Alright, getting to the story about being late to our own panel, then a tech fail at our panel, then the story of the fire: Story of the Late Panel Fail: One thing about me is that I hate hate HATE being late when other people are depending on me being someplace. Generally, if I'm supposed to be someplace at a time, I'm there 10 minutes early, if I'm running late. We managed to get to the convention center around 8:40, because the line at Burger King was lamesauce, and wandered toward the Pratt Street entrance to the convention center. We figured that, because Panel Ops was right there, just before the skybridge, that we'd wander in there and get our ribbons, leisurely walk to our panel in Panel 6 (where Beyond Dungeons and Dragons was last year, ~700 seats), and I would munch my breakfast while we made sure there was no tech problems (more on that later) and goofed around with the crowd. Instead, we're told that ALL PRE-REGS (even panelists) MUST USE THE CHARLES STREET ENTRANCE. "Fine," we say, and march over to the Charles Street entrance, passing our friends on the way, and talk to the guys in front of the door there. They look confused for a few minutes, then get on their radios and confirm that no, we're supposed to be at the Pratt Street entrance, even though the people at the Pratt Street entrance told us to come here. "FINE," we say, annoyed at this point (this whole part took 10-15 minutes). We march over to the Pratt Street entrance where we get told that no, you're supposed to go to the Charles Street entrance. At this point, we start politely but forcefully stating to every staffer who tries to tell us that we're supposed to go to the Charles Street entrance that we were told to come here by the radio guy. This takes about five minutes before a staffer from inside throws open a door, says "9 o'clock panelists?" and lets us in. We dash up to Panel Ops, fill out the forms like it's the Hundred Crack Fist of the North Star, and affix our ribbons. At this point it's 9:02, and we dash as fast as you can in flipflops and carrying a bag of BK breakfast. We get there about 10 minutes late, don't have time to check for tech failures, set up and go in about a minute. We cut 10 minutes out of the already cut-down panel and are a rousing success again, half filling the room at a time when most people can't even get in the building.
Story of the Tech Fail: It was the weirdest thing, which we've confirmed (after the panel) is not Will's laptop or the clips being corrupted. The music would be about the right volume, but the voices would kick in and out. No staffer made any attempt to fix it or even make it look like they cared, and I think that the audience missed a large portion of why that panel is awesome.
Story of the Fire: I was in the Dealer's Room with some friends at the time, and the PA system there was pretty lame. So I didn't even know until about five minutes in that they were actually evacuating the building. As I was on my way out, I smelled the smell of burning toast, and figured it was the food service area burning something. We met up with our other friend and hung out at CalTort, where the rumors were flying. The story I heard there was that some oil got spilled on the grill at the food service area down in the Dealer's Room, which caught some toast on fire, which kinda confirmed what I smelled. They kept everyone out of the center for about an hour to an hour and a half. A surprising number of people were just kinda milling about on Prat, Sharp, and Charles, just kinda hanging out in the Baltimore sun. When we got in, we wandered around a bit, then ran into Dragonmaster Lou, who told us the official story, that it's a false alarm. A joke (or maybe not joke) was that the alarm was pulled to interrupt the Hetalia premier that was going on at that time.
This has been a fun convention. Definitely not enough awesome panels, but a few really good ones for sure. While they had some awesome guests, they had a lot of boring-ish ones as well. Awesome panels got tons of people, like Uncle Yo and Vic Mignogna and Littlekuriboh, but still not quite enough people at the Madhouse panel, which was, once again, put in a small panel room, EVEN though Maruyama is an honorary staffer. If they threw him in the huge Panel 3 room, he might've been able to draw an awesome crowd, especially with the amazing Redline trailer. Whatever. There were a lot of memes, but enough cool people to talk to as well. The memes just kind of fade into the background once you stop caring.
From what I can tell, Rym and Scott are not too highly regarded in the Otakon Staff
Consider the source: from Otakon's POV, scrym bailed on the con on short notice and left them with a few panels to fill, so it's more than likely they're not going to be too highly regarded. Never mind the fact that the con staff is just as much to blame because they couldn't get their shit together and get an event schedule released more than a week before the con.
Consider the source: from Otakon's POV, scrym bailed on the con on short notice and left them with a few panels to fill, so it's more than likely they're not going to be too highly regarded.
