Messages

Our apologies that it is a bit late again this year. We were really hoping this time it would go up in October or November! There were a lot of changes this year though, so that added some delay.

For a brief overview:

• Panels is no longer giving discounts. We will now be doing refunds. (This makes it possible for you to pre-register without any issues, and alleviates problems with signing up for Artist Alley or Swap Meet.)
• Character count restrictions for the Program Guide Blurbs have been shortened.
• You'll now be submitting a second description for the website, with a longer character count.

There are some other more minor changes, but those are the really big ones! For details, check the Panelist Information Page: http://www.fanime.com/panels/panelist-information/
We look forward to seeing all of your submissions!

*Edited because I'm tired and put in the wrong date!

Yes, it was an issue. Our apologies. There was some miscommunication or misunderstanding between our staff and the facilities staff, and the error wasn't noticed until rather late.

Also, apologies for this super late reply! ^^;;

We're going to try and not have any room size changes going on this year, so hopefully this won't be an issue again.

Just as a note to everyone who was scheduled in Panels 4 for the 2014 Con year... I'm really sorry that it was so small. I had difficulty making it to the Fairmont to examine the various rooms pre-con, and going off of the map that I had, I thought that the California was the same size as the Gold room, and therefore Panels 4 would have been the same size that it was last year.

It wasn't until Thursday night (the day before the convention), during setup, that I realized the room was so small. By then, it was too late to really do anything about it.

For the 2015 Con Year, we are going to move Panels 4 back into the Gold room where it was in 2013, so that it will hold a decent audience size.

Just as a note: Panels 4 was much smaller than we expected it to be this year, and as a consequence we will be moving the rooms around a bit. Next year, Panels 4 will be in the room it was in during the 2013 Con Year, so that it should have sufficient audience size.

Apologies for the super small room this year!

Other departments having their own panels without consulting the Panels department is an issue we had already intended to address this year. Because their programming hasn't been going through us or coordinating with us, we weren't actually aware of the overlap, so I'm glad that you mentioned it. It's definitely a problem when other departments have things they call panels or workshops, but don't coordinate with us, because it makes things confusing for those who are not staff and trying to attend these events.

Having a single room in the Fairmont and the rest of the rooms in the Marriott last year was kind of awkward all around, but we were happy that we managed to pull it off without too many problems.

[Panels 1]

We've been telling everyone we'll have larger rooms this year. Here are some approximate numbers.

Panels 1 (Imperial Ballroom)- In excess of 1,000 seats. (Possibly as high as 1,500)
Panels 2 (Regency Ballroom 2)- 400-500 seats Friday through Saturday at 6pm.
Panels 2 (Regency Ballrooms 1 and 2)- 900 + seats from Saturday at 7pm onward.
Panels 3 (Gold Room)- 150+ (I think close to 200)
Panels 4 (California Room)- 100 or less. (Workshop room with tables for the audience.)
Fan Events Room (Valley Room)- Seating for roughly 50 people, lots of open floor space.
'Special' Fan Events Room (Regency Ballroom 1)- only Friday night/Sat. morning - Approximately 400.

Panels 1 - In excess of 1,000 seats.
Panels 2 - 400-500 seats Friday through Saturday at 6pm.
Panels 2 - 900 + seats from Saturday at 7pm onward.
Panels 3 - 150+ (I think close to 200)
Panels 4 - 100 or less.
Fan Events Room - Seating for roughly 50 people, lots of open floor space.
'Special' Fan Events Room - only Friday night/Sat. morning - Approximately 400.

All the panel listings should be up on the website now, complete with times and locations.

The Fan Events aren't quite up yet. They should be up in the near future.

-Rena

Just as a note, to make sure there is as little confusion as possible... The Valley room on the Second floor of the Fairmont has been reserved for Fan Events. However, that room is too small for these two events, and so that is NOT the room these two events will be taking place in.

Unfortunately, I don't really have a room name to give you at the moment for where these events will be. It will be on the second floor of the Fairmont hotel. What we've put into the pocket schedule, is for people to check with Info Desk for the exact location. (There will be an info desk on the 2nd floor of the fairmont hotel as well.) I won't have a more specific location to give for these events until next week.

Apologies for the confusion. Gomen.

Times are being sent out tonight. (I'm in the middle of that right now, actually.)

My apologies. It's late to begin with (please see my post in the panel status thread for information on that), and it was meant to be done last week Friday, but I got very sick last Thursday (spent all night throwing up), and wasn't able to look at screens for most of the day Friday and Saturday without feeling nauseous. x_x; (Plus have spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping.)

