Messages

http://2013.fanime.com/events-and-exhibits/panels/panelist-information

That is the basic information for the 2013 panelists just to give you some additional info. They usually have an application process however that won't be up until the website for 2014 is. So for now, you just have to wait until the website is up for next year ^^

Likely, I won't imagine the application will be up until the beginning of the first quarter of 2014.

Thanks so much ewu for taking the time to write all of that out and give some background explanation to the problems that registration faced, and overcame for the fans. I always appreciate the insane amount of hard work that staff and the volunteers do for the con.

I was unaware personally of the problem you mentioned with an overlapping event at the Fairmont. Having personally had to break down and set up events in a short amount of time, even with excessive planning its an enormous rush to meet strict deadlines. The fact Fanime staff worked so hard to get that done as soon as possible really impresses me.

Even though there were problems with the registration process its clear the staff did their best with what they could and the resources that they had at the time. I think there is clearly improvement that can be made in the overall registration system but once the event starts that can't be changed anymore and the registration did their best with the system they had in place.

Reading your response to this and reading about your future plans you are considering, really shows to me the dedication of Fanime proactively tackling and resolving this problem. As long as the staff strives to resolve this registration problem, I know I will definitely continue to attend in the future and others will as well.

I absolutely agree with and support the decision to use a more official Feedback Form for this year. It centralizes feedback and makes it much easier to sort through and address claims and problems more efficiently. I think this was a great decision by Staff this year and to me it shows they are taking feedback extremely seriously.

However that being said, I can't why the threads were locked. I feel discussion and talking about experiences can give a "feel" about the convention in the way a feedback form can't. While it is difficult to obtain direct feedback (Which is the strength of the feedback form) it is easier to observe how people are talking about the convention and how they feel afterwards.

Also at the base of the issue, I feel many people used the form or would have used the form. I think a message requesting that people use the feedback form in addition to forum discussion would have been just as effective and not had the unintended consequence of looking like feedback is being censored. Although you say it is not being censored, people will feel more scrupulous when they see feedback results and wonder.

I support djmonolith when he said to add an official feedback forum feed. That way there can still be a discussion and Fanime can obtain the metrics that it is searching for.

[waiting in line for]

Like come on, waiting in line for 4-6 hours in line and missing almost a whole day at con

Last time I checked the con was 24hrs... 24/6= 4.... so 1/4 the day=4/5 the day????      Yeah, the long wait is horrendous- but considering the unique circumstances like having relocate where badge pickup was going to be as well as other factors- this wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I think it depends on what you define as a day at con. In the case of dealer's hall and artist alley, they have limited hours. If you need to spend around 4-6 hours in line that is a significant portion of time spent. Around the half the amount of time that they are open on average.

So I guess hotels don't take split payments? I was thinking about just using cash to pay for the room and use a credit card to pay for the deposit.

You can very much so do that.

So I understand that the hotel room at the fairmont is 89 a night. But with the deposit fee, a 100 extra? So its actually 189 a night?

The best way to think of it (For me) is as two different charges. The 89 a night for the room, and then a 100 night deposit.

My best recommendation is to use a credit card to pay for the deposit: and then pay the room in either cash or on a debit card.

You get the deposit back though! So just an unfortunately large upfront payment.

I was looking for a Hilton room as well. Because of the housing link mixup, I had to settle for a Friday-Monday stay at the Saint Claire instead of a Thursday-Monday stay at the Hilton or Marriott. Shoot, I'd be happy with a Thursday-Monday at the Saint Claire as well. I ended up emailing CMR/Fanime Housing to see if I can be put on a waitlist.

Were there even any rooms at the Hilton/Marriott for Thursday - Monday? I got in right after they posted the correct link on FB and I didn't see them listed as possibilities.

I've been going to Fanime for many years and stayed at the Fairmont last year and the 100 deposit is just what the Fairmont charges. If you booked outside of the convention you would also be charged a deposit. It is just what they have to do to cover themselves.

Last year I had three rooms at the Fairmont, and as such was supposed to pay 1200 in deposit. Which of course is difficult to do. However last year they worked with me as well when I talked to the night manager at the hotel. Since I paid in cash they made some alterations for me.

