Charles Dunbar's Miyazaki and Shinigami panels were fantastic. Fist bumped with Mr. T Had lunch with a group of twitter friends Roomful of people with DSs singing the Pokemon theme Interviewed Spike Spencer (Shinji's english VA), Charlene Ingram and Adam Sheehan from Funimation, and Rym. Among others.
Lack of time for games was disappointing, also wished I stayed at the Sheraton instead of 15 minutes away so I could have gone up and rested for the late night Firday panels. ($200 versus Free) But, overall, it was a fantastic convention. It is going to be hard to pick between that and PAX for next year.
The con was a lot of fun. I didn't get to go to all of the panels I wanted to for various reasons, but the ones I went to were high quality. This dealer's room felt the most dead to me though of all the Anime Bostons(the only anime con I've been to so far) I've attended. There was almost nothing except the Gurren Lagann super deal that caught my eye. I did get a Jenova's Witness shirt as well, but once again getting to hang with the Crew was the highlight of the thing. I'd like to offer a special thank you to everyone on Sunday who gave the wrestling match I put on my laptop a chance even though it wasn't your thing and there was some mocking. Some of the stuff does look really bizzare to a newcomer, I will admit. You all gave it a chance though, which is so much more than I can say about most of the people around me, so I really appreciate that.
I think I get why wrestling fans like wrestling now. It's the same reason I like Mecha anime: you like it because it's inherently ridiculous, and you love seeing how they're going to top themselves this week.
Biggest surprise to me at Anime Boston was the lack of crowds at the MC Frontalot show. I'm guessing there were about 200 people there. The people I talked to theorized that Frontalot just doesn't have a following in the anime fandom world, just gaming. But I'm not sure that argument holds, given the overlap between those groups (hence tons of video gaming cosplay, Portal references everywhere, etc). Probably the whole Easter Sunday afternoon thing didn't help. But geez, people. AB11, Y U NO love for MC Frontalot?
Also I think this AB I finally came to terms with the fact that I can't say I'm not a gamer. I'm not as hardcore as most, but I've played far too many hours of Ticket to Ride and Settlers to pretend otherwise. And then spending 4-5 hours playing games this weekend (versus zero hours in screening rooms) was the nail in that coffin.
Frontalot didn't have a crowd largely because of timing. Concert late on Sunday means not many people left at the con. Also, he wasn't in main events, but the Sheraton.
Just like to say thanks to the folks who came out to the Family That Geeks Together & Anime and the Experience of War panels. If you attended and have any feedback I'd love to hear it.
I think I get why wrestling fans like wrestling now. It's the same reason I like Mecha anime: you like it because it's inherently ridiculous, and you love seeing how they're going to top themselves this week.
I think I'm part of a weird subset of wrestling fans, so I can't speak for others, but I watch wrestling to see a really well executed match with moves done crisply and properly, that ideally tells a story. In the bit of the match I showed, you saw both Danielson(in the maroon trunks) and Storm(in the red and white tights) apply arm locks. If one of them had had difficulty getting out of the hold and had their arm "damaged" by continuous holds and strikes to it, then the story would become something like "Oh man, Danielson has one arm, can he fight off the veteran technician? Something like that.
I think I'm part of a weird subset of wrestling fans, so I can't speak for others, but I watch wrestling to see a really well executed match with moves done crisply and properly, that ideally tells a story. In the bit of the match I showed, you saw both Danielson(in the maroon trunks) and Storm(in the red and white tights) apply arm locks. If one of them had had difficulty getting out of the hold and had their arm "damaged" by continuous holds and strikes to it, then the story would become something like "Oh man, Danielson has one arm, can he fight off the veteran technician? Something like that.
You mean Ring of Honor fans, nothing wrong with that.
Alright, now that I'm a bit more fully recovered, I'd like to thank everyone that attended Craziest Mecha Moments and apologize to everyone who attended A Gundam In A Skirt. A Gundam In A Skirt was a good idea poorly executed; I needed to put a whole lot more work in before I could fill an hour with that. I've got some other ideas regarding it now, and it may help work other panel ideas into action.
Now Nate and I get to put together Craziest Mecha Moments: The Recap Episode for Connecticon!
I'd like to apologize for any issues with panel room overcrowding. It was a problem across all the panel rooms -- at times when the smaller rooms were packed, more often than not the bigger rooms were as well.
