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This topic was about one of last year's panels, so I'm going to go ahead and lock it now.

Your PM's work, but I recommend sending e-mails to panels AT Fanime DOT com rather than sending PM's here on the board. As noted in other posts, my ability to work on the computer is limited right now. :) If you send the e-mail to the panels address, anyone from my leadership staff team can answer it.

I'll go ahead and reply to your PM. -Rena

So i'm staff.

And i want to host a pony panel.

and two of my friends want to cohost it with me.

And you get panel hosting discounts on tickets.

But i know they're too lazy to fill out the form.

How would i go about making it so that they get the discounts, since my ticket is free anyway :D

(For some reason, my PMs don't work, >_>)

Just a couple of extra notes for last year's panelists.

1. I noticed that many of you created feedback threads for your panels the same day you gave the panel, or the day after. While I commend the idea, I think the timing may have been off. Most people attending Fanime don't have much time to be on their computer or on the forums during the convention, and are faced with travelling back home and unpacking, etc. once Con is over. It isn't a guarantee, but you may get better feedback if you wait until a week or two after con to post your querying threads.

2. I know that a lot of panelists would like to know what was put onto their feedback forms each year. Someday, we would like to make this available, possibly even publicly. The difficulty lies in getting someone onto our staff who knows something about databases and is willing to help build and maintain a database that houses the information. If you know anyone, or are interested yourself, drop us an e-mail. ;)

Panels has hosted various 'gatherings' of different types of Anime fans before. For example, we've had an 'Anime Fans over 30' panel several years. There used to be a panel every year for those that frequent these forums, though I haven't seen them submit anything in the last year or two.

So long as you are pitching your panel to be about Anime or about the experiences these individuals experience at conventions, at Fanime in particular, Fanime fans who also share something else in common get to meet up, etc. then it would fit in with previous panels that have been done.

Send an e-mail to panels AT Fanime DOT com and we can forward it to the panelist for you. We can't give you their contact information without their permission. -Rena

Hey E-Hash,

I kind of like this idea, but I don't think it's something that panel staff could take on. Many of my staff don't even arrive at con until day 1.

However, it could be a collaboration between Stage Zero staff and Info Desk staff. I'm not sure if I've seen this early enough for them to put anything together for this year, but I can throw the idea their way and it may see fruit in 2013.

-Rena

@Dany Good to know! I'll see if one of my staff can get over there to ask. ^__^

@renalcul Glad to hear it! I figure if we're going to have Homestuck panels... we neeed MLP panels too!

Ps: Panels has their own twitter account now: http://twitter.com/#!/FanimePanels

Feel free to use it to ask us questions, as well as to hear some nifty little factoids about panels throughout the year. -Rena

[First, FanimeCon's theme this year is: Sports!]

I thought I'd give a brief list of panels we haven't yet received a plethora of submissions on which we'd love to have on our schedule this year.

First, FanimeCon's theme this year is: Sports! So panels about sports-based manga or anime, or any other twist on this theme would be grand.

My Little Pony - Panels received one submission for this late last year, which did not get approved. We'd like to make sure we get an MLP panel onto the schedule this year.

Dollfie Dolls - It's always nice to round out our schedule with at least one panel on Dollfies. (If anyone is willing to give one!)

That's it for now! We'll update this post as the year evolves. Please feel free to also post your requests in this thread. If enough people want a panel about it, and we don't already have submissions, it may get added.  ;) -Rena

[Most especially, I added a section today on how this year's approval process will work: http://www.fanime.com/programming/panels/panelist-information/#post-submission]

Hallooo to all!

Briefly, in case you're wondering what's up with panels this year and why has Rena been silent: my right arm/hand was cursed in 2011, and between August 11 and December 25, I managed to injure and re-injure it 3 or 4 times. This has led to a lot of limited computer usage for me over the last several months.

And now for the information you actually want!
The 2012 panel form is up (though most of you have probably already seen it). It is linked, as always, from the panelist information page which you can find here: http://www.fanime.com/programming/panels/panelist-information/

EVEN BETTER: Our panelist information page has had a bit of overhaul and updating this year which was badly needed (including some updates I just made today), so I highly recommend reading it over again even if you've been a panelist in previous years. (Updates were made to the section describing what we consider when approving panels/assigning room slots, too!)

Most especially, I added a section today on how this year's approval process will work: http://www.fanime.com/programming/panels/panelist-information/#post-submission

:oLast, but in no way least... If you hadn't heard yet, Fanime has a partner con this year that is ALL steampunk. Their panelist information page is here: http://www.fanime.com/programming/panels/clockwork-alchemy-panelist-information/ You can read more about Clockwork Alchemy here: http://www.fanime.com/2012/01/06/press-release-fanimecon-announces-a-brand-new-steampunk-addition/

If there is anything there that is unclear, feel free to drop us an e-mail or reply here. We'll do our best to answer here and to update the online information as we are able to do so. (I'm still injured, so you can expect to hear from my staff more than me this year.)