It is unfortunate that the deposit is so particularly high at the Fairmont but that's just their right as a hotel.

My recommendation to you, is if at all possible, but the deposit on a credit card.

I may have overlooked this somewhere but what are the prices going to be for PreReg?

Yikes, time to get my group in order. Hopefully since its on my birthday I'll have good luck with a room this year?  :-X

Sorry if this was already answered, but do you have to buy your badge registration before you can book a hotel room? This is the first year I'm doing things out of order.

Hotel and badge registrations are completely separate. (To the best of my knowledge. It has been that way in years past. I do not know if since they are opening at the same time they will bundle together the types of registrations into one webapp or, most likely, they will be separate.)

You do not have to have a badge to book a room though so in that regard it does not matter as far as registering goes.

In my honest opinion I would get your room first before they all get snatched up like last year. Registration is easy to do and doesn't have a limited number of availability.

A hallway contest? I don't believe there is one and I haven't really been to a con that does have a hallway costume contest; at least not that I can recollect. It could be I passed it up as something I'm not directly affected by but I don't remember anything like that. I know there is the Masquerade, but a hallway contest isn't something I believe is done at this event.

I think its a tired, boring and unoriginal idea. It's an anime convention, I would expect anime themes, not lowering the bar to satisfy a pop-culture fashion statement.

=(
I don't believe that we're lowering the bar - We pick our themes to be fun while capturing the spirit of FanimeCon.

What is the spirit of FanimeCon?

I don't know if there's any fun to be found in grim and stoic at an anime convention, but hey, you guys run the show. I just pay to stand in line for 6 hours. Lol.

Everyone has their own tastes, personally I like this one, but there is always fun to be found. I mean. Certain panels run every year and they sometimes have nothing to do with the theme, neither do the GoH, neither does the AA, neither does the Dealers Hall, and neither do a lot of things. In eight years of attendance here I think I have rarely ever gone out of my way to match a theme.

I am curious though because I want to know what you think a good anime theme would be in your opinion?

Just off the top of my head, I'd say a throwback to 80's style anime (all genres). I think it would be interesting to see today's younger anime fans work with this kind of official theme. Not only would this be closer to what I believe Fanime has been about (at least intended to start with), but may serve as an educational experience for the new age anime fans. It could also be a bridge for both old and young anime fans to share a common theme together--something they can all get into, rather than the alternative which I believe would be limited to a small niche.

I could agree with that being a pretty awesome theme! It would always be nice to have a little bit of a throwback to some older anime from my childhood. They do have the old style anime video room which I love and it would be nice if one year we could have just a big trip down memory lane. I think it would be a lot of fun. I would kind of like a "mech" year sometime simply because those are my favorite types of anime and manga.

Just to chime real quick in, I am actually really interested in making some original cosplays this year based on the theme.

I think there is a fair bit of interest overall in this theme and I really do think that with a lot of direction some amazing events can be planned for this year! I have hope!

I do think a return to some old school anime or focus on a specific genre, or etc, would be totally amazing too. Just my thought!

I think its a tired, boring and unoriginal idea. It's an anime convention, I would expect anime themes, not lowering the bar to satisfy a pop-culture fashion statement.

=(
I don't believe that we're lowering the bar - We pick our themes to be fun while capturing the spirit of FanimeCon.

What is the spirit of FanimeCon?

I don't know if there's any fun to be found in grim and stoic at an anime convention, but hey, you guys run the show. I just pay to stand in line for 6 hours. Lol.

Everyone has their own tastes, personally I like this one, but there is always fun to be found. I mean. Certain panels run every year and they sometimes have nothing to do with the theme, neither do the GoH, neither does the AA, neither does the Dealers Hall, and neither do a lot of things. In eight years of attendance here I think I have rarely ever gone out of my way to match a theme.

I am curious though because I want to know what you think a good anime theme would be in your opinion?

Just some general thoughts for the idea focusing primarily on Gothic: Trinity Blood, Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, Hellsing, Castlevania, Black Butler, Alice In Wonderland (Alice in the Country of Hearts). Btw, I'm not being very particular on "gothic" here Haha.