We are going to look into how to better deal with it next year, although it may be tough. The Hynes is designed with the idea of having very many small rooms as opposed to fewer larger rooms.
Lou, I already told you this, but the only thing you really have to fix is adding gaps in the schedule. I expected my panel to be an hour, but it was actually 45 minutes because the room staff forced me out. You need to put 15 minute gaps, minimum, between all panels to give people time to tear down and setup and actually have a full hour to do their panel. It does mean some things have to be cut from the schedule, but that's not so bad. Cutting just one one-hour panel gives you four 15 minute gaps. That means you only need to cut 2-4 panels per room per day.
I had proposed gapping before but was pretty much shot down. However, the issue has been brought up with other folks interested in it -- mostly because I ended up scheduling a lot of "crap" panels towards the end of the process this year.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
I didn't think this was a very big issue. There's really no way everyone can see every panel they want. If you go for high quality and popular panels, there will always be more of them than there are slots in big rooms. There's no avoiding it.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
I didn't think this was a very big issue. There's really no way everyone can see every panel they want. If you go for high quality and popular panels, there will always be more of them than there are slots in big rooms. There's no avoiding it.
Are there extra panels rooms not being used at the time?
Do what PAX does and have an overflow room with a live feed going to there.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
I didn't think this was a very big issue. There's really no way everyone can see every panel they want. If you go for high quality and popular panels, there will always be more of them than there are slots in big rooms. There's no avoiding it.
Are there extra panels rooms not being used at the time?
Do what PAX does and have an overflow room with a live feed going to there.
We do have an overflow room, but it's generally only used for mega events like the Masquerade. Otherwise, typically all the panel rooms are in use at any particular time, barring the odd gaps.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
Count people in line and turn them away once the line is bigger than the room. PAX does this for every single panel. ;^)
That way, no one waits in line for nothing, and the people turned away have time to get to another panel or event before it starts.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
Count people in line and turn them away once the line is bigger than the room. PAX does this for every single panel. ;^)
That way, no one waits in line for nothing, and the people turned away have time to get to another panel or event before it starts.
Another good idea... Definitely something I'll bring up as we figure out how we're going to avoid this situation going forward. This was the first time we had this much overcrowding, so it kinda caught us with our pants down, so to speak.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
Count people in line and turn them away once the line is bigger than the room. PAX does this for every single panel. ;^)
That way, no one waits in line for nothing, and the people turned away have time to get to another panel or event before it starts.
Another good idea... Definitely something I'll bring up as we figure out how we're going to avoid this situation going forward. This was the first time we had this much overcrowding, so it kinda caught us with our pants down, so to speak.
Another thing that seemed to work well at PAX was the PAX-lines twitter account, feeding real-time updates on lines throughout the con.
Overcrowding is a good problem to have. Growing pains.
Comments
Also, everyone should be on the lookout for a TARDIS on Saturday..
Charles Dunbar's Miyazaki and Shinigami panels were fantastic.
Fist bumped with Mr. T
Had lunch with a group of twitter friends
Roomful of people with DSs singing the Pokemon theme
Interviewed Spike Spencer (Shinji's english VA), Charlene Ingram and Adam Sheehan from Funimation, and Rym. Among others.
Lack of time for games was disappointing, also wished I stayed at the Sheraton instead of 15 minutes away so I could have gone up and rested for the late night Firday panels. ($200 versus Free) But, overall, it was a fantastic convention. It is going to be hard to pick between that and PAX for next year.
Also I think this AB I finally came to terms with the fact that I can't say I'm not a gamer. I'm not as hardcore as most, but I've played far too many hours of Ticket to Ride and Settlers to pretend otherwise. And then spending 4-5 hours playing games this weekend (versus zero hours in screening rooms) was the nail in that coffin.
Now Nate and I get to put together Craziest Mecha Moments: The Recap Episode for Connecticon!
We are going to look into how to better deal with it next year, although it may be tough. The Hynes is designed with the idea of having very many small rooms as opposed to fewer larger rooms.
That said, having gaps won't address the issue of people not getting into panels they want to see despite waiting in line. The only solution to that problem is larger panel rooms.
The key is making sure that there are other things for people to do if they do get shut out.
Do what PAX does and have an overflow room with a live feed going to there.
That way, no one waits in line for nothing, and the people turned away have time to get to another panel or event before it starts.
Overcrowding is a good problem to have. Growing pains.