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It's a good suggestion, but reality gets in the way.

Affordable printing takes a lot of time.  The schedule was technically due May 1, and I submitted it to the printers on May 12, which was already a bit on the late side and cutting it rather close for comfort since the printer asked for two weeks to do the job.  I know we can rush them and have them do it within days if necessary, but they'll want to charge extra to bump their other clients off the press.  This is why the schedule always has inaccuracies in it: by the time the con starts, the schedule is at least a week out of date.  We try to freeze everything as much as possible as soon as the schedule is released, but things just happen.

According to the cosplay thread, changes were still being made to the cosplay gathering list all the way up until May 21/22.  It looks like about 15% (about 1 out of 7 events?) of the schedule may have changed between May 12 and May 22...?  (I'm not sure.  Just a rough guess based on the forum thread.)

The question I have is this: Is it worthwhile to put the cosplay gathering list on the schedule if it's going to be one or two weeks out of date?  If 1 out of 7 events is going to be wrong or missing, is the cosplay gathering schedule still worth printing with the schedule?  It's a lousy trade-off to make (whether to put outdated schedules in bags or whether to make people find the more up-to-date signs), but that's what I'm looking at.

BTW, way to go, AbsolutelyCursed!  I don't think it's weird at all, and I've taken pictures of lecture notes, receipts, maps, schedules, menus, and price tags.

3. I think that's mostly just Live Programming's little mistake. I was trying to look for descriptions, too...

Asian Films is not under Live Programming.  I don't think it's General Programming's fault either.  Traditionally, it was up to the departments to submit information to both Web and the program guide, but in previous years, most seemed to submit to one or the other but not both.  I don't blame them, and I understand why:  After all, they've already sent the information once, so why should they send the same information again to a different group?  I had grandiose plans about fixing things like that by having Web and program guide share content (and provide reporters, writers, and editors to departments who need help with it), but it didn't work out at all this year.  I'm hoping to reorganize and try again for 2009.  I'm not at all confident that I'll do better this time, but I'll try.

I hope to do it online but it's not there @.@ why?

^_^;  I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we're not ready for that yet.  I wouldn't expect to see a full 2009 web site (and thus no 2009 pre-registration) for a few months.

By the way, I strongly recommend taking the forms to badge pick-up. I think it makes it easier for everybody involved.  I turned in a minor waiver to HR early, and we had problems finding it when she tried to pick up her badge at the con.  It was eventually straightened out, but it caused extra confusion that just didn't need to happen.

I lost most of my frustration and negative feelings at FanimeCon.  ;)

A shame they didn't include the GAINAX Room, but I presume that's because it was a last-minute addition.

Yes.  We printed the extra GAINAX Room schedules at the last second, as soon as we had reasonably any information solid enough to print.  They should've been stuffed in your registration bags.

-Not easy to find information about meet & greet / autograph sessions. I ended up not finding Sadamoto-san, though I really wanted to meet him especially.

I believe that information wasn't available to any of the Info Desks, ConOps, or Publications until Friday evening-ish.  The information didn't get passed around internally, and I apologize for that.  I really should've known whom to ask, and I just failed to put two and two together.

Also, the last time I heard (which was before we got enough information to make the GAINAX room schedule, so the information might be outdated), Sadamoto-san was not going to hold any official autograph sessions this year, so there may not have been any autograph session specific to Sadamoto-san for you to find.  He may have given out some casual autographs during panels and such, but I don't think it was formally planned.

-Information booths had 2007's maps instead of 2008's, for most of Friday (lol).

I know, and I'm sorry.  In spite of researching things all year, I still managed to royally mess up signs this year.  I'd like to thank Finance for approving an extra huge chunk of money on top of my budget to take care of it, all of the pre-reg attendees for putting Finance in a good mood, and Eugene (who used to work for Kinko's) for arranging all the remaining details necessary to get the signs done.  But I think I'm now equipped to do better next year.

- Seconding the camera nazis at the concert.  I understand that they don't want us to take pictures and video- and I wasn't planning to- but if they don't want any cameras at all, then tell us BEFORE we get to the end of the friggin line.