[Pros:]

First off, Thank you all Fanime Staff for pulling off another good year!

Just my feedback. I tried to be thorough but maybe I got a little too thorough. Haha.


Pros:

• The "Filler" Website – I absolutely love the little filler, "recap", call it what you will website that got put up rather than just leaving the 2012 site up for the next few months. To me it is a nice little way of just wrapping the con officially up and setting a new groundwork for next year. I already am excited just by this little website for next year as strange as that is!


• Artist Alley - The Artist Alley this year was quite impressive and the growth is extremely nice. The AA Staff did a very good job running the event and there was a nice variety of return and new artists. I hope that with the continued growth of the event that they can move over to one of the other Exhibit Halls, I know there is an additional 7,000 Sq. Feet in both Exhibit Hall 2 and 3. I would vote for Exhibit Hall 3 since Exhibit Hall 2 has a little more usability for booths (According to the floor plan specs) which makes it more useful as the Dealers Hall. Since there is a rapid growth in the number of participating Artists it would be nice to see the event grow even more! The AA staff truly did do an amazing job organizing such a massive amount of applications and getting everything taken care of. This is the one event that I think has truly grown alongside the growth of the con.


• Dealers Hall - All of my experiences in the Dealers Hall this year were quite pleasant. I bought my usual three ties from Lolita Kisama, and my round of UCC coffee each day and quite enjoyed it. I thought that the variety of exhibitors was very nice, although there were a few exceptions. I'm not sure about whether or not they were charging 10% Sales Tax which is what most people were saying, I know San Jose is 8.25%. I would slightly imagine that they weren't charging additional Sales Tax (Because while that can be done, if a customer returns you must reimburse them the difference or the business is required to pay the additional tax to the state or they have an accounting discrepancy which will show up on an audit) but rather they were charging a combined amount of 10%, applying 8.25% and using the additional amount to cover either Convention costs or to substitute for the people who they relieved sales tax for. I could be wrong on this...but unless my accounting is hazy I believe they still have to pay Sales Tax for every purchase. I don't know the details or what is legal because I am not an authority and have no real personal experience but it seems reasonable in my mind at least.


• Registration Staff - I thought that overall, the staff this year did an absolutely amazing job working with the overwhelming circumstances that happened. There were a few occasions where I am certain that individuals could have handled attendee inquiries better but as a whole the entire staff seemed to do a pretty good job responding to the power outage and the technical problems. While I may have problems with the process, the Staff does an amazing job working within the current system and doing the best they can.


• Staff in General – I have nothing but respect and awe for the people who put in a massive amount of times to get this event running every single year. Thank you all so much for your massive influence on the conventions growth, and thank you so much again for working hard to make sure that the convention is a success!


• Gaming Room - I didn't spend an overwhelming amount of time in here, but the time I did spend here left me overall feeling pretty happy. The pc towers were amazing to have and I don't remember those in past years. It brought a much better feeling to the gaming room with a lot more variety. However I noticed that quite a few tournaments seemed to be cancelled? That is just what I saw from FB, Twitter updates as well as what I heard from several other people.


• Black and White Ball - The new location is amazing and I quite like it being used the way it is. Since I know the blueprints for the expansion include a ballroom, I do think it would be nicer to have it in the convention center still since it would have additional increased square footage unless there is a steady increase in the number of attendees in which case, my mind functions that it would be better to move the gaming room to the new Ball Room expansion (Since it is the lowest amount of square footage) , leave the Ball where it was this year, and open up Exhibit Halls 1 and 2 to make a substantially larger Artists Alley or Dealers Hall depending on interest or growth.

