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[Dreyfuss]

My only beef is that there is almost no coverage of events at the con whatsoever.  Not nearly enough pictures of the good cosplayers (the Spartans in particular), no list of the Stage 0 programming (I want to know the names of the AMVs that were played Friday ), and even the really big, important events like thee Masquerade and Ball don't have much official coverage.

[Minagi-chan]

Overall I had a positive Fanime experience.  I especially enjoyed browsing Artist's Alley this year and making new friends through some of the live programming.  I enjoyed the ballroom dancing lesson, even if it was very basic and had a good time at the Black and White Ball, except for the idiots treating it like the rave.  I'd like to add that I attended my first Yaoicon event- bingo- and was thoroughly entertained.

My complaints are minor irritations only, and they are as follows:
-Lack of definite schedule, but hey, whatever happens happens
-People messing around in the elevators.  I was displeased to enter on the second floor going up to the 24th to find that all the buttons had been pressed and that I would have to wait an inappropriate amount of time to reach my floor, especially as I had a quick change to do to get to a gathering on time.  The same problem occurred on my way back down, and I assume that this was the same people.  I'd like to state that the elevators are not a toy, and treating them in such a childish and inconsiderate way really detracted from my enjoyment of the convention because I was made late on several occasions due to your antics.
-Being hugged without asking: now that's just plain rude.
-Growth of "gothic/industrial" clothing vendors.  I know a lot of peple like this kind of stuff, but I really don't think it has a place at an anime convention.  But that's just my opinion.


And that's pretty much it!  Thanks everyone who I met and talked to and I hope to see you all next year!

[Emerge]

+GGXX/\C + MBAC = mindgasm

+Puzzle Fighter matches with random people = craziness. comebacks left and right took a toll on my nerves. the good kind

+H-room was made of lulz. discipline ftw

+SJ mickey d's has hugo sodas for 69 cents. never saw that before. i was like...OMG.

+doing the robot on para para paradise was funny

-the dealers' room felt quite lacking this year. EVERYONE ran out of Negima! v.13, and i seriously felt as if i needed more time to find out what i wanted in there

-no program guides, missed some marathons, blah-blah-blah. everyone else pretty much said everything i had to say about this and then some

-i missed the maid cafe. was kinda lookin forward to that

on a scale of one to ten, one being crap and ten being perfection, i'd have to rate it a 6.5 this year, which pales in comparison to 2006's 9

[Ekac]

-People messing around in the elevators.  I was displeased to enter on the second floor going up to the 24th to find that all the buttons had been pressed and that I would have to wait an inappropriate amount of time to reach my floor, especially as I had a quick change to do to get to a gathering on time.  The same problem occurred on my way back down, and I assume that this was the same people.  I'd like to state that the elevators are not a toy, and treating them in such a childish and inconsiderate way really detracted from my enjoyment of the convention because I was made late on several occasions due to your antics.

The Elevator Ninjas might have been partially responsible, although I'm not sure if I saw you as I got off the Elevator when O RLY Ninja pressed all the buttons and ran away. It was on Saturday, the same day as our first run. The Elevator Ninjas are against Button Pressing, and pretty soon I'll issue a rule area on our thread that prohibits the use of Mass Button Pushing [MBP], also I will issue out a request to the Brigade that people who do this should be spoken to and asked not to do this again.

So if it was O RLY Ninjas MBP skills on the elevator you got on, I'm deeply sorry and apologize for his and our childish behavior.

[alkaline]

Though it had never been a problem in the past, the huggers and the "glompers" have SERIOUSLY got to go. It's practically assault and it's even worse when you're wearing a really sensitive outfit and some tard tries to tackle you.

Here's a whacky suggestion: You know how you can get a organ donor sticker on your license? Why not have a "huggable" sticker or something like that. That way, when you freak shows go to hug some random stranger, you'll know that they're cool with you even asking with it.

That way, those of us who don't want random people trying to grope us can go about the con in peace.

[Nina Star 9]

I agree about having way too much yaoi. You know, some us go to Fanime and are not into yaoi, and do not want to have to sort through it all in the dealer's room.

