Suggestions for Fanime 2012

[Ali]

Overall, I had a very good Fanime. I participated in the masquerade, and fortunately knew the schedule beforehand, so that ate up my con and I didn't run into problems not having a handy pocket schedule. (Those were great, though... I did actually attempt to see some anime and panels the last time I had one of those.)

Having the masquerade on Sunday was kind of a pro and con for me. While I liked that there was more time for judging, it did feel like the entire con got eaten up by masq, what with judging and rehearsing and prepping. The big problem I ran into was that with the rehearsal at 1 and no real time between the end of rehearsal and the 5 o' clock call, there was no time to eat. And when we finally got out of masq and out of costume, almost everywhere was closed. (We did not anticipate this problem... most places are open much later on Saturday nights, which is when the masq has been every other year I've participated.) It would be nice if there were some water offered backstage to participants and possibly some actual food or food-like snacks. And some warning to get dinner beforehand or immediately after the show would have been really useful.

And the other thing, that I will keep coming back to year after year, is the stupid real name/fan name issue on the badges. I understand having the real name on there, but why it needs to be so huge and more prominent than the fan name, I just do not get. It's a bit of a privacy thing, and I have taken to simply hiding the badge in my purse or something because I don't want it visible or showing up in any photos.

[the otaku god]

Also, while the Video Rooms did have posted schedules, they weren't as easy to read as the white board schedules. Instead of posting a table schedule that lists all of the events for all of the Video Rooms, it might be better to post individualized schedules outside each of the Video Rooms that only list the events for the Room that they are next to

- we did the problem we kept running into was everyone kept stealing them. sorry we couldn't keep up. next year we try a better system.

[mdarkpoet]

I just have to say "thank you" to everyone who contributed and posted on my thread, hopefully this will help make Fanime 2012 awesome! :)

[cutiebunny]

Other than the lack of schedules that everyone else has already mentioned, the only fixable complaint I have is that it would have been nice to have had guest of honor related panels on Friday.  I went to the Opening Ceremony, so, there were several guests that were here on Friday.  But it would have been nice to have been able to attend a panel, or perhaps even have an autograph session or two, on Friday.  I felt that this year, everything had been jam-packed into Saturday and Sunday.  I know I, and about 15 other regular faces, spent all weekend in lines.  And while I realize that it was our choice to stand in line for autographs and that it is impossible to do *everything* at a convention, I would have liked to have had the opportunity to show support for the guest by attending one of their panels had they not conflicted with the autograph sessions.  Yes, I realize that it is easier for the guest to have a panel and then an autograph session, but one of your guests of honor really wanted to see the FLOW concert, but due to his autograph session (and the fact that he took the time to sketch for those in his line), he was unable to do so.

I think that that's one of the things that I like most about Fanime 2010 - you had the chance to do several different things.  Last year, in addition to standing in line for autographs, I was not only to attend a few panels, but I also got to enjoy the FLOW concert.  And while that might have been due to the amount of guests Fanime 2010 had that I was interested in seeing, I think it was also due to having a schedule that was spread out over the course of the four days.  If I remember correctly, FLOW's 2010 concert was on Friday, Ishiwatari/Mori had autograph sessions on Friday & Sunday and Yokota had his autograph sessions on Sunday and Monday.

I'm not saying that Fanime should focus on limiting their guest list - I was absolutely floored by your guest of honor list this year.  But, I think if Fanime is a four day convention, then it should take advantage of the four days and schedule guest of honor related panels/autograph sessions on all four days.


As for your guests of honor this year, I think I'm not alone in saying that you got an incredible list of names.  Actually, it wasn't so much the names or the projects that they worked on that impressed me most, but their willingness to go all out for their fans.  I attended autograph sessions where the guest was hungry, sweating in the sauna-like conditions of the autograph room and/or in the room despite wanting to see the concert.  Yet, instead of cutting their line at 10 or 15 people, they worked hours after their slotted session to make sure everyone went home with something nice.  That's dedication and I really appreciated that.  So, really, if it was between a 'primadonna' type guest of honor that people wanted and one that was not as popular but was willing to give their all to make sure their fans were happy, I'd go with the latter.

