Age Restricted Event Punishments (18+)

[IceFist66]

Hello Everyone. This is my first time posting on here and I had something that has been bothering me for the last few months. I hope that this can open up a discussion to fix the problem for next years events.

At one particular 18+ event this year, hentai night, we got all 3 strikes in less than 30 minutes of each other and all of the events concerning those viewings were canceled immediately. Of course the strike from 1 room counts for all rooms for some reason. So everyone was pretty angry and was constantly furious that they had been punished for one - three individual violations. Of course the perpetrators ran and we all got the consequences instead. I don't think a group punish works with adults here. It may work in the military, but there is a reason it works there. The individual get the ever living snot knocked out of him and that is their 'peer pressure' to shape up. But since we cannot do that, we don't get that option to correct the mistakes of those individuals. If however Fanime is willing to offer some bats and whips up to give said punishment, just let me know (I'm just kidding, I would never do that).

So as a constructive criticism here. I have some suggestions to help fix the problem for next time. And we can all go back to cheering for the most ridiculous scenes found at Fanime.

1) Confiscate our phones at the door. It's super simple. Have a coat check / locker system to place our phones in and we won't be tempted to look at them while we watch. Not sure what that would entail, but we have up to 10 staff in the room when the event is going one and their job is to look out for these guys. Dave Shapell does it for 3,000 people. I think we can do it for 300 people per room.

OR

2) No matter what, constantly tell those entering the event that there phones should be off and in their pocket. It's very easy here too. Have them turn off their phone in front of the staff and then proceed to enter the room. This not only ensures the device is off and not distracting to the guests, but the staffer can also add 'Do you agree not to have your phone on? If you do you will be punished'. Done

AND

3) Punish the individual with a 1 strike deal. Pause the video, turn on the lights. Pull the guy to the side to get his badge info and black list him (or kick him out for the night for his first offense). It's simple. If his phone is on, guilty. You have already told everyone to turn off their phones coming in. If it's on, no excuse. Anyone now caught with their phone on gets punished, the crowd ACTUALLY sees this punishment and now knows not to let it happen to them.

These suggestions would be much better than the angry mob we got last year. Please take the time to catch the trouble makers this time so we can all enjoy what we paid to see.

Thank you so much for your time.

[Amanojaku]

So what actually happened?  Someone had their phone out?

[DankLordPopo]

Yeah, I was confused about what the incident was when everyone got kicked out

[therealdjpocky]

For a second I was sure it had something to do with minors sneaking in, but I can understand how phones could be a bad thing too (basically the same as having it out during a movie).

[HunterZero]

Despite multiple warnings, multiple people were caught recording (or attempting to record) video in both the HMV room and the standard Hentai room. A three-strikes policy was in place, and the third strike resulted in the events ending early.

I know recordings are something being discussed, but no good solution has been found.

Speaking un-authoratitively to the suggestions by IceFist66:

1. This isn't feasible for many reasons, including liability, security and management/supervision of the items.

2. That is what we did, and it still happened. Some people don't pay attention, some don't care, and some are just trolls.

3. This is what we tried to do, but at some point we as staff can't spend the entire event trying to manage the crowd. At first we kicked the person out, then we evacuated the rooms and forced everyone to come in, and the third time we shut down all of the Hentai events.

To be clear, there are steps that are taken when someone is discovered recording video, but frankly those don't really impact people who don't pay attention, don't care or are trolls.

Believe me, this is something that has been discussed and is still being discussed. It isn't an easy problem to solve due to the common and miniaturized nature of recording devices in society. I found someone recording during midnight madness, and when confronted they didn't think anything was wrong but they stopped and deleted it from their phone. Unfortunately, society is changing where many (and I mean more than a majority) don't see anything wrong with recording anything they want to any place they consider to be "public" even though FanimeCon isn't strictly speaking public.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

While I am of the opinion that it is completely asinine to be caring about people recording in the 18+ rooms, I can understand that there "can" be some possible legal ramifications otherwise.
Regardless, shutting down events over a few offenses from a few individuals is a terrible plan. With this kind of policy the events are guaranteed to be shut down quite often, and as noted it does punish the group for individual offenses. The simplest and least disruptive method would be to just pull the people aside and deal with them as appropriate.

[JossAlias]

what if the individual punishments were more severe? Like you get one warning then you get your badge revoked? I know it's harsh but i doubt people will risk their $60+ badges just for a troll. And it's not like they can say "oh but we didn't know" if you post signs everywhere, post the rule on the forums/website, and make an announcement about it every now and then?? Just a thought... nothing gets people to listen like having their money go to waste