I also agree with Minagi on too many industrial/gothic clothing dealers. I mean, I love fashion, but I was not a fan at all of any of the clothes that were being sold in the dealer's room. Perhaps clothing dealers that have more to do with Japanese culture and fashion in particular, and not general gothic clothing? (I know, it was supposed to be visual kei and lolita and such, but really, I didn't see much of a connection to the theme of the con, and it could easily have been taken as just gothic clothing in general that had these terms tacked onto them.) Also, her point about the masquerade ball being treated like the rave. I have to admit that I was in a group for part of the ball that was off in the corner, all of us doing synchronized idiotic dances, but that was fun, until the glow sticks permeated the room and more and more people started acting totally idiotic in their dancing and it just turned into the rave with diffrent music. :/ I tried to actually dance semi-well to the music, but it is hard when I do not know how.


Also, my mom collects Hello Kitty merchandise, and she could not find anything in the Dealer's room. We found maybe four items, and none of them were anything collectable.

[felicity869]

First let me just say thank you so much to all the staff/volenteers that made fanime run as well as it did. I know it takes a lot of work and of course everything isn't going to be perfect.

B&W Ball dance lessons: it would be great if they could have been longer or done at two different times because unfortunatly I couldn't make it during that time and from what I hear it was pretty full so a lot of people just left.

B&W Ball itself: the room was WAY too small. I'm sure that's because no one expected it to be so popular. It was actually my favorite event during all of fanime. We really needed more beverages & more space. I left when I stopped feeling safe (kept getting stepped on/hit and feeling dizzy from lack of water) A lot of people didn't know what to wear. I'm all for not having a strict, inforced dresscode but it would have been nice to have more of a specific/focused guidline of what to wear/theme. It would also be fun to have a decorated area/backdrop for people to take pictures of people in their fancy outfits in front of. You guys could even take polaroids shots and charge a couple bucks for each.

The Masquarade: seeing as how I've never actually been in the masquarade I may not be apreciating the greatness of our new location. As someone part of the audience I didn't think this location was any better than the last and it wasn't worth having to walk further.

Programs: I realize that something terrible must have happened to cause no programs but man that really sucked. Luckily I was staying at home each night of the con so I could just look online to see what everything happening the next day was about but not everyone goes home or has a laptop. It took FOR-EV-ER to load and was way too long to print out. Maybe next year there could be two versions: one that's meant to be passed out with badges and a condensed, simple, B&W version that can be printed out from home if need be.

Anime video room time changes: Rarw, it seemed liek everything I wanted to see was running really late or early so I kept missing an episod here and there.

Fanimaid Cafe: The location was way small. I'm guessing that like the B&W Ball it was because it was the first year and no one expected it to be so popular. The line was constantly crazy long so I didn't even get to eat there at all.

[Raydere]

Though it had never been a problem in the past, the huggers and the "glompers" have SERIOUSLY got to go. It's practically assault and it's even worse when you're wearing a really sensitive outfit and some tard tries to tackle you.

Here's a whacky suggestion: You know how you can get a organ donor sticker on your license? Why not have a "huggable" sticker or something like that. That way, when you freak shows go to hug some random stranger, you'll know that they're cool with you even asking with it.

That way, those of us who don't want random people trying to grope us can go about the con in peace.

Eh, I cosplayed and even then barely got glomped/hugged at all, at least without me initializing the hugging. Only until I wielded a "Free hugs" sign that it started happening.

[asianfilm]

The Unknowns
-Asian Cinema. Without a program guide, I didn't have anything to go on when choosing movies to watch, so I ended up not actually walking into the viewing rooms except during one movie while I was practically falling asleep on Monday at 6am. So I didn't really get a taste of what was there, sadly.

I realize how much having a program guide could have helped our traffic, but did the summaries in front of the rooms help at all? We do try to have full summaries for the films in front of the rooms, so I am just trying to gauge how much they make a difference.

Thanks!

[Casull]

As video staff, I'm honestly surprised there aren't more complaints about "OMG U CHAENG VIDEO U SUXOR."  Thanks to you all for not lashing out at us.

The Black/White Ballroom was a lot of fun; it was kinda crowded, but a bigger space could solve the problem.  Hell, I didn't think I would have fun there, and I learned to dance!  That definitely counts for something.