Thanks everyone!  :D -Rena

PS! You can sometimes get information sooner than on here by following the FanimeCon twitter feed: http://twitter.com/#!/FanimeCon

:) Trust me, we aren't particularly happy when things like that happen, either. Sometimes, with GoH panels, it is more difficult to 'kick the panelist out when their time is up' if they are going overtime, and Momoi is extremely popular. We do generally try to keep things moving, and we do recommend to all panelists to have a presentation that is 50 minutes long, not 60 - since there should be a minimum of 5 minutes on either end of the panel for set-up and break-down.

-Rena

I know one of the panelists was really upset about his panel being cut short because of the delay from the Momoi Q&A. I don't remember who it was though. I just want you guys to keep that in mind that when a panel is significantly shortened in time than what was promised to them, some people will feel cheated out of what they opted for. I do not speak on behalf of any panelists, but I can understand how it would feel if that ever happened to me.

Room allocations for various events are not always in complete control of the department who is utilizing the rooms. :) Trust me though, if you think you feel pushed out of the way with us in the Marriott, be glad you missed the years we were tucked away in the Hilton. ;) If I get the opportunity to take over space in the convention center, I surely will, but this is something that has to be agreed upon by several departments, and also partially involves traffic flow, etc.

I have considered allowing separate web descriptions, and rejected it for two reasons, which I'm happy to share:

• 1. This forces more work for my staff, since we would have separate description lists to send out to the web team and the program guide team.
• 2. Some panels would take advantage of this, and others would not. Some panels have very short descriptions to begin with. It's a much more equal system if all panel descriptions on the same page are 'roughly' the same length, rather than some being several paragraphs and others being two sentences. If I allowed longer descriptions, it would still have to have a character limitation. No matter how long it was, some panelists would want to go over, and some would want to go WAY over. Keeping it to the 300 characters keeps it streamlined and equal.

Until I'm able to get a 4th panel room... or more time slots in other rooms around the con, I'll make the late night slots available. If no one wants to give panels in those time slots, then they'll be cut from the schedule. My aim is generally to have two rooms hosting 18+ panels after 10PM (18+ panels are almost never scheduled to start BEFORE 10pm), and 1 room with non18+ for younger crowds which might still be awake. However, I can only schedule panels when panelists are willing to give them. Sometimes I don't meet this goal because there are not enough 18+ submissions to fill the late night slots.

18+ panels typically do better at night than regular panels do.

Tech stuff - if there's ever an issue with this, let panel staff know, and they'll radio it in so that tech can be fetched for your room. However, this isn't something we have complete control over. There is not enough tech staff to have 3 tech staff on hand for 15 minutes every hour on the hour to check that the previous panelist left everything tidy after their panel was over in each room. Sorry that whoever gave a panel before you left it untidy!

-Rena

Some thoughts here:

3) After doing panels at Fanime for 3 years straight now, I have to wonder will you ever move fan panels outright into the con and out of the Marriott? It honestly feels like we're pushed out of the way. Most other cons put video rooms in the hotels, and put the live programming in the con.

4) While I realize in retrospect I did a poor job naming/describing two of my panels this year, I also wondered about being more descriptive on the website. Yes, I know the programming guide is limited to X characters for the title and description, but maybe allowing a "longer" description on the web site? When we're forced to truncate our descriptions/titles down, we sometimes accidentally cut out good info.

6) I'm not convinced panels beyond 12am will work out at Fanime. It really seems like Fanime is a large, spacious con, and people are running around all day and get really worn out by night. Most people want to go to bed or chill in a comfortable, laid-back environment like the video rooms by midnight.  While the RE panel, and our neighboring Hetalia panel, were pretty packed at 12am, people in the audience afterwards asked why we selected to be so late at night. The 1am slot was just too late, too, for the other panel we did. I think either next year, panels should cut off at midnight, or allow 18+ panels to be a bit earlier ahead of the 10pm time Fanime wanted all the adult panels to take place after. Otherwise, probably going to give serious consideration to dropping the 18+ part of the "What's Wrong with" panel series we do (which we plan to do again next year).

7) Make sure panel tech stuff is setup properly between panels.

On the panel request form, at the top of the section on scheduling preferences, it does actually say, "Please note that we do not schedule panels over an hour in length between noon and 5pm on Saturday or Sunday." If there is another place that this could be repeated to be more noticeable, I'm certainly open to suggestions. I believe this was there last year as well, but I won't say my memory is 100%. Please note that even if you're submitting 1 hour panels, a single panelist is not likely to get more than 1 primetime hour slot approved. Since these are THE MOST REQUESTED time slots, we try to spread them around as much as possible.

