Messages

[Hi CeruleanRogue]

Hi CeruleanRogue

My partner watched the first half of Masquerade before he had to return to G.R., and he noted that the audio on the majority of the skits was louder than it needed to be and seemed a bit unbalanced at times.  If that can be worked on for next year -whether part of rehearsal or otherwise- that would be great.

Next year we will have by appointment rehearsals starting as early as 9am. This will allow us to sort through these issues including providing good light levels for costumes and working with new performers on their acts. 

We also plan to host panels:
- Meet the judges
- Your First Masquerade
- Audio and Lights for the Stage
- Stage Makeup

I think my only other quibble was with how the awards were done this year.  I'm not saying to give everyone an award, but it seemed a bit odd to totally eliminate the performance awards.  (Even my partner noted that seemed slightly unusual.)

That was my misstep and Ive added in some distinct performance, here is the provisional list https://bitbucket.org/appsense/datanow-server/branch/Iteration88

[Hi Admiral Donuts]

Hi Admiral Donuts

How about something to do with the annual theme?

Next years theme is 'Mythology', so perhaps a most mythical performance / presentation? 

Before we get too into imagine Greek and roman gods, please be reminded that entries do need to be anime / Asia oriented. Though that should not limit anyone. 

Personally I am entertaining the ideas of Kitsune 狐 costumes or having the stage crew dressed as Kami.

[Top Prizes]

These are just proposals, but I want your feedback.  Does this motivate you to compete? Is there enough top honors for skits?  Am I missing anyone?

Top Prizes
- Best in Show
- Performance  / Craftsmanship[/s] withdrawn, makes sense to expect the best in show to have it all

Performance (skits):
- Best Dramatic Performance, group
- Best Dramatic Performance, individual
- Best Comedic Performance, group
- Best Comedic Performance, individual
- Best Dance Performance, group

Judges can award based on merits of the acts

Presentation:
- Best presentation
- Best interpretation, reimagining

Judges can award based on merits of the acts

Craftsmanship:
- Best Original Craftsmanship
- Best Craftsmanship, Novice Class
- Best Craftsmanship, Journeyman Class
- Best Craftsmanship, Open Class

- Judges can award based on merits of the acts

Directors Choice -  awarded to whom ever the crew feels deserves recognition.

--Change Log:
---Added Directors Choice (5/28)
---Added Dance prize (5/29)
---Changed Best in show to one award, versus two for presentation and craftsmanship. (5/30)

I have been wondering how that new system will work. Won't it create a line earlier?

If done right, no line.  You walk up get a hand stamp and a sticker and walk off until 15 min before the start of the show.  The "lanes" are about 200 people long.  People who absolutely want to be first in line could possibly try to line up before but its not like you would get dramatically better seats.

The structure was miles better than last year, I know it's a lot of work. I do wonder if the added effects that have been used are worth it if it seems to put so much strain on the staff.

it was actually a key document that was overridden and the need for more rehearsal time that but the biggest strain on the team.  I've taken steps to remove this issue now, for next year.

Intermission didn't really need an act, I felt bad that they were so great but people were up and leaving. Intermission is supposed to be when you get up, not just another part of the show. I think next year's plan sounds better in that regard.

Next year the intermission will have no acts, but we will have the walk-on acts go to platforms set up around the floor where people can get a good look at the outfits and take pictures. other then that, it will be a chance to get  drink, stretch legs and go to the bathroom.

Thank you again for the feedback

[Hi pitin]

Hi pitin

Thank you for the feedback.  I am hoping for many more performances next year and to increase the prize values.  Please encourage people to sign up for next year.

walk on's look great and all but you loose most of the really cool costume details in a huge set up

This makes me think that perhaps we should put a platform and allow people to take pictures and get up close to the walk on acts during the intermission.  What are your thoughts?

It did actually, on page 8 of the pocket guide they list times for many of the major events through the weekend including all events happening in the Civic Auditorium. "Cosplay Spec." was 5 - 8 on Sunday.

p.s. you can also look for the long line across the street from the con center on Sunday and that will be for the Cosplay Spectacular.