Also, big kudos to the autograph session staffers.  I remember hearing that one of them had sprained her ankle and yet was still standing up, working at the autograph session.  I don't know many people who would be willing to do that and not get paid for it.  And another big kudos for the charity auction staffers as well - it was a very smooth process this year.

I know that there will be complaints for whatever reason, but, as I mentioned last year, for the entry fee price, I definitely got more than my money's worth out of the convention.  Keep up the good work and I'll be back for Fanime 2012!

..Provided that the world doesn't end in September 2011... ^_^

[Katsumiyo]

Schedules
Echoing other complaints. Lack of schedules means I basically missed every guest of honor and half the events. Having a purely online schedule is a little insulting to those of us who don't have smartphones/iPhones/etc. Even the schedules posted for gatherings and video rooms were out of order, which made it difficult to understand when things were happening or find specific events I was looking for.

Registration Line
I agree with those voicing their opinion that there should be a separate line for one-day passes. It would make both lines move faster and be a little more bearable. It is kind of a shame that someone could waste two hours of their one-day pass time in line for the darn thing.

Staffing
Some of the behavior of the staff this year was unacceptable. Rules were enforced inconsistently, and some rovers and volunteers were incredibly rude. I didn't have a problem with anyone at the dealer's hall or artist's alley, like other people have mentioned, but my problems were experienced mostly during video viewing and line-forming. I understand that it can be frustrating to try and run a convention comprised largely of loud or unruly kids who ignore or defy authority, but staff members still need to speak with decency and respect to all convention attendees. Yelling when addressing one person is inappropriate, as is making physical contact to lead them somewhere while making the initial request. I was pushed by a staff member when asked to move against the wall despite being less than three feet from it--being asked is perfectly fine, being touched by a stranger who had not asked me to move before was not. Acquaintances of mine were also grabbed by the arm to be lead to the peacebonding station, which is definitely not okay. And I read on this forum that a staff member tried to confiscate the ID of a member of the U.S. military, which is--do I even need to say it?

Cosplay Restrictions
The ban on military costumes was both established far too late and completely preposterous. There is no real, concrete reason to ban military costumes. The police did not have a problem with them and the only reason I've heard is that a RCPD SWAT cosplayer was mistaken for real SWAT by the police. There was no violence or dangerous confrontation, and even if there had been, that would be far from a decent reason to ban all military/tactical cosplay. I've always considered the rule about no airsoft guns to be silly, but I obeyed it out of respect regardless. This, however, is just absurd, especially since the memo was published at 3:00 P.M. on Friday.

Improvements Over Past Years
I liked the little stall with lots of different kinds of food. The food was overpriced but it was nice to see a variety that was readily available, especially since they had water and fruit displayed rather than just a mass of greasy junk.
I don't know where the maid cafe was, but wherever it was, it was out of the way and I liked it. I've had problems getting to and from places if the maid cafe is in the middle; the line for it is always disorganized and it takes too long to seat people.
Rovers did a better job of keeping people moving through the hallways. It's good to encourage cosplayers and photographers to work along the sides rather than the middle of the hallway. Less of a hazard, more convenient, and fewer accidental shots of the sides of people's head that way.

Overall
Still a fun convention but definitely on the downhill. Events and guests weren't well-publicized and information was not readily available. Registration line was less efficient than it could be. Staff were far ruder and less competent than previous years and new cosplay rules are unfounded. People are saying Fanime is the next AX and that's not a good thing. By 2012, Fanime should focus on being the fun, fan-friendly con it used to be.

[lurker9000]

Staff members should not be touching you period. Should this happen, you should say excuse me this is inappropriate and note the time and date and head to con ops when you get a chance. Volunteers are probably less informed, but Rovers should know better.