There was one con-goer who mentioned to me that he liked the themed blocks for the video rooms, and how they were close together in one space. I agree with him, and I hope we keep that next year.

I think the computer thing could work out well, but we would need more testing of the videos and more refinement before we could truly get it to work right.  If I were older and I had a spare computer, I'd gladly donate it to Fanime for the fansub room.

As for Yuri night, it definitely needs improvement, or it needs to be scrapped.  I sound blunt saying this, but there's just not enough yuri hentai to fill six hours, and it's difficult as all hell to find non-hentai yuri as is; I mean, when people say yuri, I rarely feel that it doesn't imply sex of some sort, but hentai with pure lesbian sex is rare, if not nonexistent.  Yaoi night exists more or less fine because there just happens to be a decent amount of yaoi hentai out there, and the term "yaoi" doesn't imply sexual relations as much as yuri does.

All in all, still a fun Fanime, and I'll be back next year, staffing for sure.

[Barnes]

Question, is Fluffy ok?

[pchan]

The Unknowns
-Asian Cinema. Without a program guide, I didn't have anything to go on when choosing movies to watch, so I ended up not actually walking into the viewing rooms except during one movie while I was practically falling asleep on Monday at 6am. So I didn't really get a taste of what was there, sadly.

I realize how much having a program guide could have helped our traffic, but did the summaries in front of the rooms help at all? We do try to have full summaries for the films in front of the rooms, so I am just trying to gauge how much they make a difference.

Thanks!

Having the summaries in front of the room was a HUGE help. And I enjoyed the music vids that were used as filler between movies/shows. Thanks!  :wink:

[Umi.Ryuuzaki]

I love being staff, but I still want to enjoy the 'con too, so my perspective on the con experience:

• I felt disappointed in the dealers room. Normally on the first day when I "sneak out" of the gaming room I look for stuff for myself and my little sister when I come back home. After I took a few rounds of walking around, with the exception of "WTF a M-249 bb gun? woah!" and the Gundam Models vendor (practically), nothing just stood out. It was not until Sunday and Monday that I decided to pick up a token gundam model and a few manga books for my sister from a vendor offering a deal on them.
• I thought the program guides were so popular that the 'con did run out, only to hear later there were none on site. There's the online version, but as a avid collector of 'con program guides, I felt sad. If there was a version out for even "sale" or handout next year, I'll take one for memory's sake. I hope this can be avoided next year.
• This is just me, but I felt the panels seemed a bit improved. I noticed a few from last year weren't continued but i'll assume its for good reason, scheduling issues or god knows what. I was hoping to see that "How to talk to women" panel or something like that from 2006 so I can offer some help. Other than that, I would like to see a web comic panel next year, if its possible.
• The Maid Cafe: every time I took my break to check it out, that line was just nuts. Expand it I say!
• The hug signs: a great concept, an execution that went terribly wrong at the end. At some point I had to pull my open-button over shirt to flash my staff badge to kinda give people a sign "please dont". I'll hug people when I want and I did a few times, but not when its aggressive.
• Artist alley was once again kick ass, but because of this year's work schedule, I didn't get a chance to see it much.
• I'll be biased, but putting tabletop in there with arcades and E-Gaming was a good idea. I also think it is time that we need to introduce some sort of handhelds area (a la what tabletop did, but in a designated area), as I noticed alot of players with DS's and PSP's sitting along the wall playing with others.

Overall a average con, but not the best. Still plenty of room to improve indeed.

[felicity869]

I'm not banned anymore \o/(No reason to explain that)

Well I can see why you were banned. Sure people should ask for hugs instead of just taking them but do you really feel that it's necessary to push someone down to the floor because they wanted to hug you? Perhaps next time you could just tell them it's unwanted instead of being violent?
I'm sure the fanimaid staff would love some constructive feedback. What exactly was the "more" that you and your friends were hoping for? I really doubt Jerry was trying to be rude but there were lots of people trying to cut in line and sneak in real quickt o talk their the maids or take pictures with them and unfortunatly that's no able to happen if the cafe is to continue running smoothly.