I completely agree with that.  Many staff (including me and even my An Cafe writer/reporter) did not know about the "camera nazi" at An Cafe either, and we got turned away at the door too.  I wish I could've known in time to have my newsletter crew write something about it at least.  What we had here was a failure to communicate, even internally.

There are ways to deal with the food issue, and make them cheaper. Not the convention food, obviously, but I do advocate that Fanime include a price guide to the local area's establishments. Or get fast food sponsors like In-N-Out that does the occasional remote operation (I've known a few schools that've done this- it has been full of win, overall). The Convention's already paid for the space- it is not, in fact, indebted to the Center to the point that it has to try and sell its food as well.

I was part of the reason why there's more information about convention center food than outside food.  I made a conscious decision to cut the San Jose food map out of the program guide because we ran out of space and because the convention center itself was willing to provide the San Jose Downtown Food Maps to the Info Desks.  Let me say that again: the San Jose Convention Center itself provided all the Downtown Food Maps at the Info Desks.  They're very nice about working with Fanime to get what FanimeCon attendees want.  I believe that the convention center has been willing to be as helpful as it is because it noticed that listening to Fanime's suggestions brings in more business.  So, when they extended food hours and brought in lower-priced items the way Fanime suggested, I wanted to do my best to let people know about it so attendees can provide feedback with their dollars about whether it works for them or not.  The convention center couldn't lower the price of their $9 nachos, but they did try to find cheaper items.  For example, I believe I saw more sandwiches and bagels and such this year, providing cheaper alternatives to the expensive hot dishes.

Also, it's been noted that the average age of the convention attendees has been dropping, and I'm a bit worried about sending younger attendees outside the convention center for food.  Because of that, I'd like to see more of the demand stay inside the convention center, so Fanime management has more to work with when trying to fix convention center food options.

From what little I know about the food terms and policies, I don't think bringing in In-N-Out will help prices much.  I believe the convention center has rules and fees on outside vendors, so I imagine In-N-Out would have to raise its prices if it tried to sell food inside the convention center.  The business might be worth it, and rumors have claimed that Tengu Sushi and Lollicup have been happy with their business in spite of the convention center terms, but the products the outside vendors bring are not cheap.  That said, I'd love to have In-N-Out inside the convention center, and I think it's a neat suggestion.

In any case, while it's true that there are a lot of limitations on what can be done about food prices, it might be useful, or at least interesting, to keep the suggestions coming anyways.

Just one bit that bugged me was that the Fanime '08 booklet was a little harsh on the eyes because it was a sans-serif font. Sans-serif is awesome for computers and electronically displayed text, but serif looks MUCH better and is a lot easier to read on paper. No biggie though xD

That is good feedback, and I'll pass that on to the designers.

Thank you all for the feedback!

I guess Fanime expected us to walk around with our pamphlet.

Is that a bad expectation?  We put the map in the program guide, and we put the program guide in an easy-to-carry bag.  Is there a reason why you don't want to carry your program guide and your registration bag around with you?

Hi!

I just wanted to mention that we are out of schedules at the convention.  We had ordered 10,000, but there have already been 10,000 attendees, and it's only Saturday!  We're printing more, but I just wanted to send out a note for people to please not lose or trash their schedules.  Also, if people are still at home and want to print schedules for themselves (or if people have PDF viewers on handheld systems and want to put the schedules there), the version we've been printing is here:

http://www.fanime.com/file_download/48/FanimeCon_2008_Schedule.pdf

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Hi!

I'm head of Publications, and I wanted to start a thread for feedback and suggestions for the program guide and newsletters.

For the program guide, other than the exact dates and locations of events (which are in the schedule), did you find what you need?  Was there anything you wished we added?  Would you have preferred more pictures?  More text?  More humor?  More information?  More pages in general?  Or was it too long?  Would you have preferred fewer pages?  Did you enjoy the content, or was it too dry?

How was the map?  Was it legible?  Understandable?  Cryptic?  Did it have enough information?

For the newsletters, did you see pre-con newsletters?  If so, where did you see them?  Are you finding the at-con newsletters?  We've been distributing to the four Info Desks, the Publications table in Artist Alley, and the FanimeCon booth in the Dealers Room.  What do you think of the newsletters so far?  Were the articles informative, or were they too dry?  Is there something else we should be writing?