Their reasons for disliking us are far more deeply rooted than that. They ignored us for many months and never really ever communicated with us even once they'd formally had us join the staff. I'm pretty sure they've since kicked us out entirely, but due to the total lack of communication, I have no idea what's actually going on. I've pretty-much given up on them.
I have no idea what's actually going on. I've pretty-much given up on them.
Yeah, sadly we must stick to our no drama policy. If they're going to be all drama, then we just ignore them. If they're going to work with us for awesome convention, then we'll gladly do so. Every other convention is extremely cooperative. Otakon is hostile and full of drama. It's sad, because Otakon is the second con I ever went to, the biggest we've been to, and we've been to more Otakons than any other single convention. The BCC is like my fourth or fifth home at this point.
Consider the source: from Otakon's POV, scrym bailed on the con on short notice and left them with a few panels to fill, so it's more than likely they're not going to be too highly regarded. Never mind the fact that the con staff is just as much to blame because they couldn't get their shit together and get an event schedule released more than a week before the con.
Yea, I can understand hard feelings. It would be one thing if they were just panelists who could not deal with the fact that they didn't have a schedule (though I'm sure they would still consider you both drama queens then) but to also be volunteers that pulled out at the last second would definitely be looked down upon from most of the staff. (Note: this is devils advocating here) Most likely a majority of staffers only know the facts that Rym and Scott had a bunch of panels and were on staff but at the last minute they withdraw. That looks really bad on a bunch of levels. As for Scott's no drama policy, what did you expect to happen? I wouldn't be too concerned at this point because I'm sure the panel head will be replaced or at least given a talking to that should at least resolve some of the lack of communication and lack of schedule. But to totally remove you're self from the convention at such a late time does not make you look good regardless of how screwed up the panel scheduling was. For Scott to think that things would be any different is naive. To also say that he didn't at least 40% cause the drama that he is saying "he doesn't deal with" also would show to me that you are not interested in improving Otakon as you say. Honestly, if I had a "staffer" who asked to run panels and was going to help out and they withdraw two weeks before the whole organization would be pissed as well regardless of whether it was the conventions organization fault. Because it shows to me that you do not care enough about the convention to put up with some inconvenience and would work to make it better. Note: there is a difference between being a staff member and a panelist.
If you pulled out of PAX at the last minute because of some issue 5 years from now, you can bet that a large amount of the staff would look down upon you even if you were in the right. I'm just trying to point out the other perspective there. Regardless, I'm sure a bunch of people are annoyed but they would get over it but you can't expect anyone to be happy.
You can't do what you did and not expect to have to do a bit of bridge mending.
See, I'm not revealing private conversations with various Otakon staff out of courtesy, but we were very clear for a long time that we couldn't attend without some understanding of what our duties would have been as staff. I can only send so many ignored emails before I give up. I highly doubt they wanted us to do the things we'd originally agreed to do (moderate panels that needed moderation, run our own panels, assist with panel selection and scheduling, seek out professional panelists), and I am guessing they expected us to sit in a panel room and engage in normal, low-level staff duties the whole con, something we'd originally be told we wouldn't have to do. Almost all of the planning we'd done with the staff prior to the department shift was "lost in transition," and we had to start from scratch when Aaron took over. But, since no one told us someone new had taken over until I'd sent several emails asking what was going on (long after the change had occurred), we were basically cut off with no direction, answers, or information until it was far too late to provide any real assistance.
One single email from the Otakon staff at any point would have meant Geeknights at Otakon this year. They completely ignored us for months, leading right up to the con. There was basically no difference, in terms of communication from the panels department, between being staff and not being staff.
If you pulled out of PAX at the last minute because of some issue 5 years from now, you can bet that a large amount of the staff would look down upon you even if you were in the right.
If PAX somehow started acting unprofessionally, we'd pull out just the same. I can't attend a convention, let alone as staff, if no one has told me to any degree what they actually expect me to do at the con. For all I knew, they wanted me to watch doors or check badges. We literally had zero communication on that front from the day we joined the staff until the day we said it was too late for us to attend.
Otakon was the only convention we'd been giving a free pass to for years. They're the most difficult to work with, the least communicative, and the most variable. We'd dropped other cons for far less, but Otakon was special to us, enough so to put up with it for so long. We held every other con at which we performed to a much higher standard on the back-end.
