Messages

Hi,
I was wondering if there is a certain age in order to book a room such as 17 or 18+?
Or can a parent just book the room then pay when I arrive at the hotel?

Just keep in mind that most hotels will require a parent/guardian to check in for you if the room is placed under your name if you're under 18(unless its under your mom/dad's name, then don't worry about it).

I remember I was actually able to book a room at Fanime when I was still 17. I just don't remember how I was able to do it though.

I remember years ago that we had a canned food drive. It actually felt nice giving back while taking a good experience from the con.

My main complaint is towards Head Rover Terrance. He wears glasses and has a buzz cut. This man should not be working again as head rover next year. He right off the bat very rude, smug and arrogant. I understand that staff says that he's military but I couldn't care less if he was. It gives no excuse for him to treat me the way he did. Basically this man ruined all of Friday for me as he outright denied my Stormtrooper blaster prop, which was made out of hyperfirm rubber with no working components and is a big piece of rubber, without giving me a chance to explain and prove that it's clearly a fake and ignoring other weapons that looked more real than mine. I also must point out that his examples as to trying to prove his point like when these snipers on the roof tops protecting Obama when he was in San Jose a couple of days ago wouldn't like my blaster, well what kind of idiot would even bring a fake gun or even a cheap $1 squirt gun when the President is around? And no sorry but I also have to call bullshit on police frisking Stormtroopers just because of our blasters. Even as going as far as going on the radio and essentially labeling me a criminal. What's funny is he claims to be a fan of the 501st Legion, an organization I'm apart of, while at the same time as I said treated me like a criminal which not only did he disrespected me but spat all over the good name of the 501st Legion as a whole. I am not the only person who this man had gave crap to. There are plenty of others who understand where I'm getting at. I spent most of my Friday trying to get this mess of a situation resolved so that my fellow garrison members wouldn't have to go through what I had to go through.

Also I think the staff can do a better job not procrastinating. Having per-registration, hotel registration, guest announcements come extremely late is not the way staff should run a con. I understand that there was a staff change but that's not enough to excuse such a poor job.

All things concerned the only major complaint is Terrance. He is the number one example of who not to hire back.

I second this complaint.  My experience with Terrance in the peacebonding room was extremely unpleasant due to his condescending attitude.  As a paid attendee, I expect to be treated with some level of respect yet was essentially belittled out of the room.  This coupled with a 6 hour long registration line on Day 0 made this convention something I'd much rather forget.

This sounds oddly familiar...

http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/topic,5371.0.html
Not sure if it's the same guy though. Their attitudes seems the same.

Oh, and for clarification Terrence is actually not a Rover nor was he this year's Rover Head. I actually forget what he does >.>

Shoot, if these posts had a "Like" button, I would have liked 90% of all these comments by now.

I had a slightly different experience because I was mostly awake at night(FYI - The views expressed here are mine and not reflective of staff)

Pros
Tabletop Gaming - Good bonding time. Could have been a bit more organized with the sign out process, but overall I learned more about new board games and met new congoers from the board games. Gaming halls didn't smell as bad as I was expecting so that was good.

LittleKuriboh - What kookiekween99 said...

Panels - I pretty much loved all of the ones I went to. I can't really put it into words, but I gained a lot of valuable career insight in the art/voice-acting/gaming industries.

Cons
There were a lot of really really RUDE people out there. I remember taking the elevator down and this guy was talking down on this girl who took the elevator on the 5th floor on the Fairmont to go to the 4th floor. Plus, one my friends had her cell phone stolen by congoers from the Marriott. They threatened to flush her phone if she kept calling it and they left it under the piano of the Fairmont instead of returning it to her in person at the Marriott. I know it's not within the con's control, but that was a really big turnoff in my con experience.

Registration - I found out my friend was stuck in line for 6.5 hours waiting for his badge and didn't get it until 12:30. Not fun. I think everyone else summed it up well with the whole registration situation. The con isn't getting any smaller, lines aren't obviously getting any smaller, and I feel as though Registration has done their best to make the process as concise as humanly possible. I would have to support allowing for preregistration of day passes or mailing of all passes and pretty much just treat the preregistration booth as a Will Call for people who decided to save money on shipping.

Mamoru Yokota: Really funny panel. I loved it.

Comedy Club: Overall very funny.

