Fanime 2006-Feedback Thread

[Sacamano]

Placing the artists in a separate room as opposed to having them in the hallway like last year was a very bad idea. Move them back into the hallway, it was convenient.

The schedules were much harder to read this year. It was just too small and there wasn't enough contrast with the shaded boxes and black text.

Damn straight. That had to be like size 2 font! I didn't even bother going to watch movies or anime since I couldn't read what the hell was playing.

The Masquerade was subpar. Props and respect for everyone who had the courage to go up on stage but there were too many walk-ons this year. My entire group had enough and we all left during the break to go watch X-Men 3.

This year left me with a bad outlook for next year's con. I'm just planning on skipping next year and just going to Anime Expo instead.

Also, let the dealers know Full Metal Alchemist and Narutoi aren't the only anime in the world!

Note: I love Full Metal Alchemist and Naruto so don't get the wrong idea.

[Charming_Dorian]

What did I like...
THe Dealers room, they had such a variety of good crap this year. I was amazed that I didn't buy from jpop house (who usually sucks up all of my money) because they didnt have as good of stuff as in the past but i found stuff elsewhere that i HAD TO HAVE (mostly doll stuff).
Artist's Alley, I loved it in there and I think the selection this year was ace.
Musicfest I think they did an excellent job in bringing so many different styles to us.. its a shame it wasnt more popular :P
wifi area rocked. i got to email my paper off. whee.

Complaints
I hated waiting forever for my staff badge on thursday... i ended up leaving before i got my badge because we had other plans.
rooming was a pain in the ass for me but that was no one's fault.
There was this one broad in the how to talk to boys panel who thought she was damn sassy and sexy or something. All i gotta say is nice leggings and panty line, babe :P

[angeljibrille]

I'm looking at the Maquerade script right now, we had 41 skits, 11 walk-ons, and 1 no-show. There were 53 total, 41 of which were skits.

Unfortunately, because of the way people check in (They get their place in the Masq depending on when they check in) almost all 10 of the walk-ons ended up in the first half.

Pretty much the entire second half was skits. I'm sorry you decided to not stay and see the rest of the skits.

I guess next year I will not give first choice to the people who sign up, and reorganize them so that there is a little bit better of a distribution.

However, pretty much the entire last 23 groups were skits so you sadly missed out.

Take care,
Marisa
Masquerade Coordinator

[KillingYouGuy]

I have to say, it was my first anime convention and I loved it :D The schedules were hard to read, but otherwise the only problems I lied in deciding what to do.

I liked the AMV concert thing (musicfest?) but I didn't stay for the whole masquerade, as the Ninja Taisen Tournament was going down. I did like the first half, though, lots of good ones. The walk-ons were kind of annoying though. Especially a few where they set themselves up with intros longer than the "skit"

[Graduisc]

dislikes...
-the halls and all that stuff infront of the exhibit rooms seemed dead. I guess it wasnt bustling with artists row. Found it pretty cool last year how the tables were spread all over like that. This year I went into the Artist's Row for like 20 mins. BAH.

-Dealers Room was blah, circled the place countless times and nothing was really "WOW I GOTTA GET THAT!" not even a reasonable wooden weapon. :\

-bad luck with those random pvc toy boxes.

-that staff badge pick-up line was unholy, and the fat delays. momma save me. waiting with a friend was one of the true tests of the sane....
Uhh...

Likes...
-the super e-gaming room. that was pretty cool compared to the cramped J room at the other end of the world.

-water everywhere was a good idea.

-no injuries during volunteering work. yeaaah  8)

-the panels were pretty cool. the animeigo how to draw manga was pretty  interesting for the short time i was there, too bad i couldnt have stayed longer.

-the wifi cafe was pretty BA. was a nice place to just sit and rest.
and other stuff i forgot.

[pockystix]

This year was really great, but it because I made the choice to have a good time and not expect anyone to do it for me.

There were some bad sides, but that's mostly my fault [forgetting stuff, schedual mix-ups, and things not working x.X], but you can't have everything go your way all the time, right?