I realize how much having a program guide could have helped our traffic, but did the summaries in front of the rooms help at all? We do try to have full summaries for the films in front of the rooms, so I am just trying to gauge how much they make a difference.

Thanks!

I know they sure helped me. If you guys hadn't posted that my friend's and I probably wouldn't have seen any of the movies. We ended up watching 4 of them, all of which we enjoyed. Thanks.

[Jelly Soup]

-People messing around in the elevators.  I was displeased to enter on the second floor going up to the 24th to find that all the buttons had been pressed and that I would have to wait an inappropriate amount of time to reach my floor, especially as I had a quick change to do to get to a gathering on time.  The same problem occurred on my way back down, and I assume that this was the same people.  I'd like to state that the elevators are not a toy, and treating them in such a childish and inconsiderate way really detracted from my enjoyment of the convention because I was made late on several occasions due to your antics.

Some of the SJPD/FD members were ready and willing to arrest the people doing this, as many of them were messing with the emergence buttons. Be forewarned that my cop buddies that will be attending next year WILL arrest people abusing the emergency systems in the elevators.

[PyronIkari]

I'm not banned anymore \o/(No reason to explain that)

Well I can see why you were banned. Sure people should ask for hugs instead of just taking them but do you really feel that it's necessary to push someone down to the floor because they wanted to hug you? Perhaps next time you could just tell them it's unwanted instead of being violent?
I'm sure the fanimaid staff would love some constructive feedback. What exactly was the "more" that you and your friends were hoping for? I really doubt Jerry was trying to be rude but there were lots of people trying to cut in line and sneak in real quickt o talk their the maids or take pictures with them and unfortunatly that's no able to happen if the cafe is to continue running smoothly.

-_- I was banned for this forum wrongly... hence why I'm unbanned now. Quite honestly, yes, I do feel the need to do something, and they're lucky I don't do more. I'm a firm believer that if you do something retarded like that, then don't be suprised when you get a reaction.

The fanimaid staff DOES NOT want constructive feedback... that was the reason why I was "banned" in the first place. And *I THINK* I have a better judgment on what he was to me compared to you. He was VERY RUDE in how he said it. I wasn't cutting or barging in, and at the time all I was doing was looking inside, I didn't say I wanted a table or even try to go inside or anything like that, I was merely looking around. For all he knew I was just trying to see what was going on. He was a total dick and I didn't make a deal out of it when I easily could have.

[OniCourseMusha]

Ups: Masquerade Ball was a great addition even though it was helluv pack but I enjoy having a ballroom/swing/waltz dance wit various partners (as well as dancing wit my gf duh).  It went pretty off when the glow sticks shows up towards the end of the masquerade ball.

Downs: Man I was about to watch Fanboy Bebop until I heard that it got delayed and got replaced by Naruto xbox360 game! That wasn't worth replacing!!  I couldn't show up cuz of the Masquerade line!

[darkstar]

When I have to spend the entire damnated con going:

"Can't sleep.  Clowns will eat me..."
"Can't sleep.  Clowns will eat me..."
"Can't sleep.  Clowns will eat me..."

... then I know the con was a total loss.

I don't come to the con for cosplay.  (Hell, if I hung around the cosplayers I find appealing for any length of time, they'd probably call the police on me.)

The dealers room???  Basically a schmear.  Too much yaoi.  Not into trinkets.  The DVDs probably could be gotten cheaper on the Net or at Best Buy.

Gaming??  Too crowded for my taste, and the arcade pretty well was so competitive that I basically kept to the "Pile Up" game.

Panels??  Save the Console Wars and the over 30 panel, no real interest in most of the rest of it.  Funimation is clearly continuing to run over the American market, and there's no mystery why.

Save Ouran High School Host Club, really nothing to talk about in the screenings...  And that's what I come to cons for.

Spent most of my time bascially PSPing in the halls and the Net cafe...

... and getting royally honked at the "no sleeping at the con" rules and the hawks enforcing it.

Usually, I'll see some enforcement, but it was clear to me that it was Priority Number One Point of Emphasis made to security this year that the moment it became apparent that someone passed out anywhere, they were to be immediately rousted.

I want that kind of treatment, I can get it from the San Francisco Police Dept.  By Sunday, I was already planning a possible trip to Dallas!!