Any comments would be appreciated.  Thanks!

Morning, Noon, or Night? I've never stayed on Monday, but this year I am.

I believe closing ceremonies was scheduled to end at 7pm last year.  I think the end of the closing ceremonies is probably a reasonable marker to use as the official closing time for a convention.

I wish I had known about that prior since I invited a friend along since she's never been to a con and couldn't afford a room without staying with me.

Considering that we haven't had staff hotel sign-ups yet (unless I missed the memo), it shouldn't be too late to talk to your department head and change plans, should it...?

[Pyron]

I guess I shouldn't be hanging around this sandbox, but every once in a while, it's fun to play around.

Why do you say that you shouldn't be playing here?  (Does that apply to me too?)  I think it's good that you play.  I think it helps give the feel that Fanime really is "by fans, for fans" rather than having aloof authority figures that come in only to Give Official Word or Hand Down the Law.

Anyway, as Pyron said in many more words, fansub groups and industry can't get in bed. There's a little logic issue for you! - for them to work together, the fansub groups can't actually do any subs; they'd have to stop, and hence lose a lot of their usefulness (and their name - as fans that sub), in order to do so.

Actually, that brings up an interesting point.  Technically, fansubbers just can't distro.  I believe there shouldn't be anything technically illegal about creating a list of text translations.  Maybe partnered Japanese/American companies can present a web site with pictureboards and Japanese audio track or Japanese text while letting fansub groups race to subtitle.  Maybe they can sell a subscription for the audience to preview the fansub races or sell ads on the site where the races are held.  Maybe it can be a vehicle for teaching Japanese and explaining localization decisions too.  Maybe it can help provide material for "translator notes".  This idea doesn't give anything for the fansub timers and encoders to do, but the fansub translators and editors can be kept busy on a series even after the licensing announcement, and the audience would have something to do and something to see while they wait for DVD production.

The thing could come full circle, though. Industry topples, fansubs come into prominence, the good ones go legit and make enough money to get back to where we are now. That's the default/omniscient market/capitalism scenario.

Probably.  Every industry seems to revisit copyright infringement debates with every new technology, so that keeps going in circles too.

There is no rule that I have to stay in a staff hotel room is there?

It's possible your department might be disappointed if they're expecting you to room with them, but I'm pretty sure there can't be a Fanime-wide policy requiring staff to stay in staff rooms.  I live reasonably locally, so I went home at night during my first year as staff.  I get the impression that there aren't enough rooms to require all staff members to stay in one.

Hello!  I'm looking for feedback about the FanimeCon 2007 at-con newsletters.  Did people just not see them at all (again)?  Or did people see them and just not want to pick them up?

I'm also looking for newsletter staff, including writers, reporters, and Chief Editors.  Please see http://forums.fanime.com/viewtopic.php?t=7803 for more information.

Doh!  I don't think the newsletters actually made it to the Maid Cafe this year either

That's because there turned out to be four Info Desks instead of two, and I didn't find that out until the con.  So, I sacrificed the Maid Cafe and ConOps sets and gave them to the two other Info Desks instead.  In retrospect, given that I was told that Maid Cafe lines were long (I didn't have the chance to even see the lines for Maid Cafe, much less visit it), I'm no longer so sure that it'd be a good thing to give people an incentive to stay in the Maid Cafe longer than they normally would.  I think people taking up a slot in the Maid Cafe should be paying attention to the maids, not the newsletter.  Also, it turned out that the video area Info Desk was close enough to the Food Court that I didn't think Food Court needed its own distribution rack after all.  Then again, it bothers me that none of the Info Desks seemed to have run out of newsletters.

Hello!

This year, I'm head of Code Name: Division 5, and I'm looking for staff.  Division 5 is responsible for doing the program guide, newsletters, flyers, signs, printing, and the web site.  (I'd like to call the group "Publications", but the name hasn't been fully approved yet.)  I need staff who can do some or all of the following:

• Proofreading.  With the Internet being full of mistakes, many people are used to reading what was meant rather than what's on the screen, but it would still be nice to make sure that text is correct before things get printed or put on a web site.  Therefore, I need people who can point out and correct errors.  Proofreading will mostly occur before the convention via e-mail.
  