What I did like was Stage Zero [probably because I got a t-shirt :P]. Gave us something to do when we needed to kill time. I found some more cool things I wanted in the Dealer's Room as well; too bad I didn't bring enough money. [But I do agree there are a lot of Naruto, Bleach, and FMA merchandise. Hopefully dealers can expand on more series, possibly unlicensed series as well. *coughserieswithcharactersnamedHaruhicough*] Were there any other Rozen Maiden stuff besides the art book? I wanted to something for Sanada-san to sign [I have a friend who's a major RM fan].

As for improvements, I agree with all the people who think there should be a walk-on part and a skit part. Halfway through the masquerade, I saw tons of seats empty. By the time they were giving out the prizes, more than half the place was empty. Maybe the skits didn't have enough omph or the first half didn't give a big enough impression. [Personally, the skits year weren't as remarkable as last year's. I still remember them from last year, but I could hardly recall the ones from yesterday. Don't know if they didn't have enough time to prepare or if there weren't any new things this year. *really wished there was a Haruhi dance just for the hellovit*]

And I think Artists' Alley should stay in the big Exhibit Hall, but be open to the public so they can get more publicity. It'd be like having to pay to get into a small art gallery [it's not a museum or anything].

I made it sound like this year was horrible, but it was totally great; really. I hope to attend next year!

[Sunara Ishi]

I didn't like the artist room. I seriously liked it much better when they were just on the second floor of the convention center. It allowed people just wandering to see the art and buy stuff as opposed to having to specifically go into a room to find it. I'm sure the artists got better sales last year, too.

It really did hurt there sales. I heard that one of the artists only made %10 in one day when they made over $70 last year....

I keep saying that Der Cosplay needs to be just skits. No showing off of costumes. That's just crap when the audience expects skits. Stage zero was supposed to be for those people wanting to show off costumes. #.#

I found decent stuff in the dealer's room but it depends on what you're looking for and how early you get there. If you want something new and popular, you better get there early. (In most cases.)

The printed schedule was much better than the PDF. I was going to print that but it was way too small. 2x8? WTF? At least it was on time this year. Maybe create a more print-friendly version for next year?

[EternalMalachi]

Masquerade:
I really enjoyed it, except for the younger idiots in the back right (while facing the stage) of the downstairs seating.  They kept yelling and basically being immature little punks while the preshow guitarist was entertaining.  The couple behind me made a comment about how its better to be entertained than stare at a black screen while waiting for the show to start.

I really loved the Karaoke winner as well as the music performance played during the intermission.  That gal was soooo cute.  ^,^`

There were some really good skits this year.  I didn't like Gainax boy from last year and that stupid Mighty Mouse thing, but his song routine this year was fantastic.  Also, Gloomy's Clues was a riot, as well as the Black Mage World Wrestling.  Oh, and the FFXI Mithra video/skit, though as he's my best friend, I suppose I'm a teensy bit impartial.  Its a shame that so many people seemed to leave at the intermission because the Mithra skit was the first one after that.

The Stage Ninja thing was a little overplayed, but not worth complaining about, I think.  Brian was great as always and so quick w/ the insults and improv.  Loved it.

One suggestion would be to have a program guide.  I know that a printed one would not be feasible due to the short time between the registrations and the actual show, but maybe a scrolling list on the screens before hand during seating.  Something like "Entry # - Skit/WalkOn - Group Name - Skit Name."  That way people can get a feel for whats planned for the night.  Just an idea, ya?

Schedules:
Dissapointment.   It wasn't as bad as last year when it came to timing, but the printed schedule is all that was available for those of us who didn't bring printers to the con, and the one handed out on Saturday was barely legible.

There was supposed to be some Robot Rumble mecha versus mecha discussion that was announced Friday night at the Robotech Shadow Chronicles Preview, but none of the staff seemed to know anything about it, so I have no idea if it occurred or not because I had no idea where to go.  Also, there was a mistake on Saturday night that said "Geneon Presents Akira 2."  Got all excited for nothing.

