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[Imperial]

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to open the floor to you, the fans and cosplayers, on specific items you have feedback wise for Cosplay Gatherings. Here is what I know I need to improve on.

- Social Media Presence. We were relatively weak on social media, and the forums this year. I admit, I had items come in my life that made things more difficult to be here and on our page

Photos were missing in spots or had quality issues, these will be focused on to fix next year.

Lack of Gatherings/last second gatherings - Can be linked to the above, but honestly I needed to advertise this more

Things that went well

Hangout was always filled with people relaxing, cooling off, and fixing their cosplay.

I HAD PHOTOGS ROAMING THE FLOOR, long time coming

Workshops were knocked out of the park! Large attendance to most if not all of them

No Crazy incidents at the gatherings from what I saw.

In General, this year I feel I am back to B era power. yes there are some points to work on, but people know of us now, and enjoy us for what we are! We hope to evolve, so please give feedback and ways to improve upon it. Complaining exists, but give me something that I can do to fix the problem.

[powerofunity]

Thanks to you and your team for all your hard work! I had a blast hosting a gathering this year.

I think our photographer had difficulty with the lighting and photo quality, but you've already noted that. Apart from that, maybe some way to identify the official Fanime photographer at the gatherings? It could just be a sign that says Official Fanime Photographer. This way, the cosplayers know in which direction to look. I always assumed the official photographer was in the most centralized position, but looking through some of the Slickpic photos, the official photographer was sometimes off to the side.

All in all, my gathering went well, so thank you again!

[InsaneDavid]

To begin, thank you to you and all CGD staff and volunteers for all the effort and hard work you put into FanimeCon.  From a gathering hosting perspective - the gathering submission process, at-con check-in, locations this year, everything was smooth and easy as far as I'm concerned.

Cosplay Hangout was pretty incredible, both a flurry of activity and also a quiet place for cosplayers to kick back and relax.  It's wonderful to see the space utilized in such a useful way to all cosplayers.  A real asset to cosplay at FanimeCon.

You already mentioned missing photos or photo quality issues but I do want to reiterate that while not ideal, I do understand the issues are due to honest mistakes, and that's part of any large event.  You're always going to have little hiccups and being aware and addressing them is all anyone can ask. Thank you for doing so!

Ah, I suppose this relates to above, but not having a photographer at the Old School Gathering - not a big deal as we always take a full set of "unofficial" gathering pictures and upload them publicly.  However we held the gathering back a few minutes in case they were just running late.  That's on me, I should have just started and will do so on time next year.  It's always nice to have two public galleries (an official and our unofficial) of the gathering as they tend to fill gaps in shot setups.

It also took awhile to get non-gathering attendees cleared out of the gathering location.  Sending an experienced rover or CGD staff (I know you don't have a ton) to the on-site gathering locations 5 - 10 minutes before they begin, to assist in ensuring the areas are vacated for cosplayers, would be helpful.  I know generally the official photographer would assist in this.

Security presence was nice, although they seemed to be a bit of a waste.  Then again, we're a pretty well-behaved gathering all things considered.

Listing of gatherings with time table in the pocket guide, as well as the revised gatherings map was awesome.  Thank you for pushing to have this happen and for FanimeCon to finally include them in the pocket guides.  I'd love to see this get carried over into the larger books as well.

Gatherings at Fanime this year were a ton of fun, as usual.  Thank you for adding the video room stairs as a location (G3).  If there were any issues with my gathering, it has to do with becoming more familiar with how to be set up for that location.  (in the three years since I picked up the gathering we've been in three different locations)  Next year I'm going to push the perimeter of observers back a couple more feet to prevent photobombing and allow easier movement for cosplayers to approach and leave the platforms.  I'm looking forward to having the gathering there again.

Thank you again, for everything you do for cosplayers at Fanime.

[bahamutknightzero]

Got to say that I really appreciate all the hard work you guys in the Cosplay Gathering department do. The only downside is rather minor (lack of megaphones) but thankfully the location that we were gathered at made the need for one unnecessary. Any other faults at the gathering were on my end but the staff person that was sent to take photos for the DC gathering was helpful and pretty understanding after we called a slight audible on location shooting (when we saw most of the people at the gathering decided to group up at the snake statue and discussed the situation at hand, deciding to go with shooting near the statue instead).

Did love the addition of the gatherings list in the both the pocket guide and in the main guide, along with the map showing where each gathering spot was located. Hoping that it is implemented again for next year.

Many thanks again for all of the hard work you guys put in making the cosplay gatherings as smooth as possible for us.

[olingamer]

I'd like to thank you guys at the department for not only helping me with the photos, but also with time and place. I was hosting saturday's fate gathering and I know that you had trouble fitting in both, but in the end it worked out so that's something you should be thankful for. Also, people going to my gathering wanted a location change but even though we kept the same location in the end, thanks for trying to help me.

[Angelx624]

Thank you so much for another great year in gatherings!! I hosted the Free! gathering with no issues and had a great time! And thanks to the official photographer as well! I know cameras can act up and understood there were technical issues but other than that everything went smoothly!

While I most likely won't be hosting the Free! gathering next year, I do plan to host some type of gathering!

[Kite]

Thank you for your hard work as usual CGD. Everything during my gathering was good. Especially my assigned photographer was super helpful who helped me call out the photo shoots since I can't speak very loud for very long.

However the only problem I had was the beginning due to the discrepancy caused by the misprints on the guide books. Officially and at the info desks my gathering was at G6. But in the guidebooks it said G7. So I had to spend 30 minutes running back and forth making sure sure everyone was in the right place. Thankfully I managed to reroute/catch quite a few people and take them to the right spot. Though I'm not sure if I got everyone.

Otherwise everyone was great and enjoyed the gathering.