Fanfic Panel: Very educational, especially with the handouts.

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.

[Schedules:]

I didn't notice this thread until a link was posted. lol. Thank you.

Schedules: For me personally, it was frustrating not having a schedule to access, but I was fortunate enough to bring a laptop to see it online and look at the ones at the info desks.

Something that would help attendees be more prepared should a printing snafu happen is to make a note to attendees on the website(where schedules will be at) that schedules are not guaranteed to be printed out at con so that the people(especially someone's first FanimeCon) will be able to prepare in the worst case scenario by printing one from home, if necessary. If you guys wanted to go green and encourage other people to print them out, it really helps to make a note of that too on the website section where the schedules are/will be posted. Specifics are your friends. Congoers are not mindreaders.

Mobile apps were nice. Keep it up! Sadly, I don't own a smartphone or internet access on my phone so it did me no help, but it did help some of my friends who did have access to the app.


MusicFest: I have say, I'm really proud to see the staff's capability of bringing in huge-name guests to the con. I remember back when we struggled with this and I'm really proud to see MusicFest improve on their PR. On the other hand, I was very disappointed with this year's MusicFest, simply because of how the vibe has changed over the years. I remember back when Fanime brought in lower-profile musicians with great beats and had a much friendlier photo/video policy. I understand where the no photo/video policy is coming from and with the guests and managers that accompany them, it makes sense why it's there. I'm not saying our musician guests this year weren't talented. By all means, they are skilled at their craft. They just don't have the same personalized vibe that really defined what MusicFest was all about. I remember we would enjoy the musicians perform, then during breaks go to the tables where they are selling CDs, have autographs and photos with the bands, then go back and keep watching. there was blurb about how there was a stronger emphasis towards music than there was towards the anime part. I would like to see a mixture of both low-profile and high-profile guests instead of only high-profile guests from major record labels. It may not be what all the fans want, but I feel like it's the diversity of the artists that made MusicFest what it was.

I noticed the FLOW concert hit capacity. If, for some reason the capacity to accommodate fans is becoming a problem, I'd recommend maybe looking into bringing back the ticketing system, kind of like what we did with An Cafe.


Staff-wise, I made a semi-rant in an older thread about staff taking a de-stresser during their shifts because I can tell that with a con this big with staff numbers that are not even 1/15th of the con size, it's a lot easier to get overworked and it's really important to function with a clear, unimpaired mind because that's when you make the best choices on the job. Maybe it sounds silly and unnecessary, but it is a lot easier to be nicer to people when you're not worrying about a thousand other things and letting certain situations get to you. It also seems that a lot of the incidents I've been reading about are all either customer service snafus or case-by-case basis type of things. Realistically, I feel as though these are the hardest situations to train anybody in simply because what may be common sense to us will not be common sense to them and not everyone coming in to staff have the same people skills or work experience in customer service environments as others will. Please keep in mind that it's not always what you say that will offend someone, but how you say it. This may be why some people have much worse experiences with staff than others will.

Overall, I can't really say for sure whether this was an orderly Fanime or not, as I didn't really notice anything obvious out of the blue. It was pretty much just a typical Fanime with larger crowds. I feel as though the negatives can sometimes overshadow the positives of the convention. As a con, you guys should feel proud that we went from maxing out hotel space from the four neighboring hotels all the way to the Fairmont and beyond. Attendance has skyrocketed over the last couple of years and as of 2009(via animecons.com), we rank as one of the top 10 North American conventions with the highest attendance rates. You even have guests that keep coming back year after year after year simply because they love Fanime. Don't feel like you've failed as a con simply because of some negative feedback. You win some and you lose some.

Once again, these opinions are of my own and do not reflect those of FanimeCon or any of it's staff members.

I didn't go into the video rooms until Monday (yay Azumanga and tech staffing) but I figure my opinion's as good as anyone's:

-Someone stole a Mac Mini from the hentai room along with a few DVDs late one (Sunday?) night. (A blonde, 30-ish female with a headset who looked important and may or may not have been staff. If anyone knows or has seen her please inform video programming or tech.) This may explain why programming dropped some anime from the schedule.

-Most of the rooms (especially Room 1) were FILTHY on Monday. Please clean up after yourself, especially if you leave a diet Coke bottle filled with a white, milky substance on the ground.