My dissapointment stems from the fact that everyone knew it was a problem last year, and yet it wasn't fixed for this year.  I understand its a big con and there are a lot of things going on, but please do not tell me that its a lot of hard work for people who are donating their time and effort into this and we should be thankful that it didn't turn out worse.  We heard that excuse last year and accepted it.  That shouldn't make it a "Get out of Jail free" card.  I do not mean to sound bitter, but it was a problem last year that I was hoping would be remedied.

On the plus side, the free internet cafe and updated schedule online was helpful and kept us from being completely lost.

Panels:
Rooster Teeth was awesome.  Funny funny guys, though they seemed bored out of their minds hanging out in the dealer's room.

Gaia was fun, I hear.  I didn't attend, but I saw the line while leaving the Rooster Teeth panel and I could hear the cheers from down the hall.  Plus, the people I know who did attend said it was a blast.

Dealers' Room:
Air conditioning was wonderful.  ^.^`  My cosplay outfit doesn't breathe very well so the AC was a blessing.  There was so much there I wanted to buy but just didn't have the money for.  And to my regret, hardly anyone seemed to accept Credit Cards for under $100 purchases, if at all.  One booth accepted CC over $35, but since they didn't sell any Macross toys, I only managed a $37 purchase.

Also, I loved that first corner booth on the left side of the far right aisle from the entrance.  It was the one that allowed you to choose which Kingdom Hearts Trading Arts piece you wanted.  Saved me quite a bit of change to get the figure I wanted.  ^.^

Art Room:
At first I wasn't too thrilled, but by having its own room it helped keep the main walkways cleared, and so it was very worth it.  The Art Room itself was a little stuffy, but since it was the same set up as the Dealers' Room, it made browsing much easier.  I spent quite a bit of time in there, and I have a couple cards I need to check out for commisions.  ^.^`  A lot of the artists themselves are fun/interesting people and I had plenty of fun little conversations.

Video Programming:
Not too thrilled this year.  There were a couple Asian Live Action shows I enjoyed, but no much in the way of animé.  I'm guessing something happened where fansub animé is no longer allowed to be played?  Two years ago I was running from room to room all day to catch new animé I wanted to check out.  Was much more laid back w/ only a couple shows I had to catch.  This year, however, there were only 2 shows I wanted to see: one was the Shadow Chronicles preview that I missed because I was feeling ill, and the second was a typo on the schedule.  -,-`  All the rest of the animé that played was basically stuff I can just borrow from friends.  *shrugs*

E-Gaming:
Awesome.  Taiko again dominated the majority of the time I spent in that room.  I only tried a little Guitar Hero because the guitars were busted and were double strumming off of single strums, which kept screwing up my combos.  -,-`

I am all for having the E-Gaming in an exhibition hall.  Open area kept the room cool and having all the arcade in there as well meant for good variety for playing as well as watching.

My only complaint is about this one punk kid who was hogging half of the Time Crisis 3 machine while 6 people stood behind him trying to get on for doubles.

My only suggestion would be to spread the arcade machines out a bit more.  There were huge crowds around some of the Bemania machines, making it difficult to see/access others.  Other than that, great job.

Staff:
Overall, good people.  My friend and I had our props peace-bonded the first time we entered the Dealers' Room, which was also the first time we entered anything that required a badge check-in.  The staffer was real nice and apologized for the trouble, which of course he did not have to do since he was only doing his job, but the fact that he did showed the attitude of the staffer, which was helpful and courteous while enforcing con rules.  Helpful and courteous is probably a good way to describe all but one of the staffers I encountered.

