Fanime 2009 Convention Feedback

[darkknightcecil]

Hey guys this is the official FanimeCon 2009 Feedback Thread!~@
How was Con? did you guys enjoy it? post what was good about the con and what was bad about the con!.
And all whatever that is considered as Feedback!
We need all the feedback we can get for improvements on Next Year
Thanks!
;D
also can Moderator or and Administrator Sticky This?
One more thing uhh , if this is in the wrong section
move this please!
For me
The Pros:
mostly everything was great!
most of the staff were really nice this yeaR!
ahah
The cons:
umm nothing at all for me?
haah cuz i was working at e-gaming most of the time.

[chifunii]

Pros:
Lots of different things to try out.
Staffers did really well with getting badges to people quickly.
TWITTER FTW. Soooo useful. Please continue using it!!!

Cons:
It could be just on Monday, but the guy at the registration line didn't know where the pre-reg for 2010 was, even though it was right next to him...Although it didn't detract from the total experience of Fanime. :)
The Fanimaids didn't socialize with everyone...I can see how they're shy (but it's already Sunday when I went...I would predict them to be a little more outgoing)...but the performance was quiet... m(_ _)m But the bits I saw were really cute. :)

[Xepherian]

This year was better than last year, everything in e-gaming got all fxxked up and disorganized.
At least the sense of organization was better, but somebody kept missing up my Amish Check In/Out System. Next year I'll make a better one.

Dealer's room was kinda lame, just bought the same thing I did last year.. goggles.. pocky.. that's it.
It's like the Dealer's room NEVER changes. Although Lokisa just got added in last year, I can already feel the repetivity of their sales.

Artist Alley was where it was at though.  8)

[salyu]

this year has lacked much much more in comparison to all other years. there was nothing new or special that really caught my interest. I thought the new panel policies to be a bit more frustrating than organised and helpful. although i am glad panel descriptions were included in the booklet this year, which really helped me pick out what panels to go to, rather than wander in blindly, sit down, and then leave if i didnt like it.

the dealers room was pitiful this year- nothing at all caught my interest, and as usual, dealers let their prices run too high, and i wasnt able to buy a thing, unless it was something small. many dealers claimed that their goods were on "sale" at 30% off, but that 30% off was the same price as if i got it at a different store !

the arcade prices were ridiculous. sf 3rd strike was 50 cents a game, and that game is 10 years old !

the screening rooms had a really really poor selection of videos and anime this year. even the hentai screening rooms were boring and dated. hentai amvs with horrible music? UGUHhgh, never again.

i was staff this year, and another thing that really irritated me was the lack of organisation. i wasn't able to get my job done in proper order, and really do my best. everything was behind schedule (since i didnt even get a schedule for my duties til the middle of the second day) and thus, i ended up scurrying around and showing up late to many things .

uhhhhh hopefully next year will improve ! ???

[chifunii]

Artist Alley was where it was at though.  8)

Trudat. Lots of stuff was REALLY impressive.

As for Dealer's Hall...I bought a Gloomy pencil pouch. xD

[heeroyuy135]

Nothing really caught my eye at the Dealers Room this year, although that was offset by the awesome merchandise that was auctioned off at the Charity Auction. I came away with the 15th Anniversary Artbook with the exclusive sketches (I was the only one who actually put a bid on it).

I would agree with the anime selection, although then again I didn't really attend the anime rooms since there was so much else that caught my attention. Same goes with the panels and dances.

Also, Twitter yes!

More feedback to come

[LordKefka]

Oh ah, I remember talking to you in front of the tables about the Gurren Lagann autographed poster...I wonder who won that..~_~;

[Tez Ryu]

I REALLY dislike how our names are in bright white, large and on the top of the passes. Then our fan names were tiny and blue at the bottom? Does everyone really need to know your name? A bit of privacy would have been nice...

I got harassed a bit much (especially by this one really drunk guy) and I'd hate to think that anyone got away with my name...:/

[idontknow]

I REALLY dislike how our names are in bright white, large and on the top of the passes. Then our fan names were tiny and blue at the bottom? Does everyone really need to know your name? A bit of privacy would have been nice...