[chifunii]

Some autograph feedback for tifachan101 here: http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/topic,16398.0.html

I didn't have any problems with the autographs at all, and the information about the session was relatively consistent (as opposed to the camera policy at Musicfest, which gave quite a few people headaches)!

I suppose was dressed cool-y enough to not have been bothered by the lack of A/C.

when it came to the actual autograph room itself.. how did you guys like it? setup was good? i tired to make sure to have it so we would only have a small group in at a time to make the environment more intimate.. but something like that sacrifices how many people we can push through... would you rather have a very large open space and just have everything done in there?

^As opposed to having the large open space, I LOVED THE SETUP. :-*

I don't have much doubts FLOW will be parting ways with Fanime anytime soon, so I'm sure there will be other opportunities in the future for folks who couldn't get their autograph this year.. to get it in the future.

I'm sensing something here...

[lurker9000]

I don't have much doubts FLOW will be parting ways with Fanime anytime soon, so I'm sure there will be other opportunities in the future for folks who couldn't get their autograph this year.. to get it in the future.

I'm sensing something here...

No.

The guy you are quoting has nothing to do with anything related to Musicfest except doing a great job w/ Autographs and is making hopeful assumptions.

[Sapphire]

I was really looking forward to seeing Yuyu Matsushita this year, and I did get his autograph so I was very happy. I did get a picture of him, thanks to the staff member at the wait line inside the room. But it was a really rushed picture so it wasn't that great. At least it wasn't blurry but Yuyu's eyes don't look good in the picture which is a bit disappointing. I did like the set up of only allowing so many people into a room at a time. It was quiet so you could hear yourself think and I need all my brainpower when meeting with someone like Yuyu so I don't do something stupid in my haze of happiness while meeting him.

So, I was thinking, perhaps in order to let people have a picture with a guest such as Yuyu but still keep things moving, is get a professional photographer there to take people's pictures with him. I can understand if it's just a picture at the table of him signing, or maybe looking up with a smile, but no hugging since I can imagine why they'd be pretty strict about it. The photographer can just be there at one end of the table, say "smile", take a quick, good quality picture, you get the autograph and then it's next person. To me, it seems it could work.

Though I suppose the money for the photographer would be an issue. So perhaps to get some money for/from that is to have a small fee to get a printed out picture of yours.
And how about we also get that picture online? There might be issues with some people not wanting their picture up on the internet where everyone can see though.
So perhaps one thing the con-goer must do in the picture is hold their badge up so it is in the picture. That'll prove who they are, and then when they go to receive their picture, that's how the staff will know which picture to bring up (because some people might've been in cosplay while getting the autograph like I was). If they don't hold up the badge so it is readable, well, then too bad I guess.

Perhaps so then these pictures aren't freely floating on the internet, there could be a way to get it e-mailed to you. Maybe by request of e-mailing them? Or a place in the con where you can get the picture. Of course, you must provide proof of who you are and all that jazz.

So that's my idea. Any flaws you see? Problems? Is there anything that could actually make this work or has this already been done and it failed? I'd like to know please. :3

I've read here about some staffers that heckled some people, but whenever I asked a staff member about something, they were really nice. Especially when I became separated from my friends who didn't tell me where in the anime viewing room they'd be. And I don't have a cell phone so I couldn't contact them. They were so very helpful in trying to look for them (since I didn't bring my ID card with my to check to see if they were in the 18+ viewing room) and I was able to use on of their phones to text them. They waited with me for a reply to the text I sent my friend. I hope the staff is always like that for next year. ^_^

[PyronIkari]

Improvements Over Past Years
I don't know where the maid cafe was, but wherever it was, it was out of the way and I liked it. I've had problems getting to and from places if the maid cafe is in the middle; the line for it is always disorganized and it takes too long to seat people.