Noticed how I said all but one?  The encounter I just described is a good foil to the FIRST encounter I had with a staffer this con.  On Thursday during the Pre-reg badge pickup there was some guy snapping at people in line, telling them to get away from certain walls and certain doors and the like.  Most of the people I saw in this line and the later line for the Masquerade respond quickly enough when spoken to in a polite manner, so this guy's behaviour just kind of surprised me.  There was an incident last year w/ a staffer in a little go cart and cowboy hat and some Naruto cosplayers taped to a pillar, but I understood that the staffer was running from one fire to the next, so to speak, and so his terse manner was understandable and his demands to enforce safety regulations reasonable.  The incident this year occured before the con even started and this guy already seemed to have a bad attitude.

So astounded I was by his behaviour that I wanted to tell my friends' who had yet to arrive about him, and so I got out my camera to take a picture.  Now, when I turn my digital camera on, the viewfinder screen displays a Kodak logo against a black background.  When that image cleared I saw the staffer looking at me w/ his hands together against his chest, so I snapped the picture.  Right away he came to me and while I do not remember his exact words it was in an "are you stupid?" tone and went something like: "Do you think that when a person tells you not to take his picture that you should do it anyways?"  I do not go out of my way to offend people so I apologized, saying that I did not hear him say no, nor even shake his head, nor did any of the people around me.  I told him I would delete the picture and was going to, but decided against it.  For one, this confrontation was even more reason to warn my friends about this seemingly arrogant staffer. For two, while it is generally rude to take a picture of a person w/out their consent, I do not know of any law/rule barring a person taking pictures in public places of anyone else in those public places, nor are there any lines in the Policies section in the Fanimécon 2006 book.  I do not plan on posting the image, but if anyone else had problems with a staffer and think it may be the same person, PM and I'll send it to you.

Stage Zero:
That was a fun little thing to check out and there were some fun games and vids.  The rap, however, seemed rather out of place.


I can't think of much else at the moment.  This year was the first Fanimé at which I cosplayed and that ate up most of my time and energy.  Cosplaying really made things so much more fun than just attending.  ^.^`  Not sure if I'll be back next year, since it is so expensive flying out from Minnesota and getting a hotel and all that, but we'll see.  Here's hoping, ya?

-Eternal Malachi

[Chun]

It really did hurt there sales. I heard that one of the artists only made %10 in one day when they made over $70 last year...

I went to the feedback panel about this. The counter argument is a lot of people had a stuff that needed a constant eye on them to make sure people wouldn't walk off with it or 5 finger discount it.

Also, people would be able to leave their stuff and setups behind because the room was locked up at night when they were finished.

However, advertising really was down this year.

~Chun

[Spiritsnare]

For the moment, I have two comments...one is bring back ParaParaParadise. BBBB, whoever the hell you are, you are SO GOING DOWN. >D

The second is toward the Fanarts Center (Artist's Row); the impression I got was that it was almost like a fan Dealers' Hall. It's almost like it could turn into a FaniComiket, even. But the overall vibe of the place was focused solely on the artists and not artists plus people hurrying to and fro plus people posing in the center of the place. Oh, and let's not forget -- if Artist's Row was where it was, where would we put Stage Zero, as crowded as it was many times? So, I like this new idea -- more breathing room, the option to take your time as with the dealers' hall, and a level up in security, as per Chun's reply.

[YoureMyHiro]

A great con but it all seemed to go so fast, my thoughts:

Good
-------
1. Dealers Room - They had alot of stuff that I usually have to seek high and low for but conveniently placed within my reach this year. Nice selection.

2. Game selection in Gaming Room. They brought Para Para this year, that made my girl very happy and for me they had every popular fighting title.

3. A wide variety of screening rooms. It was great to ALWAYS have something to resort to if the dance ended or the Gaming crowd had died down and you just wanted to get in some good viewing.

4. Alot of new friendly people. I made a few new friends and caught up with a few old ones.

5. Organization, I was able to find everything I was looking for due to the lovely signs and READY MADE schedule made available at registration.

Okay, now with a little of the...

Bad
------

1. Gaming Room kept all the games outside of the main hall/walkway area. I always felt keeping the games in the open area kept things lively where areas centralizing it in one place kinda made the place feel dead at times.

