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Yeow! So glad my group just doesn't even bother with the at-con hotels. That seriously sucks, doesn't bode well for the new hotel reservation system. Perhaps Fanime needs to seriously drop CMR and look for somebody else to run the housing system. I wonder if the overbooking ties in to people reporting rooms available outside of the waitlist that folks were reporting? If the hotels didn't get the lists until super late, then it's entirely possible that signals got crossed and the hotel simply assumed those rooms were open again and went to fill them up.

Pinned up at the top of the forum. :P

Nope, Fanime is requiring badges to access the second (main) floor of the convention center this year.

OMFG, wasn't it still March, like a week ago?! Where'd the time go?! I gotta finish packing, we hit the road tomorrow morning!

Thanks to the magic of smartphones and stuff, more and more vendors are accepting cards- some will cut you a deal on cash transactions though, since that means they don't have to pay a processing fee to the card companies. I know several in the past would conveniently leave off the sales tax on cash transactions for instance.

As long as you're careful about it, carrying cash isn't any more risky than carrying a credit card. It can also serve as a handy way to force yourself to stick to a spending limit- it can be veeeery tempting to go "BUY ALL THE THINGS!! \o|" on a credit card and have that bite you on the butt when your statement comes due. If you restrict yourself to cash-on-hand, you're less likely to go over budget like that.

Honestly, most anything inside the convention center is going to be overpriced, including the concession booths at the back of the dealers' hall. Honestly, though it does mean a little walk, going to any of the assortment of places outside the con center will have a better variety and quality for the price. There's a bunch of stuff right next door to the con center and/or the various con hotels, not far at all.

(Or you could be a cheapskate like my group and stash a cooler with sandwiches and stuff in the car, that works too!)

Eh... not sure you're going to have much luck selling to a vendor at-con. They're there to move merch, not hunt up new stock. Plus, whoever they have manning the vendor booths in the dealers' hall is likely either not going to have the authority to make such a purchase, or is unwilling to make such a purchase on such short notice. At best, you might be able to hunt up a list of interested potential buyers you'd need to follow-up with after the convention is over.

Haven't got the room locations handy, but I do have the times for those interested:
Fanfic 101: Fri 5 PM
Fanfic 201: Sat 1 PM
Fanfic 369: Sun 9 PM
Fanfic 120: Mon 11 AM

Oh man, haven't thought that far ahead yet!

Crap, I'm going to have my work cut out for me avoiding DB Super spoilers in the dealer's hall, won't I?

Hrm. More seriously, probably looking more towards higher-end merch. Animation cels, limited edition statues (I swear, First4Figures has permanently skewed my sense of figure pricing!) possibly various manga, especially the types of places that offer bulk discounts. For some weird reason I almost never order manga as they come out off Amazon or whatnot, but at-con I'm more likely to binge-buy an entire series if I can. Can never go wrong with t-shirts and apparel, either. I almost always come home from Fanime with 2-3 new t-shirts!

As for series, just, a good spread. That was one of the things that contributed to my ditching Anime Expo in favor of the drive north; the AX dealer's hall was all just same handful of things for the same handful of series. (At the time, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece and good bloody luck finding anything for other series!) Especially if there's a good mix of the new and popular AND the older and more niche.

This looks veeeery interesting! I'll have to check what time my fanfic panel is on Monday. If it's not the same time as yours, I'd love to check it out!

I don't really think that carding 18+ panels at the door is going to create enough of a bottleneck to justify special measures to indicate the 18+ attendees, honestly. Those events are all later in the evening, generally at times the con's crowding and intensity level drops off considerably compared to prime time hours. Between the lower crowd levels and there generally not being tons and tons of 18+ only panels, they can probably keep carding folks at the door to those panels. I imagine they'll still need a staffer at the doors anyway for usual tasks of notifying panelists when time's up (and in case there are problems, like the drunk attendees at the 18+ Fanfic 369 panel a year or two back that con staff had to kick out,) so whoever's on door duty can handle checking IDs.

As others have already pointed out, trying to card people at reg has serious drawbacks, especially for group pickup. Wristbands or other special 18+ markers are just an unnecessary and inefficient expense, especially compared to just having a staffer who's going to have to be at the door to a panel anyway handle the ID check on the way into the room. At least unlike in years past, they won't also have to be checking badges, just IDs.

And we're submitted! Mildly annoyed I don't see any "Hey guys, BTW panel submissions are open!" notice on the forum, but then it seems like Fanime is being even worse than usual at communication this year. :(

Well, you'll all be happy to know that I submitted the panel for approval. I'll do my best to keep you all posted if it gets approved. :) Fingers crossed!

Waitasec, submissions are open already? I didn't see a notice on the forums about it. o_O

There was a panel a couple of years ago that was basically Terrible Fanfic Readings, it was a riot. Needless to say, My Immortal was represented, along with several other... ah... we'll call them "gems". :P

Does the wait remind anyone else of watching DBZ when Goku is charging up the spirit bomb. We know its coming soon but the suspense is kill us.