And even when I was awake, it was like "DAMN!!!  That's the third time this episode I've seen that burly security geek come through the room like that."

Suffice it to say I was almost arrested.  I was definitely escorted out Monday morning to "cool my jets or surrender my badge" -- and, had I known what Monday would be like, I'd have handed over the damn badge.  (I already answered "Do you want to come back tomorrow?" with "I don't know...")  By that point, I was definitely ready to take a chair and chuck it over the balcony from the second floor to the first.  Only overhearing the possibility that the police had _already_ been called stopped me.

(FWIW, Monday, by the time I had gotten some sleep, was a couple of bathroom breaks and a rather stunted meander through the dealer's hall.  Everything else was beginning to close.)

I'm not going to pay $120/night for a hotel room that I'm literally going to have to be taken to in handcuffs by con security (if not the SJPD) to use.  Because that basically costs me 12-18 hours of the con right there.  Multiply it by two nights (much less the three!), and there goes any real need for the four-day pass.

Look, I'll say it a third time (I said it once to the info desk when I saw one of the most ridiculous pairs of contradictory statements I've ever seen at a con, and the second was to the four people who escorted me out at 5:30 AM Monday):

YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE SLEEPING AT THE CON, SHUT THE CON DOWN AT 2 AM OR SOMESUCH.  (And not reopen until 9-10 AM, like they did Sat. morning at ALA this year when there were only two people in the screening room at 2:30 -- one asleep and the other (me) fighting it off the best I could.)

(And before I get questions on that:  Yaoi/Yuri/Hentai/Madness/Anarchy would be moved up to about 9-10 PM.  I'd even go so far as to make the room that the Yaoi-Con people use a Kid's Room during the day.  All marathons have their own room anyway.  You've already moved up the dances and the karaoke such that the only thing left at 2-3 AM is the screenings.)

I could come up with several other possibilities if you like (that's basically what I spent a lot of time doing from about Saturday on):

1) Require con-goers to get hotel reservations before they can get a full-con pass.

2) Go the Naka-Con approach:  Get rousted once, and that's your one warning.  Second one costs you the convention.  (With that, I'd have been tossed 7 AM Saturday.)  You do that, I'm gone -- but it's a possibility for the con itself.

3 -- a variation of 1) If you're not willing to show accomodations, you can't stay past midnight.  It would require a separate set of badges to be made, but still.

I think I thought of a couple more, but I'll save them for when I rethink of them.

Sorry.  Fanime 2007 was no fun for me at all.  In fact, I'd be surprised if I'm not already (or eventually) barred from 2008 (and probably onward).

If that's the case, there's always Kubla-Con.

I'm already deliberating whether to even attempt AX at this point...

[lyricaldanichan]

I am gonna copypasta about my reply on the video programming situation
from http://forums.fanime.com/viewtopic.php?t=2223&start=120 which I am taking responsibility of. I am very sorry that I have fup and disappointed all the fans who wanted to see their favorite show. I am confident that 2008 will be better situated, organized and drama free.

----

The video room schedules did get messed up a bit. I also wanted to see Red Garden and one other anime had been shown at an earlier time than was supposed too. And the one that was supposed to be shown at the earlier time slot was just being shown when I got there.

I take responsibility with this. Since a lot of the stuff I downloaded either got corrupted or missingwhile moving it all to a 500GB external drive. I did try to get what was missing but the internet connection at the hotel was horrid and bit torrent is banned as well. What is ironic being in SJ that you would think you get higher bandwith instead of dsl speeds .

We had to make due with what we could get, which was frusterating.  I just wish the fansubbers would stick to one codec that is compatible with (like the Toshiba divx/dvd players) everything instead of multiple ones. What was weird is the mkvs on the G4 power macs was the only thing that prevented things from being shown. Thank god the mac mini (video room 4) worked without any issues. Tho the G4 in video 2 ended up getting a kernel panic and died  which I haven't had a chance to fix yet.

I am hoping next year we just go back to transcoding the fansubs back to dvd or seeing if the fansubbers would make a dvd for us to show their work so we don't have to worry about doing it ourselves. So any fansubbers out there want us to show your work please contact us at video-programming at fanime dot com.