2. Masquerade, now before I give my two cents, I applaud all those who put in the immense effort to create their costumes. Im sure it took many man hours and quite a bit of financial investment, kudos to you. However, I felt the Masquerade was drawn out with "filler" by the many walk-ons and lack of skits.

3. Sore losers. I spent a great deal of time gaming in the E-Gaming room and I was physically threatened on more than 4 occassions and was verbally chewed out more than I can recall. Now, I wasnt being a pompous ass about my wins, I wasnt gloating and most games I played and won I thanked my opponent for a good game. Im not worried about a fight, I would prefer to avoid one because I dont want to get kicked out but it would be nice to enjoy my gaming experience without anyone flipping out.

Overall it was a great con and Ill be there again  next year.

[angeljibrille]

A great con but it all seemed to go so fast, my thoughts:

2. Masquerade, now before I give my two cents, I applaud all those who put in the immense effort to create their costumes. I'm sure it took many man hours and quite a bit of financial investment, kudos to you. However, I felt the Masquerade was drawn out with "filler" by the many walk-ons and lack of skits.

I'm still baffled by this one (read up higher in this thread). There were only  11 walk-ons and 41 skits plus 2 special performances. Did you not stay for the second part either? Also, it's absolutely impossible to control who does how many skits or anything. It's a free show put on by people making up their own stuff-  and therefore the content can't be screened and changes every year depending on who participates. If we require skits and only skits -- you are probably going to get about 20 groups. The way this works is that a FEW groups (usually the ones who win) plan out skits a long time in advance, but a lot of people just make up their skits on the fly -- even when they signed up originally as "walk-ons" we talk them into doing skits.

I will reorganize that next year somehow to distribute the walk-ons better, but sadly walk-ons are a part of every cosplay event because remember the cosplayers are putting on this show for you. They want to be able to show off their costumes, that is why they are in it, and a skit may not be what they want to do. We started to require that all walk-ons at least have music and do some poses so that the audience has something to see -- but unfortunately it's not something we can eliminate from the contest: it's just part of cosplay and you will see it at every single con in the United States.

The best I can do is to make the walk-ons a little more spread-out this year. Sadly, I did not realize until I read the comments here that almost all the walk-ons ended up in the first half.  I think if we had mixed it up a bit more, 5 skits for every 1 walk on which was the true ratio, you would not have noticed them so much. That's my fault because of the way we checked in people for our ease (by giving them a number as they cheked in) of keeping track of things.  You guys missed some great skits in the second half, which was almost completely skits.

For those who have commented on the emcee, that was Brian aka Dieter, who has hosted just about every single Masquerade for the past 10 years or so at Fanime... it wasn't a new guy... we just took over the organization of the background stuff and Brian returned to emcee. Brian just wanted to retire his "Dieter" persona for a while.

We hope to see you back next year.

Thanks,
Marisa
Masquerade Coordinator

[zoupzuop2]

One of the (VERY FEW!) things that bummed me out was that nobody knew about the Ranma ½ gathering. This got me to thinking:

Maybe we should have the gatherings put up on the schedule... so EVERYBODY knows when to be where. Then there's no questions, and...

...then we'll get MORE THAN THREE (could'a been four, I think) PEOPLE AT THE RANMA ½ GATHERING!

[EternalMalachi]

5. Organization, I was able to find everything I was looking for due to the lovely signs and READY MADE schedule made available at registration.

Ah, that reminds me of another issue.  Aside from the Live Action rooms, the video rooms had no room schedule until Sunday, and then that was just a copy of the printed schedule w/ relevant bits highlighted.

If the animé rooms could have a set up like the Live Action Asian Cinema rooms, with what show showing at what time w/ a brief little synopsis, that would be most helpful, I think.

[OniCourseMusha]

Stage Zero was a pretty cool addition to the convention.

Masquarade's award ceremony wasn't lively compare to last year.

Brian Doan is my speech teacher and he told me that he's gonna host the masquarade. Then I hear from the other staff that he wasn't gonna host.  What's going on?