Eh, more the infamous "five minutes until Namek blows up." :P

[Fanfiction 101: Friday, 5pm]

Coming up on that time of year again, One and I need to start thrashing out our panel plans for the fanfiction writing workshop. I don't predict too much deviation from last year, though I am thinking of making the suggestion that we request a 2-hour slot for the 18+ Fanfiction 369 panel. Fanfic 101, 201, and 120 we have pretty well ironed out so we don't run into too much time limit woes, but due to the nature of the content and lots of questions from the audience, 369 seems to consistently run short on time.

So, as usual, the tentative plan for the workshops this year:
Fanfiction 101: Friday, 5pm The crash course into story basics. Panel covers basics such as organizing your plot, writing perspectives, types of scenes, avoiding writers' block, and an introduction to fanfiction-specific jargon. Also discusses in brief the legal ramifications of fanfiction and tips for publishing online. Great introduction to the subject for anyone interested in getting into fanfiction writing, with a lot of the material we cover also being applicable to creative writing in general.

Fanfiction 201: Saturday, 1pm The character focus panel. Covers more advanced material pertaining specifically to characters and character creation. Includes material on writing and developing existing characters, creating antagonists, creating original characters, and how characters interact. Also explains the basics of what "Mary Sue" is, along with recommendations to avoid falling into that trap. Generally meant for writers who already have some practice under their belt, but also useful for beginners looking for more specific information.

Fanfiction 369 (18+): Sunday, 9pm The "How to write sex" panel. Advanced panel discussing how to write erotica in fanfiction. Panel includes a brief lecture and powerpoint presentation with anatomical drawings detailing sexual anatomy and response, how to apply it to realistic erotica, suggestions on how to apply it to unrealistic erotica (tentacles!), and common sexual myths. Also covered are some narrative techniques for writing erotic scenes, such as the impact of language choice, in addition to some basics about incorporating fetish material into the story. Obviously, this is not a panel for children or the easily offended, given it involves some extremely frank discussion of anatomy, sex, kinks, and so on.

Fanfiction 120: Monday, 11am Catch-all "Open Lab" discussion for various topics that don't quite fit into the other panels. Possible topics include titles and summary-writing, reviewing and reacting to reviews, and use of foreign language in fanfic. In addition, more specific information on writing certain scene types such as action sequences can be covered if there's an interest. Also open to questions and further discussion on topics from the 101 and 201 panels. More relaxed than the 101 or 201 panels, with more room for just bouncing story ideas around.

Once submissions open, we'll keep folks posted on the acceptance status/panels times. As always, recommendations and feedback are most welcome.

I think my biggest concern about this new system isn't necessarily how it will play out this year, but what it will mean for 2017 and onward assuming it works and they continue to use it. Arranging priority by when you get your badge strikes me as just passing the server stress up the line from hotels to registration; instead of everyone swarming the website when hotels go up, everyone will be swarming registration as soon as that goes up in the hopes of snagging that earlier priority window on the hotels.

The idea of priority windows isn't a bad one, since it would spread out the assault on the servers to hopefully manageable levels; but in the interest of preventing registration from getting DDOSed by everyone trying to register first, it might be a better idea to randomly assign the priority windows. Arguably a bit more fair, though there's certainly a fairness argument to be had for "I registered first, I should get priority first!" too.

Aaugh! Anime Expo is getting Team Four Star! C'mon Fanime, you guys can so step to that! D:

The guys from Team Four Star!

So this is not a Fanime thing, but I was disappointed this year.  Last year, Day 0 coincided with Sake San Jose in Japantown, but they decided to put the event off to October this year.  Until I found out about the date change, that was going to be my Day 0 plan.

However, that does bring up one idea.  This would likely require a new team, but maybe Fanime could create some sort of event with local businesses.  This would give convention goers something different to do that would also bring in some extra business to the local stores.  The San Jose downtown association would likely be all about that.

Alternatively, maybe there could be extra events at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park that would (hopefully?) not be governed as much by the union set-up rules.

It probably falls under the union set-up issues, but the one thing I'd love to see get going earlier though is if there could be a Day 0 Open Mic karaoke.  I'm usually busy enough during the convention that I rarely get a chance to sing outside of the contest (certainly was the case this year, but we had more non-official Fanime activities planned in the evenings than usual)

There's also the Tech Museum right there. We did that on Day Zero one time when my group turned Fanime into a weeklong vacation and did a bunch of touristy stuff before the con. (And amused the guy manning the earthquake simulator, which that day was mimicking the Northridge earthquake; having been through the real one, our "Wow, this brings back memories!" nostalgia was apparently entertaining.) The Winchester Mystery House is also like, maybe 10 minutes away from the convention center and really nifty for folks who haven't seen it.

People can picnic at the plaza, right? Cosplay potluck, maybe?