The main video room was pretty trashed too. Thank god nothing spilled there(from what I know). lol.

I may have missed this, but my suggestion for future Fanimes regarding schedules is to make a note to attendees on the website that schedules are not guaranteed to be printed out at con so that the people traveling from "far away" will be able to print one from home before heading out, if necessary. If you guys wanted to go green and encourage other people to print them out, it really helps to make a note of it on the website section where the schedules are/will be posted. Overall, not having schedules were frustrating. I liked that there were mobile apps for it and I hope you guys continue to have mobile apps with schedules in the future, though it doesn't change the fact that not everyone has access to a smart phone or mobile internet(Sadly, I won't get my smartphone until after Fanime 2012 ;___;).

Staff-wise, it really helps to avoid con stress. Not only is it unhealthy, but you may end up taking your anger out on people who don't deserve it. Take a breather if you need to. It does you no good to perform your duties with your mental processing center(aka your brain) impaired. You can't stop stress entirely, but I personally think it helps out a lot in the long run if you take steps to minimalize it.

My two cents(this is just my own opinion and does not reflect those of our staff)

"You've got to fight for every dream cause who's to know which one you let go would have made you complete"

Hurt Dragonball

Heal Kodomo no Omocha

(someone correct me if I did it wrong. lol)

I am here lurking again after being gone for almost 6 months.

I'm pretty sure he gets a free badge when you pick up your badge in the pre-registration line. I don't think you need to go to the Single-Day line to pick up a pre-registered badge. I know one of the other benefits of pre-registering is that you also get the option of putting in a promotional code that allows you to win special treats or get access to special events that the con may hold, but that all depends on whatever promotions that staff throws out for this year so yeah.

The outside food part, I don't really much know about since I know that FanimeCon has contracts with a certain food vendor from the SJCC and I'm not sure what their contract mentioned about outside food. I'll leave this question to Eric(ewu) or whoever is better-qualified to answer this. lol.

But I'm not the official word FYI so yeah.

Yeah, they have AMV contests(called Fanime Music Videos or FMVs) where you can submit them. I think they're still getting the guidelines ready, but you can always e-mail fmv-at-fanimeDOTcom.

Have you been eating your fruits and vegetables lately(if ever at all)?

Yes, pre-reg, for the weekend... what's the issue?

I was just checking to see if I was thinking on the right page when I was wondering whether the new reg prices this year will be a good thing or a bad thing. Looks like I was on the right page after all. lol.

Please don't post anything from Faux Noise ever again, it's just full of stupid.

Actually if you compared the article date from the OP's url to similar articles of the same story on different news websites, you'd notice that there were earlier versions of the articles posted up, which virtually tell the same story, but in different voices(which is typically what happens in most articles anyways).

I already stated my stance regarding the article in the Things In The Universe thread, but for the sake of being on-topic I'll reiterate it here: Whether or not the name was intentional, there was clearly some type of meaning behind giving a name like Adolf Hitler, especially if they asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration. If they really think that a name is just a name and that he isn't going to do what Hitler did, they would not have tried to associate a symbol of Nazism with the name. I could understand if it was meant to be a religious art symbol(ex. Hinduism, Jainism, etc.), but that wasn't the case here.

Other than that, my stance is pretty much the same as everybody else who posted here. In general, it seems that most businesses have the right to refuse service to anyone as it is already, so ShopRite made a decision they thought would have been best for their business. They could have either thrown away their biases, accepted the request, and decorated the cake, making the family happy or they could have given the request some second thoughts and decide whether or not satisfying something questionable for a customer would be bad for their business. I see it as a business just choosing the lesser of two evils. It doesn't seem that uncommon.

[That would have to be winning the lottery...but to be serious, it would probably be either finally getting a piercing or a tattoo.]

So whats most likely a new year's resolution that you will make... but unfortunately will have to break for one reason or another?
That would have to be winning the lottery...but to be serious, it would probably be either finally getting a piercing or a tattoo.

Ooh... nifty. Where would this piercing be?

Finally, I get computer access :3

Anyways Happy Belated New Years!

$55

At this point, I'm wondering whether that's a good thing or a bad thing ???.

Wait, we're talking about pre-reg prices, right?

Which do you prefer? Pie or Corn?

Are you ready for a new year?