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I'll be in attendance in Hero Suit Barnaby, and my partner will be in Hero Suit Wild Tiger - we hope to have Good Luck mode done in time for Fanime!  Lets Believe Heroes!!

If registration isn't tomorrow, there's only one Saturday left before the con itself and that happens to land on the Big Wow convention weekend; its the same venue as Fanime and has a decent amount of attendee crossover as a result.  I'll be willing to stay home until I make sure I get a swapmeet spot, but that's yet another burden on the local fans who likely want to participate in both.

With less than 2 weeks to go, there's precious few hours of free time left - people are trying to get their things together to take on their trips, to their hotel rooms etc.  Its at the point where the selection of the swapmeet goods will suffer because people won't have enough time between knowing they've got their spot and being able to round up the things they need to sell.

[ROVERS]

While personally I had fun overall at Fanime 2011 due to friends in attendance - I'd have to say this was the most problematic Fanime there ever has been - and I've been to all of them (yes, even the free one up at Cal State Hayward that used classrooms for a dealer hall).  While I went to the post-con feedback panel to give my two cents (and was hopefully heard), the management I spoke to there suggested I contribute to the forums, so here I am.

I've never seen so many people stressed out about rovers, peace bonding, and security - and it no doubt affected the "vibe" of the con.  I felt it all around me, and heard so many complaints it felt like everyone in the con got hassled, or at least knew someone who did.  I'm a cosplayer who hangs out with costumers of all types as well as non-cosplayers, con veterans, and staffers so I witnessed many cases while trying to avoid confrontations myself.

ROVERS

It seemed as though rovers were misdirected as to their purpose in many cases, and instead of acting upon imminent threats or problems, they were watching random con people until they could find a REASON to hassle them. Some examples:

- Respected, professional photographer is having a photoshoot with a subject in 1F Conv Center late night near the registration area, no other attendees within 100 feet.  2 rovers approach, with no one else around, they come to where we are, INTERRUPT the shoot and ask to see some prop which is a piece of a broom with fake blood matching the costume - obviously not a weapon in any way as its basically a plastic stump, and spend time looking it over... for no apparent reason other than to nitpick.  Nothing is being swung, there is no threat - its a photoshoot for cripes sake.  Rovers tell us its not allowed and to remove it from the premises once we're done.  This was completely unnecessary. If things like this happen I will absolutely not recommend Fanime as its simply uncomfortable for cosplayers to do their thing, and this inconvenience would not have happened at ANY other con.

- Watching stage zero from a concrete pillar near the tape-marked walkway.  Not IN the tape marked walkway, but near it, and I was told to move.  So I did.  No biggie, but completely unnecessary.

- Pregnant woman (who happened to be a staffer) is harassed for stopping to rest near the Hilton side balcony, and is told to get off the floor and move!

- Cosplayer spends half an hour in con ops to get peace bonded and approved, with paperwork - for a character that has a body stocking - to insure that it meets standards and there will be no problems, and is approved.  Cosplayer then goes to hang out, sits in a chair for 2 hours (basically not really visible to anyone unless they TRY to look for trouble), and is approached by rovers and told to leave, in a traumatizing way.

- Black and White Ball line; participants are waiting a LONG TIME, so some of the female participants take their high heels off because, apparently they can be painful.  Keep in mind this is now outside the venue in PUBLIC property on a sidewalk.  Rovers harass participants saying that they have to wear shoes.  Same rovers repeatedly harass participants about the length of their heels even after they had been measured.

There are many more stories I could tell, but these are the ones that happened to myself or close friends, and is enough to paint a picture that Fanime Con is no longer a pleasant place to be.  It actually felt as if it were against the rules to have fun, or even just be there without some rover finding a reason to ruin your con.

So, what is the purpose of rovers again?  Is it to look at every attendee and scan them and find something to "pull them over" for?  I don't think that is their INTENDED purpose - but I can fully see that it may be an easy mentality for new rovers to fall into depending on HOW they are trained.  I really think that an overhaul needs to be made as to what situations should be acted on.  We attendees are NOT all troublemakers, and some of us are responsible people in general.  If we are not doing anything that is imminently threatening, we should be LEFT ALONE.  Even if I didn't have any incidents as bad as those of my friends, just knowing that we are being WATCHED in such a creepy way - and that these rovers are 'given full power' to kick us out for any reason, makes for an uncomfortable environment.  The overbearing policies are NOT necessary.  I go to 15+ cons a year, of every size and type, all the way up to SDCC with 100,000+ attendees, and NONE of them have come close to having the kind of nitpicky rover/security harassment that Fanime Con 2011 was plagued with.  Size isn't an issue.  At its core, it has to do whether your management TRUSTS its attendees, and RESPECTS them as customers.  You make harsh rules because one person broke one rule or caused a problem because that *one* person was a troublemaker - and those rules cause *hundreds* of attendees to have bad experiences.  As someone who considers Fanime to be their "local" con which I grew up with, I am saddened and realize this may be the last chance to reverse the damage and rescind some of these over-reactive policies.

Not to say that all rovers are/were bad - I'm sure some of them did their job great and didn't hassle people who were just trying to enjoy the con.  But you have to start with the core principles of their function and *make sure* these same people WANT people to enjoy the con as the highest priority - and that 'hassling' should ONLY be done in case of problematic attendees clearly causing trouble.  You may not think its a big thing but one rover harassment can RUIN the con for some people - and with more out of state people attending the convention than before, there is more on the line as people pay much more than the price of their badge to experience the event.