I got harassed a bit much (especially by this one really drunk guy) and I'd hate to think that anyone got away with my name...:/

i agree with the fan/real name on the badge thing. i mean, WHY even put a fan name if no one will notice it?? if you compare between the early and pre registration people, the fan name is more noticable on the early registration.

swap meet was good. although i would like to suggest someone to "enforce" spots. there was a big empty spot behind me so it would be easy just for someone to bring stuff, set it down, and start selling without letting fanimecon staff know.

not really a big deal but i think there should be more people "guarding" the artist alley. i left my artist alley booth early and left most of my stuff under the table. when i came back to get them there were 3 girls sitting at my table. i wasn't even at the end of the row and artist alley was still open. i really didn't mind them sitting there and if they stole something (they didn't, btw) i would of course blame myself for leaving it there. but it kind of showed me that the "only artists and/or their peers are allowed behind the table" policy isn't enforced.

at the stage zero today i thought one of the hosts wasn't really a "good" host. i'm sorry if you read this but this is what i think (feel free to bash me). i won't specifically say who but she kind of took things to the center and didn't really seem considerate about the people playing "jan ken pon". she wanted to use the players to demonstrate an example when they clearly didnt know how to play. when the other host said "no we should demonstrate it for them" she simply said "but it's funnier this way" or something like that. this is just one of the examples.

music selection at fanime ball. i already stated it in another post :P

i LOVE that there were so many kids and families this year. so many cute kid cosplays! (and no i'm not a pedo. haha)

so in general there were cons but they were for more "specific" things. i thought this fanimecon was a success :D

[evil kimba]

I REALLY dislike how our names are in bright white, large and on the top of the passes. Then our fan names were tiny and blue at the bottom? Does everyone really need to know your name? A bit of privacy would have been nice...

I got harassed a bit much (especially by this one really drunk guy) and I'd hate to think that anyone got away with my name...:/

I pretty much joined to post this exact same issue. It would have made more sense if the real name/fan name position and colour were switched. I kept my badge hidden most of the time because it made me really uncomfortable how visible my real name was.

[ciNNo]

I would've appreciated an announcement on when preregistration for 2010 will end, especially in the artist alley. I cant exactly leave my table whenever I want to... And by the time I could, it was too late.

[Kimiko]

Yeah and as a mother with kids, do strangers REALLY need to know my under 12 year old daughters' full names? No thanks. At the very least, fix it for the minors.

Swap meet ran smoothly, but wow what a big different Friday was to Thursday. We were SO jammed together on Friday that there was no room to sit down or keep our stuff. I think a little space in between the spaces that are back to back would be nice to sit or leave our empty containers.

And keep doing the pocket schedules. LOVED them! Came in very handy!

[Mew]

One of the best FanimeCons to date, imo.
The pocket schedule was a godsend. Sooooooo much easier than carrying around the pamphlet or a large piece of paper.

I can only speak based on what I experienced at the con, but I thought everything was really organized. I agree that dealers room was pretty meh. The only thing I "bought" was a Yaoi-Con 2009 registration.

Had tons of fun with Momoi and crew. GR perks are awesome. I'd definitely like to see her come back. Unfortunately I missed all but the final 5 or so minutes of her concert since I was at the Yamaga Party, but from what I saw, everyone was really enjoying themselves. Momoi seems to really enjoy herself and that meant a lot. She's soooooooo otaku, it's hilarious. (While escorting her to the room she ran outside after Tales of the Abyss cosplayers.)

Cons... I'm trying to think of any but nothing comes immediately to mind 'cept the dealers room.

[Tsu]

Let's see...

I'm in agreement on the badges.  I'd prefer the fan name to be bigger, the real name to be smaller.  I always kept my badge in a pocket or bag, and just took it out to get in to rooms, though I realize this is technically against policy.  (Of course, I would've taken it out if anyone wanted to see it.)  But the name deal was part of that.

All I can say is AWESOME!! to getting ahold of Sheva's actress.  Wonderful surprise.  Also, thanks to the con (or Sokodei themselves, whichever) for listening to the fan whinings of no Fanboy Bebop.  Getting to see that back to back with Nescaflowne was a kick.  And yes, it's still hilarious.

The pocket guide is great.  Should've shown up years ago, lol, but it's wonderful now that we've got it. 

On to the negatives...

Can something be done about the crowd around Stage Zero? I realize it's nigh impossible considering it draws such a huge crowd from time to time and there aren't enough seats, but bloody hell, getting around on the concourse when all the seats are full and there's 50 more people standing behind the chairs is stupidly hard.  Con management is adamant about throwing us out of a room or doorway if we're a so-called fire hazard, maybe something similar could be done in this situation?

I personally wish the food vendor information had been a bit more specific.  I don't know if the main vendor (directly to the left of stage zero) usually closed at night, but from the way the pocket guide was phrased, it sounded like all the vendors + Starbucks would be open all morning and night. At least one night that vendor in particular just packed up and left.  I wasn't out on the concourse nightly, so I don't know if they did everyday, but I doubt it, since they were there until at least 4 am and I never saw them *not* there, even on Monday.  It'll just simplify things a little, so you can plan your food detail more easily.  Maybe just a table with their hours, idk.

I'll post more if I remember anything else. I'm still in a post-con stupor.