I can see how they might view it as pulling out at the last minute. But really, we were effectively bailed for months, and really we were holding out hope until the last minute. It's a glass half-full half-empty situation.The fact that we stuck with them until the last minute instead of bailing at our first inclination months before shows just how much benefit of the doubt we gave them.
I think the real core of the problem is that they refuse to actually talk to us. They often don't reply to emails. When they do it's not promptly, or not in full. They won't engage in an actual discussion with us, so they just create their own twisted view of what's going on.
Every other convention we work with, we increase how much we work together over the years. At PAX we did one panel, then more, then more, and now something so big I can't tell you. At Connecticon we built up to actually running the whole panels department. At the NYAF, we are going to be able to try out our MC'd showing room idea that Otakon rejected. Anime Boston gives us actual money, even though we didn't ask for it. MAGFest actually invited us, and is very cooperative and friendly.
Otakon is the convention we have been working with longer than any other. We have been to more Otakons than any other single convention, even with skipping this year. We built up over the years doing more and more panels each year. We decided to step up the game again and become staff, and do even more with Otakon. Then everything fell apart. All of our attempts to work with the convention to make it better were rejected or ignored.
It's really as simple as that. They won't cooperate with us, so it's not worth four hotel nights and transportation costs and vacation days to go down there. It's even less worth it since our friends aren't going, mostly because they won't mail the badges. We've been trying to make nice with them for years, and they keep pushing us away. If that's how they want it, that's how they can have it.
We still love the convention, and would like to get back on track, but I think I've given up trying to get through to them. If they want to talk to us, and work together again, we'll gladly do so. Until then, PAX is in one month, and has been more cooperative and communicative than any other convention ever.
Most likely a majority of staffers only know the facts that Rym and Scott had a bunch of panel
We actually only had two panels. At first, we were told we had zero panels. We also weren't planning on sticking around much Sunday, so they could possibly have scheduled us when we weren't around. We had other engagements we couldn't plan due to the lack of a staff schedule or list of staff duties (irrespective of the lack of a panel schedule). We were also planning to bring Daryl Surat onboard for one of our panels, but without a schedule, had no way to coordinate this.
Really, if you read the entirety of my email conversations regarding our staff/panelist duties at Otakon 2010, at no point did anyone on Otakon's side ever ask anything of us. No task was ever given, no commitment was ever made. We'd declined the free hotel room and any of the other staff perks (we had no need of them). We'd might as well not have been there for all Otakon asked us to do. They expected us to show up to Otakon blind and, I'm assuming, work somewhere in some capacity not to be known to us until we'd arrived.
The rest of the staff (operations, guests, etc...) seemed perfectly fine, capable, and together. The panel department was in utter disarray. Sadly, the panel department was our primary interface to the con. Had we been operations or something else, I'll wager we wouldn't have had any of these problems.
You call that a late panel fail? I missed my first panel because it took me 3 hours to get from the west most point of the DC Beltway to Balitmore. Note that this is normally a 1 hour journey that I had alloted 2 hours for.
You guys didn't read my post at all except for those two lines (if you did you'd know I was talking about perception and trust). I'm just pointing out there you look bad in the organization regardless of who's at fault. When I say Bridge mending I'm not saying just you have to do it obviously Otakon fucked up royally and has to do it too. But withdrawing a few weeks from the con would look bad regardless of who is at fault. If a guest did that and lamblasted the head of Guest relations you should still expect people to be a bit peeved at the guest. I'm just saying, you should expect a bit of a negative Otakon staff response as par to course. As I said in the above post, I figure it will blow over because the head of panels will be replaced or at least given some "supervision".
Otakon is the convention we have been working with longer than any other. We have been to more Otakons than any other single convention, even with skipping this year. We built up over the years doing more and more panels each year. We decided to step up the game again and become staff, and do even more with Otakon. Then everything fell apart. All of our attempts to work with the convention to make it better were rejected or ignored.
Unless they reach out to us (unlikely), our policy with Otakon is to now treat them the same as we do all of the other conventions we attend. They can invite us as guests, or they can accept our panel submissions in a timely manner. Otherwise, we simply can't attend, and the slot will be free for some other convention (SDCC, Gencon, Essen, TAM, etc...).