Cons:

• Staff and Attendee Relationship – This is something that I have been noticing over the years and it is just my personal opinion after hundreds if not thousands of encounters with many members of Staff from many departments. FanimeCon is By Fans, For Fans and I love it, but while we can all become friends and I love making new friends, the convention Staff are the ones who are running the convention. The fact is they are the ones who put an unbelievably large amount of effort into running this convention and that earns a level of respect right there that I think some convention attendees lose sight of. But the flip side of this is that the attendees are paying money, and not a little bit of money, to be at an event which needs to be run as professionally as possible and sometimes I think Staff loses sight of the fact that we are paying attendees.  This is just my thought and personal opinion, but I think that over time some of the professionalism of the event has been dying out. (This is by no means an accurate description of the full relationship between Staff/Attendee but I did focus on one overarching issue to me. Nothing is ever so simple as one issue ^^)


• Website Development – I do not believe that the website this year was overwhelmingly well designed. There were several small sections that one could "subvert" into that would have old information, or had never been updated because the actual implementation was performed elsewhere. One case in point, I believe that the About  Become Staff was an odd place overall for it. Because it didn't match up with anything else and there was already an area that had a staff section which did not contain a link to the actual staff page. The updating was also relatively slow this year. I know that some aspects physically could not be updated on, because the Staff was busy finalizing things, but a little presence would be nice rather than just placeholders. I think that rather than updating the main page along with the other areas, it would be nice to just have that middle section function AS the twitter feed. That is how most updates are carried out it seems so I think that would be an easy mechanism to just save time. I also really hope it can return to a top navigation bar rather than a side panel. Just a disclaimer that this is all my personal opinion and I completely understand how hard it is to create a brand new website every year with new implementation and then keep it completely updated. I thank the Staff again for putting so much effort into the development of new features and constantly striving to provide the best experience to all those who are involved.


• Lack of Information – I think that the amount of information this year given before the convention was very minimal and was limited to the forums in a lot of cases. Lots of people don't visit the forums because they don't like Forums in general, and I wish that more information could have been channeled onto one of the main Fanime information sources.


• Lack of At-Con Information – The Information Desks were not helpful for me but the only thing I really needed to know was where parking discounts were handled and the person who I talked to didn't know but said he would help me find it (Which ultimately he didn't because he wandered off to ask someone else but I wasn't worried) so I am glad that if they don't have the knowledge they make the effort to find out. However it seems from the general idea of the feedback I am reading that they didn't constantly have up to date information which can prove to be a critical hit to a convention on the whole. I think there is a way to improve this, but since I didn't have much interaction, I also didn't have many immediate ideas.


• Feedback Staff Response – I am mentioning this because as I see it, some of the staff responses, which are practically always completely justified as far as information content, have very little of the professional conduct of which I would expect from a feedback forum in general and seem to rapidly be drifting towards personal level of retaliation. Which brings me to my main point; why can't this Feedback be done as a web app? It would be a centralized feedback area that focuses the discussion on feedback onto the staff level which is where I believe a fair bit of it belongs. But I also see the immediate plus side to doing it in a forum because it generates discussion about what direction the con needs to go in, and points are debated and discussed and hopefully most of what we can discuss can go to the betterment of a con. I do believe that the staff post that caught my eye was removed and listed as a complaint rather than constructive feedback which makes more sense, however that was also only when it became escalated when the staff member responded.


• Registration – I was in line for just over 6 hours on Thursday and frankly it seems like the overall process of registration is no longer working for the event. And since the blueprints for the expansion center to the center do not include the Registration area currently being used it seems like a fairly perfect opportunity to revamp the system overall. I do not personally agree with the mailing out of badges on all aspects. On the one hand you can get your badge ahead of time, which is a nice perk for Pre-Registration (As compared to the seemingly pointless perks other than price at this point) but equally on the other hand, you're going to have people losing badges, people needing badges re-printed because they forget them, and a wide variety of other possible errors in mailing badges out. I like having a souvenir badge, it is honestly a form of pride having gone for so many years and having badges to remind me of all of the Fanime's I have been to. AX processes registration with a barcode, and it seems to work quite well, and I do hope that something along this line can be implemented. The multiple badge art is a major part of what Fanime is to me; it is one of the little things that helps define that con from other ones. The new area that I can easily see being used as a new Registration area would be somewhere in the L20 or L21. If L21 is completely opened up that is a massive area to allow for Registration processing. The flow control looks to be, enter from the outside, and taking from someone else's suggestions, sort people into L21 for At-Con registration, and use the L20's either independently or as one cohesive area with divisions for people who Pre-Registered, Artist Alley, Industry/Press, Dealers, and I think that is everything? Most of those could phase out to just pre-reg as well once the convention gets started up. (It is a complicated thought even for me and might be unfeasible but it seems plausible just maintenance and planning intensive). There seems to be a lot of available space once the convention center is finished and I can't wait to see.