  
• Reporting.  There are many things going on, and not everybody can be everywhere at once.  So, it's nice to have a lot of people who can give an accurate report about what happened at a staff meeting or panel.  Reporting requires attending the event and then submitting notes via e-mail, hopefully within the same day.  With plenty of cons, Asian culture festivals, staff meetings, and panels, there are lots of opportunities for reporting before and during the convention.  Depending on the reporting assignment, reporters may be required to attend staff meetings.
  
  
• Writing.  I was trying to hire people who can both report and write before, but it seems that it's rare to have both skills.  It's one thing to give an accurate account of what happened, but it's quite another to be able to phrase it in a way that's meaningful and interesting.  Writers need to be able to read through a potentially boring or chaotic report, figure out what's interesting and important about the report, and make a readable article out of it.  Depending on the writing assignment, writers may be required to attend staff meetings.
  
  
• Editing.  I need one or more Chief Editors for Newsletters.  There are supposed to be 16 issues of the FanimeCon newsletter per year, and I just haven't been able to get it done.  The Chief Editors need to decide what articles need to be present in each newsletter, assign reporters and writers to get those articles, get a proofreader to look over the articles, compile all the information into a PDF, and direct the Print and/or Web groups about how the newsletters need to be distributed.  Chief Editors are not required to attend staff meetings.  There are 10 pre-con online issues and 6 at-con print issues, so there is a lot of room to choose which issues you want to work on.
  
  
• Printing.  If someone has experience dealing with print shops, we can arrange pre-con hours, but otherwise, the print positions are at-con right now.  Basically, you take a shift during the convention and sit in a room with a printer.  Other departments will ask for things to be printed, and you print them and make sure they get delivered or picked up.  You have to have a laptop capable of printing PDF and Word documents.  You will need to use the laptop at the convention, and you will probably have to install print drivers onto it.
  
  
• Print design.  The print designer would take art and text specified by the department and arrange them into an attractive flyer or other print medium.  Print designing doesn't require attendance at meetings, and all work would be via e-mail.
  
  
• Web work.  Right now, there's still time to turn in a portfolio to [email protected] Cc: [email protected] if people want to apply to help with the web design for 2008.  (For more details, see http://forums.fanime.com/viewtopic.php?t=7371.)  However, the deadline to apply for web designer is today.  Sorry about that.  Even if you don't make the design deadline, there may be potential openings for people to help out with updating and maintaining the web site front end.
  

I have enough openings that most positions can be made to conform to the mix of tasks people would like to perform.  For example, you can choose to be Chief Editor for some issues of the newsletter and a proofreader on others.  Staff are required to put in a minimum of 24 hours per year to earn their staff badge (although most put in far more hours than that), but I'm willing to negotiate whatever mix of pre-con and at-con hours people want to work (in addition to the mix of tasks they want to perform).

To apply, please send e-mail to [email protected].  Please indicate which tasks you're interested in, what experience you might have doing those tasks, and what hours you would like to work.

Thank you!

Is there any information on the site concerning this?  :)

The site may be in flux because we need to transition from 2007 to 2008, but http://www.fanime.com/events/artist_colony.html currently contains information about the Artist Colony.  I believe the URL will change in about a month or so.

I was carrying the 10 foot train the vast majority of the time

I barely saw any of the con, so I didn't get a chance to see you, but I'd love to see your costume.  Do you have any pictures you can post somewhere please?

I was once asked if I felt nervous living in Oakland. ... Gilles - I'll take a goat burrito - Poitras

The mention of goats and Oakland reminds me of this article: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6039377

I said myself there should be a yuri booth, it deserves the same appreciation that yaoi gets which as said was over kill.

Something that came up during the feedback session after the closing ceremonies is that yaoi is an actual genre with an actual definition in Japan, while yuri is not. If that's true (and I have no idea if it is or not), then that might explain why there would be things like yaoi doujinshi but not yuri doujinshi.  Just a thought.