Next year both will be better, more on site and program book advertising and a new line system that gets everyone in with only a 25min maximum wait time in the line.

[Freeden]

Freeden

Thank you for the feedback.  The number of entries are not under our control, but there was some issues with the website and registration that we are solving for next year that would greatly improve the number of entries. 

On the rest of the feedback for the MC, I'll take this into consideration.

Mango Bunny
Thank you for the feedback, you make some good points.

The line sucked. We got in line early to get a good seat. We asked info to confirm the start time of 5pm since we didn't have our paper schedule on us.

Next year we will be using a new line system which will have a maximum wait of 15 minutes.  This involves going to the masquerade site anytime sunday and getting a sticker and a hand stamp.  Depending on the time and order this will be a set color. Then return 15 minutes before the show, get into the line matching the color of your sticker and then the doors open. Those with the earliest color go in first, followed by the next and so forth. 

Also we will have the time of the show and information distributed clearly in the pocket program, program guide and banners around the convention.

The masquerade usually has an intro video (we have for most years) and an opening act. The band was a horrible experience, so I am not complaining about that, but we've had other performances such as taiko or martial arts that were really fun. They set a tone for the event and reeled people in.

The intermission acts were planned for the opening, but we had to move them up because our original intermission act fell through.  Next year we plan to have more up front, including a opening intro while the audience gets seated.

This year the MC stood up, basically said that this one wouldn't suck and left. Oh, after someone messed up the first walk on.

The start of the show mishap was a finger being lifted from the start button.  We will learn from this, but as you can imaging we had to make some changes on the fly by this point.

A few years ago Fanime made a move to separate walk-ons at the beginning because we were getting so many, and because it's really depressing when we hear "This is the final act! Please welcome..." and it's a character that walks on and leaves. That happened this year, and honestly it kills any momentum the show has when it's constant walk-ons.

I have mixed feelings about separating walk-on acts from skits, for one thing it means there is little to no actual performance for the walk-ons and its very awkward in my eyes to see someone go out on a quite stage and wave to the audience and walk off again.  You don't really get to see their outfit, there is no actual play in their cosplay and its visually jarring.  This year we required all acts have sound and we worked with contestants to have sound and light effects that enhanced their performance. However we are going to structure the acts more to make a better show and end on a bang. 

What we may do is separate the two, but push more of the act to be at a minimal a performance, not simply a walk on.

The MC is lackluster, I appreciated the more to the point approach this year, as I wasn't the biggest fan last year. It just doesn't work. Please consider another MC. He seems like a good guy, but he seemed like people were rushing him to stop talking and it was sort of weird.

He has been learning the ropes and I very much appreciate his assistance in the show.  It is a big burden to carry a whole show, get everyone name right and not try to become part of the show. There are some ideas to reduce some of this burden and to allow him more time to interact with the audience.

The intermission was cool, but I was going to stand up to find a drinking fountain and then suddenly things were happening. That's not really an intermission. Their performance was good. It's too bad everyone had already started walking out and the lights were on, but also sometimes off.

Next year we plan to have a true intermission, with a passive video on a loop and encourage folks to get up stretch, get water and user the facilities.

Thank you both for your feedback.

[Rules:]

Rules:
Please provide honest feedback, provide suggestions on what can be done better for every criticism.

[Hi UsakoMinako]

Hi UsakoMinako

First off I want to thank you for providing some feedback and I will have a specify thread for feedback.  Let me address some of your concerns here and my intention is to make this a constructive dialog with the goal of making next years show better.

"Not a fan of the new judging system."

This is understandable, not all change is welcomed.  I have received some feedback about not wanting to lessen the role Skits have in the performance and next year we will have top prizes specifically for skits like 'most dramatic', 'best comedy'; in an effort to make the competition for skits high.  That said I felt the 'old' system short shifted the walk-on performers and the progress we have made this year in pushing their art forward needs to be maintained.