If they don't ask us to do anything as staff, then there's nothing we can do about that. If they kick us off the staff, it won't be any different than it was when we were on the staff (excepting that I won't be able to made suggestions in the staff forum any more).
I'm just pointing out there you look bad in the organization regardless of who's at fault.
We looked bad long before that, believe me. I was accused of crazy things, like being a "spy" for other conventions at one point.
I'm just saying, you should expect a bit of a negative Otakon staff response as par to course.
Quite expected. It was a very hard decision to tell them we couldn't attend. We agonized over it for a week, and worried it would come to that for months. We hated to do it.
Quite expected. It was a very hard decision to tell them we couldn't attend. We agonized over it for a week, and worried it would come to that for months. We hated to do it.
It's also possible that the staffers are just venting. I'm sure they have things to work out with Rym and Scott, but when most people are under a lot of pressure or are really busy, they'll tend to overstate their frustrations.
You call that a late panel fail? I missed my first panel because it took me 3 hours to get from the west most point of the DC Beltway to Balitmore. Note that this is normally a 1 hour journey that I had alloted 2 hours for.
Yeah, but my fail wasn't traffic-related, it was lack-of-proper-communication-with-staff-related.
You call that a late panel fail? I missed my first panel because it took me 3 hours to get from the west most point of the DC Beltway to Balitmore. Note that this is normally a 1 hour journey that I had alloted 2 hours for.
Yeah, but my fail wasn't traffic-related, it was lack-of-proper-communication-with-staff-related.
It sounds like you guys had to deal with inconvenience with of irritable staff, but part of it is your own fault for not waking up early enough, eating, and getting ready for the day. Granted, I'm not sure how far you guys were away from the convention on foot, but arriving on Thursday you should of had everything prepped and ready to go for tomorrow.
Friday sucked balls because I was exhausted after driving eight hours. I bailed pretty early and slept at the room for the rest of the day. I regret missing Gerald's hentai panel
Saturday was a bit better. I saw a shitty amv panel that was saved by pictochat. At this point I had lost most of my faith in the convention's programing and decided to make my own fun. I would challenge anyone with a DS or that was cosplaying a Pokemon character to a Pokemon battle. Everyone I battled was a cool dude. The mech fan panel was ass, but I got to say hello to Gerald while I was leaving. I really didn't see anyone from internets at this thing. Video game room was alright. I lost at Street Fighter and watched some good people play Street Fighter. I also went to the Make a Manga panel and caused shenanigans. Mutant Girl Squad is a work of high cinema.
Sunday was just waiting in line to wait in line to buy cheap shit in the dealer room.
While Otakon has its problems, it sounds like you really just didn't even try. I mean, you didn't say whether or not you went to the Yoshida Brothers concert. I assume you didn't. Doesn't sound like you went to any of the panels with actual Japanese guests or anything.
Also, driving eight hours isn't worth it. You should fly, go to conventions that are closer to your home, or get there the day before.
Actually, and this is a tangential point, I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and he mentioned that Type O Negative had a $2,000 performance fee. Pay them 2 grand, and they'll play in your back yard for 30 people. I wonder if Amon Amarth has a similar fee.
Comments
Also, @rym: Late solely due to incompetence and lack of information among Gophers.
Story of the Late Panel Fail: One thing about me is that I hate hate HATE being late when other people are depending on me being someplace. Generally, if I'm supposed to be someplace at a time, I'm there 10 minutes early, if I'm running late. We managed to get to the convention center around 8:40, because the line at Burger King was lamesauce, and wandered toward the Pratt Street entrance to the convention center. We figured that, because Panel Ops was right there, just before the skybridge, that we'd wander in there and get our ribbons, leisurely walk to our panel in Panel 6 (where Beyond Dungeons and Dragons was last year, ~700 seats), and I would munch my breakfast while we made sure there was no tech problems (more on that later) and goofed around with the crowd. Instead, we're told that ALL PRE-REGS (even panelists) MUST USE THE CHARLES STREET ENTRANCE.
"Fine," we say, and march over to the Charles Street entrance, passing our friends on the way, and talk to the guys in front of the door there. They look confused for a few minutes, then get on their radios and confirm that no, we're supposed to be at the Pratt Street entrance, even though the people at the Pratt Street entrance told us to come here.