[PyronIkari]

Cons:
It could be just on Monday, but the guy at the registration line didn't know where the pre-reg for 2010 was, even though it was right next to him...Although it didn't detract from the total experience of Fanime. :)
The Fanimaids didn't socialize with everyone...I can see how they're shy (but it's already Sunday when I went...I would predict them to be a little more outgoing)...but the performance was quiet... m(_ _)m But the bits I saw were really cute. :)

I can answer this one. Sunday there was a scheduling conflict and a few of the schedules were misinformed within the cafe. So for a while we had almost every single maid in the cafe there, and at other times we were really short handed. Also there was a small mis-communication at times when maid shifts were changing. A few maids forgot to mention that they had Masters/Ladies waiting at a table they had just seated and that their shift was done/they were going to take a break, so no other maid took up the table as there own. For the most part this only happened I believe two times, and I apologize if you were one of those two(or more that I just didn't hear about).

Sunday was extremely hectic in other ways, as two of our maids were feeling ill, as well as our head maid was losing her voice(which is a huge deal since she was supposed to MC for musicfest) so I had to send 3 people to finish early as I didn't want to risk their health.

So once more, I apologize for this, and I have thought about this and will discuss with the head maid and her 2nd an efficient way to prevent this in the future.

[FanFicGuru]

First of all, thank you for the pocket guide. It is probably the greatest thing to come out of this convention. It was handy, very readable and overall a vast improvement to the daily newsletters and such. Bravo there.

Secondly, registration seemed to go very smoothly this year. However, I will request yet again that you bring group registration back. We'll have plenty of time to talk about it between now and then but I think that bringing back group reg would be great and simplify badge pick-up for groups significantly.

Third, thanks for all the AMV events. I know you had the top 100 last year too but I had a lot of fun going through those again, as well as AMV.org's best of 2009 and the AMV competition this year (which was pretty entertaining). If I could make a suggestion though, perhaps combine the 100-50 and the 49-1 into 2 large blocks instead of 4 2 hour segments? I understand it's to better spread it out over the weekend but showing on Saturday and Sunday so that the most people have access to it might be better then dragging it over the whole weekend, especially the top 25 because a lot of people usually take off by Monday afternoon. Also for next year's Fanime Music Video Competition could we have a couple new categories? I'm thinking "Trailers" and "Classics". Trailers is pretty self-explanatory, people take the audio from a movie trailer and make video with it. as for the Classics, you could screen some past Fanime Music Video entries or winners to see what the audience thinks and which videos still stand the test of time.

As far as the bad, I don't think it's necessarily Fanime's fault, but I just wasn't that into it this year. I had trouble finding programming that really jumped out at me. I enjoyed the Gurren-Hen movie a lot, but other then that all I really watched in the video rooms were AMV's. Then again, this year was pretty slow for new anime, not many great series came out this last year.

Here's hoping next year there's a better lineup of anime.

[mDuo13]

The Good:
-Badge handout went smoothly and quickly on Thursday.
-Restricted Rock Paper Scissors was excellent (and I won, too!)
-Momoi Halko was a great guest - extremely friendly, involved, and excited. She also turned out to be a very good performer, doing probably a better live performance of God Knows than Aya Hirano herself (who often seems to miss notes in her live performances)
-The classic anime viewing room had a cool selection of thing sthat you don't normally see at a con, especially including things that are actually harder to get ahold of than the newest fansubs.
-The mini-pamphlet schedule was really handy and convenient. Please bring back this format for next year!
-The Artist Alley was lively and busy. Unfortunately I didn't get enough time to browse it thoroughly, but I saw a fair amount of good stuff there.
-The Charity Wii is getting really epic. I wish I could've bought it, but I simply did not have $600 to work with. I'll have to remember to save up for next year.
-Forum Badges, as usual, came out pretty nice, although the lower print resolution this year was a little disappointing.
-Console gaming was pretty solid with all-around selection. It could've used more machines, but that's always the case and it's understandable as fans have to provide their equipment to the entire con at their own risk.
-The Visual Novels panel was surprisingly well-informed. The panelist supposedly running it didn't have a lot of informative and useful things to say, but he had the good sense to bring along a friend who knew his stuff. The audience, too, seemed surprisingly knowledgeable.
-AMVs at closing ceremonies again! I love this tradition, although next year the people in charge should make sure the sound and picture are working properly in advance.