[YoureMyHiro]

A great con but it all seemed to go so fast, my thoughts:

2. Masquerade, now before I give my two cents, I applaud all those who put in the immense effort to create their costumes. I'm sure it took many man hours and quite a bit of financial investment, kudos to you. However, I felt the Masquerade was drawn out with "filler" by the many walk-ons and lack of skits.

I'm still baffled by this one (read up higher in this thread). There were only  11 walk-ons and 41 skits plus 2 special performances. Did you not stay for the second part either? Also, it's absolutely impossible to control who does how many skits or anything. It's a free show put on by people making up their own stuff-  and therefore the content can't be screened and changes every year depending on who participates. If we require skits and only skits -- you are probably going to get about 20 groups. The way this works is that a FEW groups (usually the ones who win) plan out skits a long time in advance, but a lot of people just make up their skits on the fly -- even when they signed up originally as "walk-ons" we talk them into doing skits.

The best I can do is to make the walk-ons a little more spread-out this year. Sadly, I did not realize until I read the comments here that almost all the walk-ons ended up in the first half.  I think if we had mixed it up a bit more, 5 skits for every 1 walk on which was the true ratio, you would not have noticed them so much. That's my fault because of the way we checked in people for our ease (by giving them a number as they cheked in) of keeping track of things.  You guys missed some great skits in the second half, which was almost completely skits.

Maybe I didnt stay till the second half Im not sure I was so tired by that time but I stayed up until the Usa Musume performance, I had hoped that Ramen and Rice might make a special guest apperance, watched their show and the moment it ended I left.

But as you previously stated maybe the solution is just dispersing the walk ons and skits as evenly as possible although I did enjoy the two special performances.

[Babbit_Chan]

I don't think I have to reiterate the huge inconvenience of the schedules, so moving along...

>> It definitely felt like there were too many walk-ons in the masquerade, but there was an explanation by the staff somewhere in this thread so I'm not too worried about that. However, I don't agree that some separate event should be made for walk-ons. I think those costumers deserve the same crowd as those with skits. Anyway, there was a previous complaint about the skits this year. The masquerade lineup is decided by sign-up, right? So they can't exactly filter in the skits that will be more entertaining, because it's all in the eye of the beholder.

>> The dealer's room was a little blah (I bought two things from the same booth all weekend, and one was an item that sold out last year). But I don't think Fanime can control what merchandise they bring, or how much of one series.

>> I'm actually really glad the the Asian Film programming has expanded to a wide variety of dramas along with the movies. Thumbs up to the Asian Programming people! (too bad I've already seen a lot of the dramas LOL - but that's just a drama addict for you)

>> I liked the E-Gaming room setup, as opposed to having it out in the open. There's no screen glare and a convenient spread of the machines.

>> One of the major things that did tick me off, though, was the MusicFest line control (but then it ticks me off every year). I think a Fanime staff/volunteer person should be out there earlier to regulate the line, because it got ridiculous this year. Even though one line was already forming in on direction, a group of people started lining up in another direction and the staff started yelling the foremost part of the line to move back and make room for them when they should've started with the back of the line. When they DID go to the back of the line to get the end moving, they disappeared and it never happened. We were told to move three times before they decided it wouldn't work and they would just hold the line back while they let the other side in. Like I said, it was ridiculous, and they totally didn't know what they were doing.

In contrast to the MusicFest line, the masquerade line got much more attention. The line staff were much more firm about the line and keeping the sidewalk clear of groups and clusters. I was very happy about that.

P.S. Please don't look for friends in a line and stay there without having waited two hours in line, like the rest of us. That's just rude.

>> The "24/7" concerts were actually very nice, and it must've been cool for the bands to have two one man lives plus a long concert in total. Is there any way for the lights to be turned off and have some kind of lighting against the stage for the band?

>> Just for the record, this was the first year I went and did karaoke with my friends. It was a blast, and I hope everyone has a chance to check that out (especially late out night when no one cares wth they're doing). I think it's a classic event that'll always be fun, if nothing else is.