"If you were not practically naked you did not get awarded."

its an interesting criticism since only one of the acts that won awards would qualify, Satski of Kill La Kill for best journeyman.  I suppose you could lump 'Yasuo the Unforgiven' because he had an exposed mid drift. However I suspect the person saying this was intending it to me more demeaning to women.  As the director for the competition I have no control over the awarding of prizes other then the fixed categories.  Interesting enough there was only one male judge though.

"There were some really great people that gave it their all and didn't even get an honorable mention. "

Now this is a good point, you are correct there was not a whole lot of honorable mentions this year.  Again, As the director for the competition I have no control over the awarding of prizes other then the fixed categories.  However I have to say that I am not a fan of the 'everyone deserves a prize mentality, but thats my personal take on it and has no basis on how the judges felt and did their work.

The industry awards are great, but they don't really have much depth and could be given more meaning with some clarification. A lot of questioning about qualification to "judge" was flying around, so if they clarified before that their prize was not part of the masq judging it would have made more sense and eased a lot of tension.

This is great feedback and I am going to set up a panel next year called 'Meet the judges' in which people can talk to and ask questions about how they judge.  In addition it allows the judges to talk a little bit about their impressive background in cosplay.

I do want to say that the masquerade will always be judged by people who have done and are part of the cosplay community.  I personally never enjoyed having someone who did not sew or perform judging me. That is a promise.

A lot of people were not aware of these loose ended categories and so it seemed sort of off hand.

It will take time to get used to them and I do allow the judges a great deal of flexibility to award a deserving contestant with an award then being constrained to one of a preset few.

The ribbons were cute! I would suggest the top 3 to get some hard core trophies to show for their earnings though.

When I was first given the honor of running the masquerade I went out and set up many surveys on various cosplay sites and to groups.  The feedback was that, while trophies are nice in some aspects, they are a bitch to store, its hard to have enough for an entire group, so someone always felt left out and you did not have anything to run around the convention wearing.   In my on experience I agree with this view point, however next year the top awards will have even bigger and more elaborate ribbons to show with the printed title of the award in gold on them.

I would invite others to give their opinion on the type of award they would like to see.

Also did the judges know that a ton of us got cut off from any stage rehearsal? Its VERY important because a skit can have boundaries and if you aren't allowed to know your surroundings it can very much effect performance. We don't spend a year making a skit for fanime to be thrown to the sharks do we? Waited for FIVE HOURS to get a rehearsal on stage and told no. Well lets hope that some things can be worked on for next year.

Yes, we made them very much aware of the issues and how this would negatively affect the performances at no fault of the acts.   This is one of my top priorities to fix. I've decided to have rehearsals start as early as 9am on sunday, these are by appointment, so no one has to wait around hungry (I again my apologies for this).  Also we will be having a fully digital system for registration that would allow groups to choose an optimal time for their rehearsal.  At 3pm we will do the final run through in order of all the acts for a prompt star at 5pm.

Also we are going to promote the rehearsal room more.  We have a whole ballroom that groups can use to work through kinks and issues ahead of time.  Its open very late and we plan to have more things there from a tea and hot chocolate party for contestants, to work and construction tables, to videos from other competitions to generate ideas for future shows.

Keep the feedback coming, I can only make it better when I have information to work with.

[Prizes awards]

Prizes awards
Best in Original - Sailor Moon Burlesque by Princess Squib Cosplay & The Burlesque Royalty
Best in Novice Class - Let it Go by CSGW Cosplay
Best in Journeyman Class - Satski of Kill La Kill by Veronica Luna
Best in Open Class - Priestess Rao by Ashley Montgomery
Best Craftsmanship - Azure Flame Kite by Paul Esquer
Best in Show - Maji Love 2000% Thrusting  by Sweatish

Judges Awards:
   * Judge Lauren - Claymore by Lisa Macdonald
   * Judge Wayne - Taming the Beast by Con Amigos
   * Judge Lindsay Tallman - Harley by Camille Elladan cosplay
   * Judge Katie - Accelrator from Level 6 Shift by Yuuhabin Cosplay