The Meh:
-This year's AMV contest was pretty weak outside the action section, especially for drama. People really need to cut back on the Makoto Shinkai/Various stuff. I'd have put the Kodomo no Omocha video in that category, actually, and I'd've voted for it there, too.
-There wasn't a whole lot that appealed to me in the dealer's room. I did manage to find a couple things I wanted, but a large proportion of the things available were just overpriced.
-Similar for the swap meet. Kudos to the girl who sold me all 10 volumes of her Moon Phase manga for $25, but shame on the person trying to sell .hack//INFECTION for $35. I saw that game at GameStop for $12 not even two weeks ago.
-Stage Zero was once again largely filled with uninteresting and embarrassing programming. Come on, the Meme Game ("Replace a word in a song title with 'Yaoi' to make it funnier!") is just... dumb. Though, it was neat to see it going basically all night.
-Tabletop Gaming's selection of board games was initially very slim. It did, however, grow to quite respectable size later.
-Speaking of Tabletop, the number of tables available was thankfully large, but often still full. I think it could do with even more next year.
-Arcade prices were inflated as per usual. $.75 for one play on BlazBlue? Sad, especially when Aksys was offering free play on the console version in the dealer room.
-Badge checking seemed rather lax. I put my Forum Badge on the same clip over my actual badge, and I was only questioned on it like 3 times out of the, like, 50 that I went in and out of rooms.
-The Gurren-Hen movie was more rehash than I thought it would be. It felt like rewatching the series, except they gave us a montage instead of some full episodes. They even reused almost all the animation from the series.
-The Rock Band tournament was freestyle-only? How about an actual point-based tournament of skill?
-Makenai needs a new sound tech who knows how to turn up the right instruments at the right time. Also, their singers need to learn some mic technique, or better yet, how to sing. When a fan from the audience is better than you, there's something wrong.
-Guest Selection. If last year's Fanime felt a bit like GAINAX-con, this year's was Resident Evil-con. Unfortunately, RE has never really been my thing, so a good number of the guests involved meant nothing to me.

Things I (Regretfully) Missed:
-Asian Film. Just never managed to find an opportunity to check out any of the movies.
-The Dojo. The panels that seemed most interesting to me always ended up in a scheduling conflict with other stuff I was doing.
-Cowboy Bebop: The Song Remains the Same. For the second year in a row, I meant to go check it out but didn't manage to make it there in time.
-Yamaga-san Guest Party. Again, the time and admissions information for this event were kept so under-wraps that I was unable to go even though I wanted to.
-Maid Cafe. It was fun in previous years, but the lines were a little long this year and I was trying to be frugal with my lunch spending, so I missed out.
-Black and White Ball. Between Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors and the Momoi concert, I couldn't make it.

Overall it was one of the smoothest Fanime cons I have yet seen. Staff generally seemed to have their stuff together and I didn't witness any major problems. If anything, the largest problem with the con is that, having been to so many, I'm a little blase about the whole thing and didn't bring my full enthusiasm to every minute. If that's all I have to complain about, then I guess you guys are doing something right.

P.S. I agree about real name/fan name sizing and text color. Of course, for finding badges during pre-reg handout, it makes sense for the real name to be larger and more visible, but fan names this year were almost illegible. Maybe just make both of them larger and easily visible.

[sweetrinoa]

All in all the con was great.  I liked the pocket guides, they were so much easier to carry around then in previous years.  As for the viewing rooms there were some good anime playing but there was nothing that made me really excitied to see.  I would have to agree though about the names on badges, i would like people to see my fan name not my real name.  

[Liquid]

Can something be done about the crowd around Stage Zero? I realize it's nigh impossible considering it draws such a huge crowd from time to time and there aren't enough seats, but bloody hell, getting around on the concourse when all the seats are full and there's 50 more people standing behind the chairs is stupidly hard.  Con management is adamant about throwing us out of a room or doorway if we're a so-called fire hazard, maybe something similar could be done in this situation?

Maybe I can try to bring up Rovers coordinating something with Stage Zero so that we are called out when they noticed large crowds starting to form and blocking foot traffic. However, whenever a large crowd was seen by Rovers we sent staff to help clear paths for foot traffic.

[BeelzieNao]

I would have to agree with everyone about the badge thing. I would prefer my "nickname" to be larger instead of my actual name. Especially with weird stalker people lurking about... (from own personal experience)

Anime BS Panel - was AWESOME, but should have been longer. We didn't really start having great arguments and ranting until about 30-45 minuets into the actual panel.

Stage Zero - Same problem in 08 as what happened in 09 - Traffic jam when people are trying to get through that way. Granted it's called "Stage Zero" but on a more proficient level, it should change... either how it's placed or be put into a larger location so that way people have more seating and there wont be any kind of traffic jam during certain hours of the convention.

Dealer's Room - It was good, but not THAT good. A lot of the vendor's in there were price gouging their items, and there wasn't much of a variety.

Artist Alley - SO much better than last year, but one thing that is discouraging me is, there's a lot of people selling "fan" work from other anime's. Granted it's interesting and beautiful art work, but on a personal scale I would rather see more unique art, not a billion and one copies from anime's and manga I've already seen.

Momoi - was so cute and a really great guest, If only there was more artists (Film, Music, Manga, Anime, Voice Acting, ect, ect.) from Japan that would come over.

Pocket Schedule - Great idea. It came in handy on SOOO many occasions.

In general this year was really good. It would have been more of a blast if I didn't get a damn cold and had to leave Saturday... but the time I spent was awesome.