I know that it being late sucks for y'all. (It sucks for me too, in a big way.) Gomenasai.

Hey everyone, while Fan Events isn't technically part of the Panels department, Panels will probably be running them this year since there is no one else to do so and the Fan Events room will be in between two panel rooms.

I just wanted to let everyone who submitted Fan Events know... while I can't give you definite times yet, we did not receive so many Fan Events that we won't be able to fit them all into the schedule for the room.

So you should all be hearing from me sometime in the next week.

Hey everyone.

I'm sincerely sorry that everything is so late this year. Not that it helps you to know, but when things are this late, it's much harder on me as well. Part of the reason you haven't heard from me much is because I thought it was better to spend what time I had on actual scheduling rather than trying to respond to every query of, 'but when will we know?!'.

Our goal this year was to get the submission form up by Last October. We had a very early setback when right at the end of July last year, I was in a very bad car accident and was unable to be on the computer for a couple of months. I am doing better now, though not fully recovered, and still walking with a limp. This pushed things back a couple of months at least. It's also made my schedule more hectic, because I have 4-5 doctor appointments per week, in addition to my normal schedule.

Unrelated, I went from two computers to one computer, and then that one computer started randomly freezing with a black screen and requiring hard reboots. This meant that I often had less time to get things done, because I'd have to spend 10-15 minutes re-booting the computer, etc. Finally, the black screens became so frequent (sometimes every five or ten minutes), that I wasn't able to get anything done at all. It then went in for repairs for a week (they told me 2-3 days, but it took a week). The computer is working well now, and I'm doing my best to get things finished as quickly as possible.

While the department seconds have been handling as much as they could for me, no one else is currently trained to make the schedule, so I'm afraid it's me you're waiting on. My sincerest apologies. It's been a rough year.

We've had, as usual, far more submissions than I will be able to schedule this year. Since I am also the one making the Fan Events schedule, I'm afraid people waiting for information on Fan Events are waiting on me as well. A lot of people submitted panels that would work better in the Fan Events room, and so I've been trying to sort all of those out of the Panel submissions and give them tentative times in the Fan Events room, which is why no Fan Events have yet received a time or day.

Again, I'm really sorry. I know that it's hard on all of you for things to go this late. Not every panel submitted will make it onto the schedule, but some will get offers to go into the Fan Events room instead, and we don't have so many Fan Event submissions that we won't have time for them all, so all of those will probably get in.

I'm going to get back to the schedule now. Gomenasai.

[At this time, the original schedule planned for panels for the 2013 con year is full.]

At this time, the original schedule planned for panels for the 2013 con year is full.
Panels which have not yet been scheduled, but have also not received a notice that we are declining their panel will be sent an invitation to the waiting list.

Panels placed onto the schedule from the waiting list within the next week will appear on the pocket schedule, and on the website, but will not appear in the program guide.

Due to the number of panels currently slated for the waiting list, we are considering increasing the number of hours on the panels schedule for this year. Our current plans are to expand hours by opening at 9am on Saturday and Sunday rather than 10am, and possibly open up at 2pm on Friday rather than 3pm. These additional time slots will be filled from the waiting list.

An E-mail with information about the waiting list, and an invitation to join the waiting list will go out within the next few days.
Invitations to the time slots open to the waiting list will begin going out later this week.

If you have questions about the waiting list, you can ask them here, or email us at panelsATfanimeDOTcom.

[We've also sent out this evening an email to all the panelists who haven't yet received time invitations from us.If you submitted, but haven't received anything at all from us - try checking your spam folder. If there's nothing there either, we recommend emailing us ASAP. panelsATfanimeDOTcom]

We've also sent out this evening an email to all the panelists who haven't yet received time invitations from us.

If you submitted, but haven't received anything at all from us - try checking your spam folder. If there's nothing there either, we recommend emailing us ASAP. panelsATfanimeDOTcom

Actually, last year everyone did receive a reply. It's possible that the only reply was the invitation to the wait list and that it was filtered to the spam box. We might recommend adding panels@fanime to your contact list to avoid that.

We are not in the wait list yet. Panels are still being scheduled. We are creating the schedule as quickly as we can.

There were a lot of delays in getting things going this year, so staff has been slammed pretty hard once things did get up. We recognize that it's not ideal (it's not fun for us either), but please bear with us and we'll get everything sorted as quickly as we can.

When we have a date by which we are sure everything will be wrapped up, we'll announce it on the twitter. Sorry that things are running rather late this year.

If you need an update on a specific panel, please drop us an e-mail.

