CONS
Schedules-yes, I know everyone and their mother has already posted to complain about it, but it really drove me nuts, and the people I was with too. I was lucky, I printed out the site's schedule(I wish I'd thought to print out copies for everyone in my group though!) but I was really taken aback whenever we went to the Info booths, and they would say "no schedule, maybe tomorrow?" over and over, and there were numerous times when people would ask to see my schedule because I was the only one around with it. I don't really understand what happened? Why did you decide not to provide us with schedules/put schedules in the books? I would think a schedule at a con would be the first thing hammered down before anything else? I then find out the schedule is available to anyone with a wifi or a phone with internet. Really? That doesn't help those of us without a fancy phone or without wifi. I understand the schedule was made available to the site weeks ago, but what about those of the congoers who don't obsessively check the site everyday or don't have an account here? What about those of us congoers who only decide at the last minute to go with a friend to the con and then find out they were supposed to be part of some 'secret' club to get info?
Some staff were pretty unfriendly-Specifically the staff at the Fanime booth table in the Dealer's Room. My friends went to donate some money and the girl there pretty much threw the origami paper at them and demanded they make a crane. When my one friend, who has bad eyesight, said she couldn't read the instructions and was ok with not making a crane, gave the paper back, the girl threw it back at her and said 'make a crane'. What? And my other friend was trying to engage the two girls there, being friendly, but they ignored her and kept talking to each other and I THINK one might've even sneered at her. I understand people can have bad days and I am AMAZED by the staff's unflagging energy even on Monday but that one girl's blatant rudeness towards people trying to help her help a charity just disgusted me and I was tempted to tell my friends to ask for their money back.
Friday's Asian Films-I really wanted to see this movie, the first one being shown on Friday(I forget the exact title, something like J'aime Taipei?) and when we went to see it, the room was locked, and no film was showing, and we went to tell the Info Booth, and this nice man actually ran to see what was going on, but as it was, the movie was like, half an hour or more late starting and we had other things to do, but everything else ran smoothly, so that was just the one set back.
Semi Con/Semi Pro
Panels-I went to 4 panels and two were AWESOME and two were NOT awesome. The Awesome was: BookBinding and WigMaking, on Friday, at 10 and 11 pm were amazing. The people running those panels were smart, knew their topic, funny, sweet, I adored the man from BookBinding who actually had us get in a circle and made things more personal and was talking to us and made it feel less like a panel and more like a..conversation. The woman running the Wig panel was hilarious! She played around with the screaming from the room next to us and whenever they started screaming something, she'd go 'yes, yes I know, it's amazing, wigs!" and was just really personable and lovely. Can those two people come back?
The two I didn't like was 'Weird Manga' and 'How to Make a Webcomic". Maybe my expectations regarding the webcomic was way off base but I thought it was going to be about how to make a webcomic in terms of where to go to post it, resources for webartists, copyrights, making a name, whether or not we need to shell out money for our own site or if we can use a free one, how to get hosted on a site like keenspot or whatever. Instead, he talked about what he was currently doing on his computer("I'm going to click here and make it black, and then I'll make this white"..) and I was like, 'this is more of a how to use corel painter than how to make a webcomic' and I was disappointed. The Weird Manga one..UGH. The one blond who did the talking was a mumbler, and kept calling herself stupid and said, she actually admitted, that she only started looking for stuff for the panel 15 minutes before the presentation. They didn't really SHOW or EXPLAIN why the mangas were weird or anything, they just said like, 'he draws guro. Weird!" "She draws incest. WEIRD!" and didn't really go into details like: WHY is this considered weird? If this is weird, why is it published? What happened to make this manga so well known? Some of the examples they shared as 'proof' it was a weird manga was like..Standard fare. My friends and I left saying 'did they really just pick mangas that they think is weird and decided to tell us it's weird?" They didn't back up their statements, or bring proof to show what's so weird about the mangas. Also, they talked amongst themselves more than to the audience so I felt like we were intruding on their personal social time.
PROS
The Staff The majority of the staff were super nice, we even had one staffer run from the Info table to both video room hallways just to double check that the rooms were labeled correctly and staffers were willing to accommodate my deafness, I was worried they'd think I was lying or something (deafness IS the invisible handicap) but they were like, 'Sure, here'.
Water dispensers Were these new? Or have they always been there and I never saw them? I loved that there were water dispensers in the panel rooms and hallways, it was a real life saver for when I drank all my water in the water bottle and didn't want to shell out 4$ for another one.
Discounts at the restaurants Whoever's idea it was to have restaurants give discounts should get an award! Every congoer knows how great it is to be able to save even the smallest amount of money and the discounts really helped.
ONE PIECE I am a huge huge fan of One Piece and LOVED the cosplays, the merchandise, the movie and the marathon. It was a One Piece-ful Fanime this year!
Artist Alley All my money went to the AA, I loved it, I loved the variety, and the number of people willing to do commissions, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the friendly artists and I adored everything about it.
Also, I want to give a special shoutout to the artists who had the Loki 7-11 cup and told us EXACTLY where to go to get the cups, thank you!
Overall, Fanime was great, some setbacks but overall, keep up the great work!
