Cosplay Spectacular MC

[darrylhw]

Cosplay Spectacular (that's the masquerade) MC here with some shout outs.

To Marisa and Casey, you guys are the best, bar none.  'Nuff said.
To the backstage crew/ stage pirates: As always you guys rise to the occassion.  I believe I'm correct in saying the only snafus were done by me.
To the volunteers for the event, nicely done.
To the theater staff, thank you for all your hard work.  Hope you enjoyed our show too.
To the judges, You have the endurance of marathon runners. I know first had how incredible hard it is to judge a masquerade.  The commitment and the thought you put in was great. I liked all your picks.
Last but not least, to all our performers on stage: good show.

As many of you know, I'm the first MC since the man, the myth, the legend Brian Doan, aka Dieter, decided to stop hosting.  He will be missed, but I hope you enjoyed this year none the less.

Being the MC, you are subject to both cheers and jeers.  I would like to have the fans post about both.  What was good? What was bad? Here at Fanime Masquerade, I know for a fact that the Coordinator listens to the public when they speak.  For example.  Last year people complained about too many walk-ons. This year there were a total of 3. That's 3 out of around 40 groups!

With this said, I would like to address some problems which neither the Masquerade staff nor the MC can correct.

Bad Sound quality of skits: We don't record most of the skits people do.  Each individual group is responsible for their sound.  Bad sound is generally not the theater's fault either.  If we get bad quality sound files, there is only so much we can do.

I would like to point out that currently Fanime is the only con which I know of that allows you to change audio up to the morning of the event.  We even provide a dedicated sound person to help you create the audio for a skit and a music selection to choose background music from.  Good luck finding another con which has this much support for the performer.

"Bad" skits: This, for better or worse, is basically a talent show which we as staff do not pre screen. It's attendees like you who perform in them.  Bad skit happen, live with it or sign up and do a better skit.

Some of the lag between skits: Some of the lag between skits is designed to transition between the stage setup between skits.  Props have to be taken off and on the stage and most groups wanted that done in the dark.

MC can't pronounce names worth a damn: Sorry, I'm working on it...and hopefully getting better. I try to make up for that by being accessible to the performers before the show to make sure their MC narrations are what they want.  I think I'm the only MC who tries to talk to every group before the show to make sure my intro is correct.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

I would like to apologize if during some parts of the show I seem to be long winded.  There is a very thin line that separates entertaining and overdone and I try my best to be on the entertaining side.  I've already read criticism (got to love the in-tar-web-nets) about me taking too long between skits.  I try to gauge my duties by the audiences reactions.  I know some of audience wants basically to run through all the skits as quickly as possible, but I see the show as a whole stage production which needs some continuity: ME  :)

I hope this gives you some insight into my mind and some information of how these shows go.  Feel free to leave praise, constructive criticism, offerings of gold for the MC.  I would love to hear what you liked and disliked.

Your humble servant,
Darryl Hwang
aka "Derek Kwon" according to Ric Meyer.

PS: Don't worry Ric, I get my name wrong sometimes.

[heeroyuy135]

I have to say, you were great that night. Very wonderful job.

And of course, if I want to go to the Gay Bar...

[hellangel]

YOU WERE AWESOME!!!! <3!!!

[AnimeEmperor]

Long winded? Please, that was the best part. And the same from everyone i've talked to. Performances ranged from great to not so great, but you seemed to only have one setting : entertaining. You managed to keep all the energy in the room until the end.

[bahamutknightzero]

I have got to say you did an alright job as the MC this year. It was somewhat good that there were very few walk ons and also that most of the skits had their good moments. I probably think the only gripe I had was sound quality of some of the skits.

[arcadiapandora]

I have to say you did freaking awesome. And, since I was really the closest person to you (haha, front row, first seat from the right ;X) I got to say a lot more to you than most people did! :D I really hope to see you do next year's masq as well, you were great and you kept the show going even when there were no performers on stage.
Plus, you said my name right when I went up to do my opera, if that's any consolation to your mispronunciation. :D For such a simple name, it's pretty often mispronounced. Major kudos to you and all the masquerade staff, and big thanks to Marisa for letting me perform at Fanime too.