I had hoped so, but at this point, scheduling is still in the beginning stages. We're hoping to get things started earlier next year so that everything can happen in a better order.

For the record, most of the time panels are not actually 'rejected'. We do have a limited amount of hours in which to hold panels though (based on the number of rooms and how many staff we have, etc.) This year, we have space for 196 hours of panels. (Maybe more if we have so many submissions that opening earlier or closing later seems desirable and can get the staff to support the hours.)

58 hours of panels have been scheduled at the moment - roughly a little over a quarter of the schedule. What's been happening in the last couple of years, is that we've had far more submissions than we could possibly fit into the schedule. So it wasn't so much that we rejected a lot of panels, as that we didn't have space for them all. We're hoping that having a 4th room this year will help with that.

A lot of people who staff have no experience before their first time. And a lot of fan panelists haven't given a panel before their first one. :) There's a first time for everything, right? If you'd like to join staff, I think you should feel free to apply for next year. A lot of staff don't reside locally, and most departments can make arrangements for this.

You seem very passionate about your subject, and to have a lot to say. That's a really good start for a panelist.

Artist Alley is run by a different division from Panels (Panels is in the Programming division, AA is in the Fan Services division), so I can't really comment much on their policies or why they exist. You might be able to ask those questions over here: http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/board,31.0.html

We also have a post-con feedback session every year, immediately following closing ceremonies on Monday. Or you could send your feedback via e-mail, etc. Sometimes we can't change the way we are doing things due to legalities, rules of the venue we are using, or other complications that aren't transparent to the public, but we do encourage everyone to give honest feedback. A panel is just not the place to provide that, since unless it's the Staff running AA hosting the panel, they're unlikely to hear the feedback or be able to respond to it.

In any case, I am not personally fully acquainted with what AA policies are. I can totally answer panel questions though!

I apologize that we're a bit behind in scheduling.

Your panel, as submitted, seems like a valuable resource for new artists wanting to participate in an AA, not just at Fanime, but at conventions in general. Hopefully we'll be able to fit you into the schedule.

[Panel Staff is recruiting for 2013!]

Panel Staff is recruiting for 2013!

Become a part of one of the best things FanimeCon has to offer!
Panel staff help control access to exclusive events, run the panelist lounge, and get to hang out with some very cool people (That's us!).

It's a great way to participate in and contribute to the convention AND attend your favorite panels! Plus, Panels has some of the funnest staff around~

Things to know:
Panels run late on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights of the convention. Panel staff may be expected to be scheduled for at least 2 of the three late nights (so if you need to leave the con early each night, this is not the staff job for you.)

Panel staff are required to work a total of 24 hours during the 4 day convention. Although this theoretically averages out to 6 hours a day, due to the different operating hours of the convention, it works a little differently in reality.
Panels run for limited hours on both Friday and Monday, so usually panel staff will work 3-4 hours on Friday, 2-4 hours on Monday, and the rest of their hours will be on Saturday and Sunday.

Panels prefers staff who are 18 years and older because of our late hours, and some of the late night panels are not geared for younger audiences.

Duties of a Panel Staff Member:
~Badge-checking at panel room doors
~Monitoring panels for disruptions and notifying appropriate staff if they occur
~Handing out and collecting panel rate cards
~Taking head-counts during panels
~Greeting panelists at the panelist lounge and assisting to make sure they have all required equipment for their panels
~Giving breaks to other panel staff
~Running errands for dept. heads and leads
~Ensuring notification goes out to attendees when a panel is cancelled at-con

Panel Staff Training includes:
~Line Control
~Radio Protocols
~Badge Checking
~General etiquette for panels, panelists and guests

If you're interested in becoming a core part of FanimeCon, drop an e-mail to [email protected] with your name and phone number, and put 'Panel Staff' into the subject line of the e-mail. Please include some information about your previous con experience, even if it's simply 'I've attended for years, but not staffed before' or 'I've staffed at another convention.' We look forward on welcoming you to our team!

You can find the info page here: http://www.fanime.com/events-and-exhibits/panels/panelist-information/

Our panelist information page has a lot of updates this year, so please be sure to read it before submitting, even if you've been a panelist in previous years.

If there are clarifications or questions about what's in the 2013 Panelist Information page, please feel free to ask them here. For more specific questions about panels you are submitting, I recommend e-mailing us instead. You can reach us at panelsATfanimeDOTcom.

While we cannot give out panelist information without their permission, if you send an e-mail to panelsATFanimeDOTcom, we can probably look up who gave the panel in a previous year and send them a query as to whether they'd mind if someone else gave a similar panel. (Or offer them your contact information, if you'd like.)