We are changing the approval system again this year, and early submissions will always make it more likely to get an earlier approval, but it will not guarantee approval. We try to have as wide a variety of panels, and as high quality panels as we can manage, and we cannot approve too many panels too early.

For instance: I have right now already received 69 panel submissions since the panel form went live (less than two weeks ago?). My staff and I will start trying to send out some approvals next month, but there is no possibility that all 69 of these will get approved within the next month. Some will have to wait until later in the year. We often do not have information on GoH panels, MF panels, etc. until a bit later in the year, and have to wait on filling up our schedule until we have that information.

I can try to add something to the panel form for future years possibly which encourages people to let us know if they have a deadline by which they need to know whether or not their panel is approved. This way, if we can't approve by that date, we can let them know. Would that be helpful?

-Rena

It'd be most helpful to newcomer panelists if the panel registration stuff mentions you can't get a 2 hour panel during the day. If we'd known that, we would have broken the fanfic workshop up into different 1 hour sessions instead!  :D

As for the panel registrations, I can understand why things were done the way they were this year with the gradual panel confirmations, but could we please next year give some priority to those who submit requests first? It was more than a little nerve-wracking putting in the request almost as soon as it opened and then not finding anything out until April as to whether or not we had a panel at all; we weren't planning on going if we didn't get the panel this year, and the hotel we had our eyes on had a discount rate that was non-refundable, so we couldn't make the reservations until we knew for sure we'd be going. This isn't going to be an issue for us personally next year- we will most definitely be coming back, but it could be a real headache for other newcomers.

Okay! Time for some belated replies... apologies for the lateness.

We do sometimes have panels in the Main Video Room, but this is not always possible. We'll try to keep this in mind.

Our largest panel room holds about 300 people (iirc), and we do not at this time have any larger venue available to offer to panels which might exceed this capacity. Trust me - if and when we do, we'll offer it. Video main has roughly the same capacity as Panels 3.

-Rena

GoH and other popular Panels

Is it possible to have some panels at the main video room?
Panels with a lot of girls screaming (like the Yuya Matsushita panel) made a lot of noise and panelists in the room next door have a hard time holding a panel because of all the noise.

And the PACKED panels (I think it was the Gaia Online panels?) could perhaps use a bigger room.

GAINAX GoH has a panel in the main video room from time to time, so I think it could be arranged...

Sorry if I'm making an impossible suggestion!

Satsuki Yamashita

 :o

One of the things most requested of our 18+ panel last year was to have it later on at night. So this time around, I made the request for the 18+ to be at night, so we'll see how that goes - just doing anything on our end to make Fanime rock. I'm not so sure about early, but I mean if people will go, then by all means it should be an option eventually.

We usually try not to schedule 18+ panels to start before 10pm. :) The late  option seems to be more popular than early, so this year we're staying open an hour later every day, though we are also opening up an hour earlier on Friday and Monday.

[All panelists should have received an e-mail from Panels last night, with the finalized schedule, and instructions for at-con Check-in.]

As a note to everyone - The schedule has been finalized and sent to publications. We are now firmly in waiting list mode.

All panelists should have received an e-mail from Panels last night, with the finalized schedule, and instructions for at-con Check-in.

If you did not receive this e-mail, please let us know, because it contained information you NEED to know to make sure your panel does not get canceled later on.

-Rena

Question about the Hetalia Q & A panel that was supposed to be on Monday. Our original time was supposed to be a two hour panel from 12pm - 2pm, but our time slot got pushed to a one hour panel from 2pm -3pm. Is there any way we can get our 2 hour slot back?

I have communicated with the individual in charge of this panel separately via e-mail.

@Kava - So in your conformation e-mail, I know you said not to mention anything about discounts and that the information would be forthcoming in another email. I've registered, but haven't paid my registration fee. Who do I need to contact about that so I can get my registrations squared away. It's almost the 30 day mark, and I'm just afraid that I won't be able to pay the pre-registration rate if it doesn't get taken care of soon.

Thanks for all your hard work with the new system and dealing with all us nervous nerds. ^^

Hello!

I obviously need to re-write what's on the website, because a lot of people ask me questions like this.

Discounts for panelists are only offered on full-priced badges purchased AT the convention center. I cannot give discounts on pre-reg or even early-registration badges. I cannot give refunds on badges that have already been purchased.

We haven't yet worked out a way for panelists to be able to get their badges squared away pre-convention. It's something that comes up a lot, but we haven't figured out a way to make it work yet. Sorry for any confusion!

-Rena

I did get your e-mail, and will try to reply to it sometime this weekend. Was simply too swamped previously with trying to get the panels schedule finalized.

-Rena