and I hope this is going to be better than the last 2 years.

See you at Fanime 2014,
Anime_Files

[keitoghostie]

This isn't necessarily related to the website but today I talked to someone who works at a shop that has a booth in the dealers' hall and he said on his end things have been way better than last year as far as organization and communication goes, so that gives me some additional hope!

[CatToy]

This isn't necessarily related to the website but today I talked to someone who works at a shop that has a booth in the dealers' hall and he said on his end things have been way better than last year as far as organization and communication goes, so that gives me some additional hope!

So, the dealer's room registration doesn't use the website? That seems a little odd. How would a first time dealer be able to get an application in?

[keitoghostie]

I don't know the logistics of it tbh but it seems like he registered at-con last year and that the communication has been over email. I'd assume a first time dealer would email the department but I'm not entirely sure.

[Dajoo]

I don't know the logistics of it tbh but it seems like he registered at-con last year and that the communication has been over email. I'd assume a first time dealer would email the department but I'm not entirely sure.

We do the lions share of our registration at the end of the previous year. This way Dealers can pick out their booths while they still have Fanime on their minds.

We get quite a few new Dealers that apply by emailing us at Dealers at Fanime dot com.

I make it my personal goal to anwer all requests within 48 hours. ;)

[InsaneChan]

At least Dealer's are content with their communication....now it's just the attendee's who are suffering. We're a week away from the two-month mark for Fanime, and still nothing except a possibly empty promise of "soon." I know web design is a pain, I know it's tedious, and stuff happens. The head of the web team said that the website, when it is launched, will have a "ton" of information. Still, I don't see how they couldn't just launch the base of the site first, and add information as it becomes available, instead of doing everything all at once and having something like this happen.

I'm so frustrated with Fanime this year, and their absolute lack of professionalism, that it's seriously effecting my plans for next year. AX has their stuff together, I'm ditching Fanime for them next year if this fiasco continues any longer. Not only is Fanime not communicating a thing (seriously, we had to complain on the forums for even a tiny bit of information??), but they obviously don't even care. No courtesy messages on fb such as, "We are sorry for the delay, we're working our hardest to get the site/information up as soon as possible, thank you for your patience," or anything related at all. People making fb comments asking for information as well aren't even being responded to. AA people especially are anxious about whether or not they should start working on product, because they don't know if they'll have a table!



People are literally begging for any little bit of information. But they'll just have to remain anxious and worried because of Fanime's refusal to communicate. (FYI Fanime, as someone who works in communication, responding to people's worries doesn't mean you have to have the information they're looking for. If the information isn't ready yet, you at least respond to them, let them know as much, and attempt to put them at ease. You do not straight up ignore them).

[SpiritOfKairi]

At least Dealer's are content with their communication....now it's just the attendee's who are suffering. We're a week away from the two-month mark for Fanime, and still nothing except a possibly empty promise of "soon." I know web design is a pain, I know it's tedious, and stuff happens. The head of the web team said that the website, when it is launched, will have a "ton" of information. Still, I don't see how they couldn't just launch the base of the site first, and add information as it becomes available, instead of doing everything all at once and having something like this happen.

I'm so frustrated with Fanime this year, and their absolute lack of professionalism, that it's seriously effecting my plans for next year. AX has their stuff together, I'm ditching Fanime for them next year if this fiasco continues any longer. Not only is Fanime not communicating a thing (seriously, we had to complain on the forums for even a tiny bit of information??), but they obviously don't even care. No courtesy messages on fb such as, "We are sorry for the delay, we're working our hardest to get the site/information up as soon as possible, thank you for your patience," or anything related at all. People making fb comments asking for information as well aren't even being responded to. AA people especially are anxious about whether or not they should start working on product, because they don't know if they'll have a table!



People are literally begging for any little bit of information. But they'll just have to remain anxious and worried because of Fanime's refusal to communicate. (FYI Fanime, as someone who works in communication, responding to people's worries doesn't mean you have to have the information they're looking for. If the information isn't ready yet, you at least respond to them, let them know as much, and attempt to put them at ease. You do not straight up ignore them).

Agreed here.  It's good that at least one party is getting some information, but that still leaves everyone else hanging.  The last we got from the twitter feed was a message on Sunday March 9th saying the full website launch was "really soon".  Since then, we have gotten a few more links on the placeholder site, but nothing else.  There is no information concerning events for new attendees, nothing about AA, etc.  This is getting pretty ridiculous.  The convention is right around the corner, and yet almost nothing has been put forth, either information or general statement-wise.  I've said this before - I know Fanime tends to do things at kind of the last minute, but when you have an event that brings in about 20,000 people, a lack of communication and information this large really isn't good.  I love Fanime and want to see it continue, but I'm really not impressed with how things have gone so far for this year's con.  I'm trying to keep optimistic that we'll see a turnaround, but that's becoming harder to do.

[CatToy]

Sure would be nice if they would let AA people sign up for tables on the last day of the con, like dealers...