The Maid Cafe was in the same place it has been for the past three years. It's located at the end of the concourse on the Hilton side. I don't know what you mean by disorganized line though, can you explain this? The line has always wrapped from the entrance of the cafe around and alongside the wall of the escalator/stairs.

[chifunii]

^^^In that case, okay.

^^I totally missed my photo op with Yuya, by mere seconds really, but I didn't even try to take pictures in the autograph line. We're always being shuffled along, so it's difficult to 1) think 2) stop moving 3) wait for Yuya to stop moving and take a picture. And while the professional photographer seems like a fine and dandy idea, I'm not sure how well that'd sit with the guests and their management...It's always up to them to make the rules, if I recall correctly...

[PickleBunny]

So, I was thinking, perhaps in order to let people have a picture with a guest such as Yuyu but still keep things moving, is get a professional photographer there to take people's pictures with him. I can understand if it's just a picture at the table of him signing, or maybe looking up with a smile, but no hugging since I can imagine why they'd be pretty strict about it. The photographer can just be there at one end of the table, say "smile", take a quick, good quality picture, you get the autograph and then it's next person. To me, it seems it could work.

The reason pictures were only allowed behind the yellow line is because of the time it would take if people were trying to take pictures right in front of him.  There were nearly 400 people in line during each one-hour autograph session and he was just able to get to everyone who was in line.  Even thought it doesn't seem like a lot of time to pose for a quick picture, it would really add up with so many people.  That would probably end up in a lot of people not being able to get his autograph at all.  Furthermore, a professional photographer would want to take his/her time in order to get decent pictures so I don't think that it's realistic to think that it would be quick.  The idea of having a professional photographer at the autograph session is just not practical.

[GoodAsianDriver]

A few years ago I made a comment about the DJs and music selection.  Basically my comment was, hey, this is an anime convention, so maybe we could have more anime themed music?

The response at the time was that there isn't much anime themed music appropriate for a con.  At the time that might have been true.

Now there's Club MOGRA in Japan -- http://club-mogra.jp/  which has long sets of anime and anime culture club music.  Every week.

No offence to the DJs! They were great and the raves were piles of fun. It's just, wouldn't it be more fun if the songs (a much higher % of them) were significant to our subculture?

Yeah... I played some anime soundtracks-- exit trance stuff, evangelion, panty stocking, over 9000 meme kinds of songs. It went over extremely well if you were there at 12:30 am Sunday/Monday. I would have played more at my other sets, but with only 5 people in the room for the other sets, I played whatever those 5 people wanted.

[PLUMPKIN]

/offtopic You wouldn't happen to be the same Plumpkin who went to Cal around 2005-2009, would you?

Maybe :-D.  Can you guys use a pumpkin on staff?

[ewu]

Maybe :-D.  Can you guys use a pumpkin on staff?

pls stay on topic...and we can always use more staff  ;D

[Mayhem]

the only con i know that's dying (*cough*.. died..) is AX..  ::)

I may get to find this out. I Missed 2008 and 2010, 2009 was lame. I have Been hitting AX since 2000 myself, I covered AX as Press in 09 and some staffers had it in for us (Press). I get to Cover AX as press this year and possibly AM^2 so I will get to compare all the big Cons this year.

What I found lacking this year was the every changing, retroactive, Nazi Gestapo, rules on Coplay costumes and Prop weapons for peace bonding. I covered that in my earlier rant and It will be both in my con review (toned down) but will also go into the official rant (no mercy). This behavior makes it very difficult for a cosplayer to feel comfortable or confident about cosplaying, I know I will never cosplay at Fanime again as you have no idea weather you will really get to wear your costume or you just wasted allot of time and money because some one got a wild hair up their derriere. I'm not even sure I will be returning to Fanime after this year.

I think the Fanime leadership needs to learn to stand up to the City of San Jose, I honestly think they need us far more then we need them so sometimes you gotta Just say No!