>> Is it just me or are there fewer and fewer guests related to anime?  :roll:

In the end my friends and I started considering skipping Fanime and going on to another convention next year, or staying only two days of the convention.

For those who have commented on the emcee, that was Brian aka Dieter, who has hosted just about every single Masquerade for the past 10 years or so at Fanime... it wasn't a new guy... we just took over the organization of the background stuff and Brian returned to emcee. Brian just wanted to retire his "Dieter" persona for a while.

Thanks for clearing that up! My friends and I were all confused when Brian went back on stage, since we thought he was going to retire totally from hosting, but I can't actually imagine the masquerade without him so yay.

[Liltichan]

Swap Meet
I was a little annoyed when setting up for swap meet this year. The event started at 8 and there was still a huge line of sellers still waiting to set up and shoppers were already at the swap meet for the few sellers who had already set up. I thought it was a bit unfair and disorganized. I did like how it was at the game room though

Schedules
As said already, schedules were hard to read

Dealers
it was fun as it always has been every year. I thought however it could of used more variety. I kept seeing a lot of sellers with the same merchandise or lack of series variety ( so much Naruto/Bleach.. not that those series are a bad thing)

Artist Alley
I liked the room, but I never minded having the artists having their booth out in the hallway. A couple sellers I was talking to said they liked it better having their booth out in the hallway again than in a room. They had a better sales when in the hallway and recieve more people to look at their stuff as they pass by.

Game Room
Just awesome. Excellent gaming room. I liked the variety of arcade gaming and PC gaming and Console gaming.

[FanFicGuru]

Dealers room- Rocked. I loved it again this year, however I did miss the Funimation booth and their hourly drawings for free DVDs. >_< Other than that it was really cool.

Artist Alley- I really really loved the format myself. I know a lot of people are arguing about it, but I loved the way it looked and felt. It allowed me to see all of the artists without walking the entirety of the concourse. They were all collected together and I was able to appreciate all of their work.

Masquerade- Didn't go. Not big on the actual competition, but that's my own preference.

AMV Contest- Loved it. The videos weren't as good as last year's imo, but the Princess Tutu and Outlaw Star one made up for it. And the comedy section was better imo. I loved all of them.

Panels- I only went to a few, but there were a couple that were moved around. It would be cool if Fanime could set up some sort of instant information system to communicate to fans the second that a panel has been moved and/or cancelled. I saw like, 3 versions of the schedule over the weekend (which I could read just fine...) But anyways, the panels were still pretty cool.

Video Rooms- Good, some of them weren't that heavily guarded as far as badge checking, but for the most part it was checked. Good selection this year, and the Bleach marathon definitely was a hit as well. Bravo.

Staff- A couple times they may have jumped to the 'angry' setting a bit faster than required, but for the most part the staff were all really cool this year.

My biggest complaint would be the following:

Saturday's line for buying badges.

I went to get my 2 sisters and their friend badges to take them for the day. We were in line for almost 3 hours. I understand that Saturday is a busy day, but I think that there should be another whole section dedicated to registration for times like that. People were handing out the registration forms down the line, and that was cool, but if you set up another 4 or 5 windows in another section, that would most likely help the regular registration line go faster.

That's about it.

[asianfilm]

Wow. I'm glad to hear so many positive things about the Asian Film rooms. It's always gratifying to know that all the work we do is appreciated by the attendees of the convention.

Now, some questions.

For those of you that did not visit the Asian Film Rooms:

1. Was there any reason that you did not visit the Asian Film and Drama rooms?

2. What would it take to get you to watch Asian Films and Dramas next year at Fanime?


For those of you that did visit the Asian Film Rooms:

1. What films or dramas did you enjoy the most?

2. Were there any films or dramas on the schedule that you had made plans to see going into the convention?

3. Were there any films or dramas that you dropped in on, without any previous intention of watching the film, but ended up enjoying?

4. Were there any films or dramas that you did not enjoy?

5. What can we do to improve your experience in the Asian Film rooms?


Thanks!  :)