Industry Winners:
Epic Cosplay:
   * Yasuo the Unforgiven by Heinrich Stohner
   * Fashion Fight by Miku Hall, KoKo
   * Sailor Moon Burlesque by Princess Squib Cosplay & The Burlesque Royalty

Twindom:
   * Yasuo the Unforgiven by Heinrich Stohner
   * Satsuki of Kill la Kill by Veronica Luna
   * Harley by Camille Elladan cosplay

Youth Awards:
Best Youth Performance - Young NAtsu & Erza by BroSis Cosplay
Best Youth Craftsmanship - Alice by Alexandra Altschuler
Fan Favorite - Epic Rap Battles of Anime by OtakuFTW

[Rehearsal space]

Attention all contestants: The room has changed to Blossom Hill 3rd floor

The Masquerade room, located in the Blossom Hill ballroom of the Marriot hotel is open.  Please come in and sign in, register and run through your act.  We have

Rehearsal space : a full sized area to work on your act and music

Repair and work space: need to do any last minute work, repairs or assembly

Hangout space : just want to relax, chill out from the crush?  Come in an join us.

[Hi PrincessSquib,]

Hi PrincessSquib,

Are these all of the awards? Or just the cash prizes?

No, these are juts the cash prizes.  All totaled there are ribbons for the honorable mention to the huge Rosette ribbons for major recognition. In addition everyone competing will have a fancy badge ribbon.

Hello all,

I think I have responded to everyones queries directly, if I missed you please email me at [email protected] or post it here.

Thank you,

Erik

[Hi CeruleanRogue,]

Hi CeruleanRogue,

Last yea,r judging was open both the day before CS and the day of.  Will that be the case this year? Or will it only be the day of Masquerade?

Yes, this year you can register for a time with the craftsmanship judges on Saturday and Sunday unto the time of the competition.  Its encouraged to do it early.

[Cash awards:]

Cash awards:
•   Best in Show $600
•   Best Craftsmanship $200
•   Best Novice category $100
•   Best Journeymen category $100
•   Best Open category $100
•   Best Original Design $100

Registration for Masquerade, you can send an email to [email protected] with:

Name
Contact Info
Skit Name
Group Name
Any other specifics about your Skit/Walk-on (i.e. lighting, stage ninjas, sound, etc.)
Please be sure to attach your sound file in the email as well so we can get that all squared away early.

A confirmation email will be sent back to you with your entry number, and information on your registration.

[KuriQueenofFeels]

The Big question on registration: Please email your registrations in. 

KuriQueenofFeels

I actually have a question about rules, ha!
I've been scanning through, and I can't seem to find:
1. what the max time for a walk on is? I'm trying to figure out what audio I want to play, and that is kinda important to know.
2. Also, is there some sort of rule against having an audio file with words in it for just doing a walk on?
What I'm wanting to do is play a piece of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF-FkWAmTPk (It starts around 8:34) as my audio file, because I'm planning to enter with the purple dress Lightning is wearing, but I don't know if that would just be weird or too skit like ^^; If it is I can easily just use the background music off the soundtrack.

1. its 90 seconds and audio is required.  If you do not have your own audio we will work with you to find appropriate background music.

2. There is no rule against it, in fact I encourage people to put their audio introductions in a recording and sync to it.  Again we can help mix in some audio to help create the atmosphere you want.  Please send in an entry and stop by the Masquerade room early at the convention.

Motoko
I'' get back to you today, I deeply apologies, I have been off continent for the last several weeks. I'll email and call today.

CielloRegalo
I'll PM you with my personal email and you can send that to me.  I have a slot for you.

pitin
[email protected] is working for registrations.  There was some confusion on the dates  Registration will remain open even at the event, there will be a waiting list once we have reached 55 entries, though typically we lose a number and people will advance to the show after that.

Hi All,

I apologize for my absence and will be answering questions in my next post.

Hi all,

Having a few technical difficulties, Please send your registration requests via email and I will respond with forms and your number as soon as possible.

Hi all,

We are working on something, as a backup please send your registrations request via email and we will respond with forms and your number as soon as possible.