"On the Floor" Staff was uninformed, Communications as always ... sucks. You couldn't talk in con ops without getting shushed by someone and the personnel working the radios had a hard time hearing anything. They probably should have put the radios in the next room. Information trickles down from the top tier leadership to the folks on the ground like a bad economic plan. Some of the Volunteers were a little on the rude side.

What I find funny is Fanime staffers are some the most screwed over staff I have ever seen. The only thing they get for free is their badge. They really don't get their hotel room at a reduced rate as all Fanime does is find them roommates and they split the full price, If one of the roommates skimps out or don't show the others pick up their share ... Most payed more for their hotel then I did mine. Staffers get a T-Shirt but they have to pay 10 bucks for. Even AX gives their staffers more. Some staffers work up to 6 hours per day for 4 days, that's $192 bucks worth of work at Minimum Wage for a $65 badge I'm surprised some one hasn't gotten sued yet. Many cons offer at least a free hot and cot - usually housing and a single meal plus some other perks.

The new Coplay hang out seemed to be a huge success and I think it needs to be expanded on. However this is going to require the cooperation of cosplayers staff and Fanime leadership and I don't really see that happening especially when the leadership drops the ball like they did with costume and prop rules.

Fanime was running way behind schedule. They lost the big ball room to a wedding. The Con schedules got pooched, nothing seemed to open on time like registration and housing.

Saturday and Sunday seemed very crowded, Fanime may want to consider a new venue like Moscone center, expanding into the Huge south hall, or cap registration and or raise rates. as it stands now we have to start making choices as to which events we want to attend more so then ever before. It was no mistake the B&W ball took place the same time the Masquerade ball did.

Fanime Leadership really needs to get into better planning and planning far sooner; we have 12 months, use them. Allot of conventions start planning for next year's Con last year. Wolfgang from what I hear will be Chairing Fanime 2012, I wish him the best of luck.

These are the low points of the con, this is what led me to feel let down, the ever changing musical cosplay costume policy was what really chapped my Arse this year, and practically ruined it for me. However there were some High points and positive notes to this convention which I will not go into here. They say this can be a learning experience and one should learn from their mistakes Hopefully Fanime can do this before they become AX.

[Jelly Soup]

Midnight Madness: This is was my biggest gripe of the whole con! I was planning and hoping that I would get to see True Naruto Style the movie but instead we had a two hour video screening of fake trailers and whats worst is there was no schedule on what was going to be playing! I also complained about this last year when nobody told us that the Berserk parody was three hours long and whats worst was that it was already available on youtube where as True Naruto Style is not played anywhere but at cons! I know the event lasts all night long but my point is that there are people who have no plans on actually staying up all night especially if they have plans early the next day! Please improve this by actually showing showtimes schedules for midnight madness in advance.

I'm going to interject here as I have some slight insight on this. This was the last year for the guy that puts together Midnight Madness, who goes by the name Jerry C. He's a close friend who I visit and work with often. Honestly, he thought a great way to end it all would be with a compilation of the best of the previous years Midnight Madness showings. I'm not sure as to why TNS wasn't shown (might have been too long, might have been a favoring for the shorter trailers or he may just have never shown it at MM). However, TNS is on Youtube if you'd still like to see it.

[Shi_Musouka]

I didn't notice this thread until a link was posted. lol. Thank you.

Schedules: For me personally, it was frustrating not having a schedule to access, but I was fortunate enough to bring a laptop to see it online and look at the ones at the info desks.

Something that would help attendees be more prepared should a printing snafu happen is to make a note to attendees on the website(where schedules will be at) that schedules are not guaranteed to be printed out at con so that the people(especially someone's first FanimeCon) will be able to prepare in the worst case scenario by printing one from home, if necessary. If you guys wanted to go green and encourage other people to print them out, it really helps to make a note of that too on the website section where the schedules are/will be posted. Specifics are your friends. Congoers are not mindreaders.

Mobile apps were nice. Keep it up! Sadly, I don't own a smartphone or internet access on my phone so it did me no help, but it did help some of my friends who did have access to the app.