[darkknightcecil]

lol you were epic
WHERE THE RUM!?
ha ha
me and meh friends wnet BOW CHIKKA BOW WOW
when you were about to say something
ha ha

[Graduisc]

haha even from back stage while i was running errands or whatever you had me laughing from time to time. snot bad. sharing the same name is cool as well.

[x]

I thought you did a good job, yepyep.

[pockystix]

You were very amusing and I liked your jokes (even the crap ones ;P). Very sexy. Hmm... I think I remember you when I went to the PMX '05 masquerade show... right?

Good show, keep up the good work. :D

[DayDreamerNessa]

thanks so much to everyone who ran the masquerade, it was super awesome, and by far fanime is my favorite con to perform skits at =D

And also to the MC who was hilarious, i loved the lodoss commentary you had for our skit LOL!

Thank you all, and i can't wait to come back next year,it's so well run, and not stressful.

[slifertheskydragon]

eh. whoops.

All I heard was "derrick" over the mic... >.o;;

Awesome job thou- kept me laughing and awake. (unlike my friend next to me. he didn't get much sleep. XP)

o yeaz, I was Danny Phantom. XD

[Kandybar]

I have a great urge to yell "TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES" but I shall restrain myself.  :wink:

I thought you did a very good job.  It's hard to MC something like that, especially in the slow parts, but you did keep me entertained the entire show.

[heeroyuy135]

Does anyone know when the MC had the comment about the California Naruto cosplay idea?

[otakuya]

I loved the show overall!

One gripe (thats not the MC's or staff's fault). I just get annoyed at the random outbursts from random audience members at some cosplayers and skits. Like when a skit ends and the music dies, just one random outburst kinda ruins the skit. I feel bad for those performing on stage, those who work hard to have a great costume and rehearsing a skit for a long time. I would just like them to get more respect.

[Shinigami]

I loved the license plate Naruto joke, and the Assram thing. XD I was disappointed though, that no one seemed to get the Contra Code reference. Come on guys, it works in just about every Konami game now!

[darrylhw]

Thanks for the positive responses!

I've also been the MC for PMX for all their Masquerade so far. (just to answers a previous question).

Still amazed that people want to see me with my clothes off.  It's the suit and the mystique.  If I actually did take my clothes off, the audience would probably very quickly yell "Put it back ON!"

I have no idea when I did the California Naruto cosplay idea, but it has been a joke which has been dying to come out.

Random outbursts by the audience can get annoying.  Unforunately, we haven't figured out a mute button for really inappropriate comments.  As MC I try to actually make myself a target to spare the cosplay performers from such outburst, but there are always a couple in the crowd.

Assram is a legitimate spelling according to official sources...With that and Gay Bar, I really had to control myself.  I can't believe that the Contra Code is no longer a understandable joke.  Man we are getting old.  I say we because you got the joke. :)

Darryl "cosplaying as Derrek Kwon" Hwang

[Tris-chan]

You were very cool Darryl, and did a great job!

I only have one (somewhat small) gripe, and I'm not sure where to put that down, so...I suppose here's as good as anywhere.

I was in the pretear skit, and I was -HORRIFIED- when the press was taking flash photography while we were setting up. There was a reason we were doing it in the dark, and that's because we wanted the whole thing to be a nice surprise. Unfortunately, half the audience saw what we were doing because of all of the flashes  :?  Is there any way that there can be no flash during skit setup next year? I know at least a few other people that thought that doing so was like peeking ahead of time.

[Shinigami]

You were very cool Darryl, and did a great job!

I only have one (somewhat small) gripe, and I'm not sure where to put that down, so...I suppose here's as good as anywhere.

I was in the pretear skit, and I was -HORRIFIED- when the press was taking flash photography while we were setting up. There was a reason we were doing it in the dark, and that's because we wanted the whole thing to be a nice surprise. Unfortunately, half the audience saw what we were doing because of all of the flashes  :?  Is there any way that there can be no flash during skit setup next year? I know at least a few other people that thought that doing so was like peeking ahead of time.

Yeah, that pissed me off too and I wasn't even in that skit. Why couldn't people just wait thirty seconds until the lights went on to see what you were setting up?

[darrylhw]

Actually, I believe that wasn't the press.  That was mostly other audience members.  That was why we made a couple of extra "Please, don't use flash photograph unless you are press." Sorry about that. We can warn the press next year, but there is not much we can do about the audience unless we prevent them from bring cameras.