There was a con in the past that messed up pretty bad because of overzealous badge policies and flagrant attendee harassment - Anime LA 2007.  But they took the numerous complaints SERIOUSLY and with conscious effort turned the situation around and made the con into a much friendlier event - turning their rovers into people who not only insure safety, but that attendees are having fun and not angry about issues that may have arisen during the event.  I would really hope that Fanime Can learn from this year's complaints and *proactively* turn things around for next year.  I want the good con vibe to return!


PEACE BONDING and COSTUME / PROP POLICIES

The overly strict policies have been out of control for awhile.  In the fan community we joke around about Fanime being the "prop-nazi" con and peace bonding stuff like cardboard Yuffie stars and 50 cent squirt guns.  But it's no joke.  I like following the rules and whenever I show up on site I go to peace bonding, first thing.  There is something wrong when I walk in there and the staff in there basically gives me the impression that they will disallow whatever it is I'm holding by DEFAULT, and that if I have some kind of prop, that I MUST have it for the intention of causing trouble.  This year, I had my Castlevania prop - which is a self-illuminating sequence of plastic bottles, and I had it approved every year before.  The guy in the room was giving me these looks as if there was no way in hell they'd approve it, that "policies are stricter now" and that it must be dangerous.  It wasn't until I showed them that it was electronic and had circuit boards in the segments that they believed that I wasn't going to, you know, whip it around and like.. break several hundred dollars and countless hours of work.  So my prop got approved, but only barely, and that stresses me out about the future.

When people have a prop, you would think that most times WE don't want to damage our own stuff that we worked so hard on, and that we should be given a certain amount of trust.  Now that you are linking props to *badge numbers* in peace bonding (a great idea) and requiring that it have a corresponding costume - I believe that more trust can and should be given.  If someone does something stupid, you have documentation and can pull their badge - and can already cross-reference with their reg info, etc.  I hope that for next year we can be treated as "innocent before proven guilty" and Fanime's reputation with cosplayers can be restored somewhat.

The same concept applies to the strange new rules about military themed outfits - why not treat them similar to props, for instance a modest inspection granting an approval sticker - instead of banning them outright..?  If accountability is recorded, and rules are explained, then you will have an attendee who will be wanting to abide by them, rather than someone hating your con with their experience ruined.


MASQUERADE PROP CHECK IN

This was one of the most stressful situations for me personally, as I was not allowed to bring my prop into Masquerade to watch it.  I didn't have a hotel room or car as I'm local. My prop was small and could easily be held so it would not protrude into anyone else's space - but their policy was clear that all props had to be thrown into a random pile by the entrance and was told that this was done at OUR OWN RISK, and that no one would be watching it and if someone ran off with my one of a kind prop with hundreds-of-dollars of parts and effort, that I'd be screwed.  The lady at the door heard me out and I made enough of a fuss about it to "please remember my prop" and she said she would if she could - but of course when I left she wasn't there anymore :/  But my prop was, thankfully.

This could be improved/fixed either by allowing smaller props which obviously won't cause problems in, like in years past.  Or if a check in is needed, link each prop to a BADGE NUMBER on a list, and require a badge be shown upon removal of a prop.  Just that little peace of mind will help, and discourage theft, people messing with stuff, etc.


MASQUERADE TIME MISMANAGEMENT

I'm surprised no one complained about this yet.  For masquerade there was an overly lengthy opening performance; a band trying to promote themselves, followed by Ric Myers spamming his book along with other frivolous filler, then the karaoke winner (who was great) performed 2 full length songs... But I came to see the MASQUERADE (not a band, and not karaoke!) and it was about 1hr 15 min before the actual masquerade skits started.  Normally it wouldn't be that annoying, but then after the masquerade acts there was mysteriously NO HALFTIME SHOW..?  And then to add insult to the participants, the award ceremony was rushed and incomplete, and everyone was shoved out in a huge mess due to venue time limits.  Why wasn't the band and karaoke filler done at HALFTIME..?


SCHEDULES

I'm pretty sure this will be fixed for next year, but I just wanted to say that not having schedules sucks for the people working so hard on the programming, because without proper information readily available - people don't have a way of knowing what there is to go to, even if its something they are interested in.  Also I thought of an idea too late that might have helped.  On the whiteboard, to ask "WE NEED HELP PRINTING SCHEDULES! Do you have a Xerox machine? Work at Kinkos? FREE BADGE FOR 2012 if you HELP!"  I think that would have gotten you assistance, rather than driving people away with a sign saying "NO MAPS OR SCHEDULES! go to [website]".


That's my feedback for now.  Sorry its so long-winded!  Thank you for reading.  If YOU have experienced or witnessed any problems, rover harassment, etc, PLEASE post here.  Most people I know are just too pissed or busy to deal with it, but unless you TELL THEM the problems, and how it made you or your friends feel - there's no way they will get better for next year, and you will be stuck with a con where fun is not allowed.  I didn't want to get involved but after seeing the low turnout at the feedback session, they NEED to know, and be told in a constructive way.

I still hold out that my "home con" will get better despite the problems, and won't fall victim to becoming too big to remember what made the con great in the first place.