MusicFest: I have say, I'm really proud to see the staff's capability of bringing in huge-name guests to the con. I remember back when we struggled with this and I'm really proud to see MusicFest improve on their PR. On the other hand, I was very disappointed with this year's MusicFest, simply because of how the vibe has changed over the years. I remember back when Fanime brought in lower-profile musicians with great beats and had a much friendlier photo/video policy. I understand where the no photo/video policy is coming from and with the guests and managers that accompany them, it makes sense why it's there. I'm not saying our musician guests this year weren't talented. By all means, they are skilled at their craft. They just don't have the same personalized vibe that really defined what MusicFest was all about. I remember we would enjoy the musicians perform, then during breaks go to the tables where they are selling CDs, have autographs and photos with the bands, then go back and keep watching. there was blurb about how there was a stronger emphasis towards music than there was towards the anime part. I would like to see a mixture of both low-profile and high-profile guests instead of only high-profile guests from major record labels. It may not be what all the fans want, but I feel like it's the diversity of the artists that made MusicFest what it was.

I noticed the FLOW concert hit capacity. If, for some reason the capacity to accommodate fans is becoming a problem, I'd recommend maybe looking into bringing back the ticketing system, kind of like what we did with An Cafe.


Staff-wise, I made a semi-rant in an older thread about staff taking a de-stresser during their shifts because I can tell that with a con this big with staff numbers that are not even 1/15th of the con size, it's a lot easier to get overworked and it's really important to function with a clear, unimpaired mind because that's when you make the best choices on the job. Maybe it sounds silly and unnecessary, but it is a lot easier to be nicer to people when you're not worrying about a thousand other things and letting certain situations get to you. It also seems that a lot of the incidents I've been reading about are all either customer service snafus or case-by-case basis type of things. Realistically, I feel as though these are the hardest situations to train anybody in simply because what may be common sense to us will not be common sense to them and not everyone coming in to staff have the same people skills or work experience in customer service environments as others will. Please keep in mind that it's not always what you say that will offend someone, but how you say it. This may be why some people have much worse experiences with staff than others will.

Overall, I can't really say for sure whether this was an orderly Fanime or not, as I didn't really notice anything obvious out of the blue. It was pretty much just a typical Fanime with larger crowds. I feel as though the negatives can sometimes overshadow the positives of the convention. As a con, you guys should feel proud that we went from maxing out hotel space from the four neighboring hotels all the way to the Fairmont and beyond. Attendance has skyrocketed over the last couple of years and as of 2009(via animecons.com), we rank as one of the top 10 North American conventions with the highest attendance rates. You even have guests that keep coming back year after year after year simply because they love Fanime. Don't feel like you've failed as a con simply because of some negative feedback. You win some and you lose some.

Once again, these opinions are of my own and do not reflect those of FanimeCon or any of it's staff members.

[MikeTSA]

1) It would be awesome if you guys could allow people to bring their own games/consoles to the eGaming setup for free play.
2) Please move the panels into the actual con center and out of the Marriott.
3) Find a solution to the schedule mishap both on-site and online. Maybe prominently and clearly posting the schedule on the home page in more than just the "news" column or buried deep within the navigation.

[Seiyuu]

Besides the obvious (schedules, etc.), I thought it was a little disturbing that there was a stall in the Dealers Hall selling Nazi insignia and replicas of Hitler's jacket as well as having a Cosplay Deviants booth in the wide open.
I feel like there should have been a tighter leash on what was available at the Dealers Hall.

The entrance/exit-only doors to the AA and Dealers Hall was kind of annoying, especially if you were coming from one end (e.g. Marriott) and had to walk all the way to the other end (Hilton end) just to get in, but I understand it's to speed up traffic flow. Maybe have one side of the door be entering and one side be leaving since there were two people at each door checking badges? I mean, it's a pretty wide door IMO.