So the moral of this story is expect the unexpected... which certanly rang true in this situation. I am confident that next year will run much smoothly and drama free *knocks on wood*.

Also better training for the poor video staff. On 2 separate occasions the room had to help the operators get the videos started. Also it seems that the formats of how the videos were set up; disk vs hard drive, DVD vs AVI etc. made it confusing for them. One standardized player app would also help I think. I know the operators tried their best and they seemed genuinely sorry when the schedule got messed up.

They were told to contact the supervisor on the shift. We didn't want other people to touch the computers because if something worse happens then the video room would be f*cked. Another thing that makes it hard to train people is them actually showing up for the meetings that is why we had that rule...but again that will change for next year.

Bigger rooms for the popular videos would be nice. I missed Deathnote live action because I was at the concert and got there right before it started and got turned away.

Thats it though. Like I said I really enjoyed video this year Thanks!

I wish we could show it in the bigger rooms but the live action/asian videos  is a seperate department from anime video programming. I do think it would be cool to have a dedicated video room that has mix of the animated and live action versions together.

Thank you again for your comments, we have learned from our mistakes and strive to bring you better programming next year. Hopefully we can show the anime we were not able to show because of the issues we had.

Danielle
Video Programming Assistant 2007

[Kyokun]

First, thanks to all of the Fanime volunteers and staff for making yet another fun and successful Fanime!  I know a lot of hard work goes into Fanime, and I'm glad you are willing to listen to our feedback.

The Good:

Elevating the screens finally.  I was able to see all the subtitles this year, without sitting on the back of my chair, or on my knees, or standing off to the side.  I REALLY appreciated this.

Anime summaries outside all the doors.  HUGE PLUS.  Especially because we marked down several anime to see, but then when we were pressed for time, we couldn't remember which ones were the must-sees vs. the kinda-wanna-sees.

Good anime variety, and getting the schedules online out early so we could do research.  Excellent job.

Bishie Bingo:  a whole lot of fun.  Was run well.  Past years were kind of dragging, but this year it seemed to flow well, and move along nicely.  (My one quibble would be the guys need to be on a stage like last year, since everyone ended up standing on chairs to get good views)

Artist's Alley:  Seemed more full this year, and people had a lot of good art for sale.  

The Bad:

The FMVs were huge letdown for the first time during my Fanime history (6 years).  There were several things I didn't like about them.  1)  No Civic Center, and crowded into a regular video room.  2)  Bad acoustics and volume adjustment.  Some of them were just too loud.  I had my hands over my ears for a couple of them.  3)  WAY too many action and drama AMVs.  These are the finals!  Limit them to 10 or less.  And hardly any comedy AMVs.  So I'm not sure if there was just a poor turnout in this category or what.  If that's the case, please do not add on more AMVs to the action and drama to try and fill 3 hours.  I would've much preferred a 2 hour FMV final with quality videos, than 3 hours of dragging on.  4)  The voting sheets were terrible.  In all past voting, we got a nice 8.5x11 sheet of paper with all the videos on it, and we just checked the one we liked the most.  Here we had to write down all the numbers in the dark, try to remember which one we liked (after slogging through 20 action vids), sometimes changing our answer... it was just bad.

Dealers room seemed smaller... but maybe there were just less booths of stuff I was interested in.  I noticed a lot of cat ear booths, which I'm not really interested in.  I still got a decent haul of manga and pins, so I'm ok.  

People need to be trained properly in computer usage for showing anime.  In one case, the person didn't know how to work the Mac.  My friend tried to help, but was brushed away.  After the audience started yelling "FULL SCREEN!!" my friend's advice was finally taken.  During the second anime, the audience had to walk him through, step by step, saying stuff like, "Open... Browse... Click..."  He finally got it by the third episode.  (EDIT:  I see this was explained above, so nvm.)

Make sure all the anime works.  I saw at least two anime cancelled due to corrupted files.  (EDIT:  ditto on the above edit comment)

I think that's about it.  My only real disappointment was the FMV finals.  I hope they improve next year.  I still had a fabulous time with my friends, and am looking forward to year number seven!