Schedules-yes, I know everyone and their mother has already posted to complain about it, but it really drove me nuts, and the people I was with too. I was lucky, I printed out the site's schedule(I wish I'd thought to print out copies for everyone in my group though!) but I was really taken aback whenever we went to the Info booths, and they would say "no schedule, maybe tomorrow?" over and over, and there were numerous times when people would ask to see my schedule because I was the only one around with it. I don't really understand what happened? Why did you decide not to provide us with schedules/put schedules in the books? I would think a schedule at a con would be the first thing hammered down before anything else? I then find out the schedule is available to anyone with a wifi or a phone with internet. Really? That doesn't help those of us without a fancy phone or without wifi. I understand the schedule was made available to the site weeks ago, but what about those of the congoers who don't obsessively check the site everyday or don't have an account here? What about those of us congoers who only decide at the last minute to go with a friend to the con and then find out they were supposed to be part of some 'secret' club to get info?
Some staff were pretty unfriendly-Specifically the staff at the Fanime booth table in the Dealer's Room. My friends went to donate some money and the girl there pretty much threw the origami paper at them and demanded they make a crane. When my one friend, who has bad eyesight, said she couldn't read the instructions and was ok with not making a crane, gave the paper back, the girl threw it back at her and said 'make a crane'. What? And my other friend was trying to engage the two girls there, being friendly, but they ignored her and kept talking to each other and I THINK one might've even sneered at her. I understand people can have bad days and I am AMAZED by the staff's unflagging energy even on Monday but that one girl's blatant rudeness towards people trying to help her help a charity just disgusted me and I was tempted to tell my friends to ask for their money back.
Friday's Asian Films-I really wanted to see this movie, the first one being shown on Friday(I forget the exact title, something like J'aime Taipei?) and when we went to see it, the room was locked, and no film was showing, and we went to tell the Info Booth, and this nice man actually ran to see what was going on, but as it was, the movie was like, half an hour or more late starting and we had other things to do, but everything else ran smoothly, so that was just the one set back.
Semi Con/Semi Pro
Panels-I went to 4 panels and two were AWESOME and two were NOT awesome. The Awesome was: BookBinding and WigMaking, on Friday, at 10 and 11 pm were amazing. The people running those panels were smart, knew their topic, funny, sweet, I adored the man from BookBinding who actually had us get in a circle and made things more personal and was talking to us and made it feel less like a panel and more like a..conversation. The woman running the Wig panel was hilarious! She played around with the screaming from the room next to us and whenever they started screaming something, she'd go 'yes, yes I know, it's amazing, wigs!" and was just really personable and lovely. Can those two people come back?
The two I didn't like was 'Weird Manga' and 'How to Make a Webcomic". Maybe my expectations regarding the webcomic was way off base but I thought it was going to be about how to make a webcomic in terms of where to go to post it, resources for webartists, copyrights, making a name, whether or not we need to shell out money for our own site or if we can use a free one, how to get hosted on a site like keenspot or whatever. Instead, he talked about what he was currently doing on his computer("I'm going to click here and make it black, and then I'll make this white"..) and I was like, 'this is more of a how to use corel painter than how to make a webcomic' and I was disappointed. The Weird Manga one..UGH. The one blond who did the talking was a mumbler, and kept calling herself stupid and said, she actually admitted, that she only started looking for stuff for the panel 15 minutes before the presentation. They didn't really SHOW or EXPLAIN why the mangas were weird or anything, they just said like, 'he draws guro. Weird!" "She draws incest. WEIRD!" and didn't really go into details like: WHY is this considered weird? If this is weird, why is it published? What happened to make this manga so well known? Some of the examples they shared as 'proof' it was a weird manga was like..Standard fare. My friends and I left saying 'did they really just pick mangas that they think is weird and decided to tell us it's weird?" They didn't back up their statements, or bring proof to show what's so weird about the mangas. Also, they talked amongst themselves more than to the audience so I felt like we were intruding on their personal social time.
PROS
The Staff The majority of the staff were super nice, we even had one staffer run from the Info table to both video room hallways just to double check that the rooms were labeled correctly and staffers were willing to accommodate my deafness, I was worried they'd think I was lying or something (deafness IS the invisible handicap) but they were like, 'Sure, here'.
Water dispensers Were these new? Or have they always been there and I never saw them? I loved that there were water dispensers in the panel rooms and hallways, it was a real life saver for when I drank all my water in the water bottle and didn't want to shell out 4$ for another one.
Discounts at the restaurants Whoever's idea it was to have restaurants give discounts should get an award! Every congoer knows how great it is to be able to save even the smallest amount of money and the discounts really helped.
ONE PIECE I am a huge huge fan of One Piece and LOVED the cosplays, the merchandise, the movie and the marathon. It was a One Piece-ful Fanime this year!
Artist Alley All my money went to the AA, I loved it, I loved the variety, and the number of people willing to do commissions, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the friendly artists and I adored everything about it.
Also, I want to give a special shoutout to the artists who had the Loki 7-11 cup and told us EXACTLY where to go to get the cups, thank you!
Overall, Fanime was great, some setbacks but overall, keep up the great work!