• Rover Staff – I would like to say first off that I appreciate all of the staff immensely and that this is an extremely negligible complaint overall but some of the staff did seem a little confused on rules so it would be nice if there could be more clarity or more emphasis on training however I do understand the difficulties in training a group of volunteers many of whom may not show up for the event which I believe was mentioned by the rover staff before now. When the staff mentioned the test to take for being a Rover, it was mentioned it was mostly common sense applications and responses to likely event circumstances. Just a thought but could there not be two simple tests given? One first off to score how you would work as a Rover and then one to score your knowledge of the Convention in particular? I really don't have much of inkling on how these tests work so it may very well already be this way. Just my food for thought I suppose.

Overall I still had a pretty good time! FanimeCon is the first convention I went to out of a great many and I have stayed strong since then. I always think the staff does their best with what they have and always manage to pull off a great convention!

Thank you so much for this year and I can't wait for next year!

I think its a tired, boring and unoriginal idea. It's an anime convention, I would expect anime themes, not lowering the bar to satisfy a pop-culture fashion statement.

=(
I don't believe that we're lowering the bar - We pick our themes to be fun while capturing the spirit of FanimeCon.

I actually really like this idea. I mean. When I first read it I thought of all the original costumes I could make for the cast of FairyTail. I'm excited. There is so much possibility for this. (Just to be clear - It is Gothic Fairy Tale Theme?)

Just chiming in, but is that the official theme for next year? I couldn't make it to the Closing Ceremonies.

[Hotel Name:]

I have had a room at some point at every hotel affiliated with the convention center.

Hotel Name: Fairmont
Would You Book Next Year: Possibly.
Pros:

• First off, the people working check in on Thursday night were extremely helpful and very nice. I paid entirely in cash, and they were more than kind enough to not charge me a deposit for the stay! Rather they charged me $300 cash for "incidentals" which basically functioned as a credit for possible charges that could amount. I thought this was more than generous of them rather than charging me $300 + $400 for the deposit. Quite pleased by this and it was a major bonus to their staff for being so kind and accommodating.
• The rooms are large which is one of the most helpful factors in deciding since the amount of cosplays our collective group has always takes up a massive amount of space.
• The staff was extremely helpful and always called to ask if we needed housekeeping or anything and they were, for the most part, extremely kind and professional.

Cons:

• Seriously didn't know what was up by with the seeming lack of housekeeping in the common areas. There was a major problem with the trash in some areas which I attribute most definitely to the convention goers who seem to have no respect leaving alcoholic containers and empty soda containers spread in seemingly every corner along my hallway, but it was also there for substantially longer than two days so it was also a relatively large failure on the staff of housekeeping.
• Some of the hotel buttons did not work and there were several construction shortcuts which were quite apparent. The tile was set quickly and without spacers so there will several areas where the craftsmanship was quite shoddy for such a high level hotel. The reasons the plugs were also quite loose in some of the hotels is because they cut corners when applying wallpaper and they just cut into the wallpaper and shoved it into the gap, they also didn't screw the faceplate into a secured surface. Which, having worked on hotels, are all extremely common time savers to finish a floor a week.

Special Notes to Share: This is an awesome hotel overall and I would definitely stay there again.

Also to the person that said Hilton was cheaper than the Fairmont, it was $115 at the Hilton and $122 at the Fairmont. (Not exactly end of the world difference but Haha) The Marriott was cheaper though.

Yeah finding that place was extremely difficult. I ended up walking back and forth through the entire parking garage trying to find it. I ended up getting the discount the second day I was there (Friday morning) but including the $20 for Thursday I only paid $70 for in and out privileges until Monday. Really a very good deal now that I know about it and I hope as many people can find out as possible from this thread.

I didn't get as many pictures this year as I usually do because I was focused on other things but there are the ones I do have~

http://www.flickr.com/photos/presidentgigantor