"FINE," we say, annoyed at this point (this whole part took 10-15 minutes). We march over to the Pratt Street entrance where we get told that no, you're supposed to go to the Charles Street entrance. At this point, we start politely but forcefully stating to every staffer who tries to tell us that we're supposed to go to the Charles Street entrance that we were told to come here by the radio guy. This takes about five minutes before a staffer from inside throws open a door, says "9 o'clock panelists?" and lets us in. We dash up to Panel Ops, fill out the forms like it's the Hundred Crack Fist of the North Star, and affix our ribbons. At this point it's 9:02, and we dash as fast as you can in flipflops and carrying a bag of BK breakfast. We get there about 10 minutes late, don't have time to check for tech failures, set up and go in about a minute. We cut 10 minutes out of the already cut-down panel and are a rousing success again, half filling the room at a time when most people can't even get in the building.
Story of the Tech Fail: It was the weirdest thing, which we've confirmed (after the panel) is not Will's laptop or the clips being corrupted. The music would be about the right volume, but the voices would kick in and out. No staffer made any attempt to fix it or even make it look like they cared, and I think that the audience missed a large portion of why that panel is awesome.
Story of the Fire: I was in the Dealer's Room with some friends at the time, and the PA system there was pretty lame. So I didn't even know until about five minutes in that they were actually evacuating the building. As I was on my way out, I smelled the smell of burning toast, and figured it was the food service area burning something. We met up with our other friend and hung out at CalTort, where the rumors were flying. The story I heard there was that some oil got spilled on the grill at the food service area down in the Dealer's Room, which caught some toast on fire, which kinda confirmed what I smelled. They kept everyone out of the center for about an hour to an hour and a half. A surprising number of people were just kinda milling about on Prat, Sharp, and Charles, just kinda hanging out in the Baltimore sun. When we got in, we wandered around a bit, then ran into Dragonmaster Lou, who told us the official story, that it's a false alarm. A joke (or maybe not joke) was that the alarm was pulled to interrupt the Hetalia premier that was going on at that time.
There were a lot of memes, but enough cool people to talk to as well. The memes just kind of fade into the background once you stop caring.
If you pulled out of PAX at the last minute because of some issue 5 years from now, you can bet that a large amount of the staff would look down upon you even if you were in the right. I'm just trying to point out the other perspective there. Regardless, I'm sure a bunch of people are annoyed but they would get over it but you can't expect anyone to be happy.
You can't do what you did and not expect to have to do a bit of bridge mending.
One single email from the Otakon staff at any point would have meant Geeknights at Otakon this year. They completely ignored us for months, leading right up to the con. There was basically no difference, in terms of communication from the panels department, between being staff and not being staff. If PAX somehow started acting unprofessionally, we'd pull out just the same. I can't attend a convention, let alone as staff, if no one has told me to any degree what they actually expect me to do at the con. For all I knew, they wanted me to watch doors or check badges. We literally had zero communication on that front from the day we joined the staff until the day we said it was too late for us to attend.
Otakon was the only convention we'd been giving a free pass to for years. They're the most difficult to work with, the least communicative, and the most variable. We'd dropped other cons for far less, but Otakon was special to us, enough so to put up with it for so long. We held every other con at which we performed to a much higher standard on the back-end.
I think the real core of the problem is that they refuse to actually talk to us. They often don't reply to emails. When they do it's not promptly, or not in full. They won't engage in an actual discussion with us, so they just create their own twisted view of what's going on.
Every other convention we work with, we increase how much we work together over the years. At PAX we did one panel, then more, then more, and now something so big I can't tell you. At Connecticon we built up to actually running the whole panels department. At the NYAF, we are going to be able to try out our MC'd showing room idea that Otakon rejected. Anime Boston gives us actual money, even though we didn't ask for it. MAGFest actually invited us, and is very cooperative and friendly.
Otakon is the convention we have been working with longer than any other. We have been to more Otakons than any other single convention, even with skipping this year. We built up over the years doing more and more panels each year. We decided to step up the game again and become staff, and do even more with Otakon. Then everything fell apart. All of our attempts to work with the convention to make it better were rejected or ignored.
It's really as simple as that. They won't cooperate with us, so it's not worth four hotel nights and transportation costs and vacation days to go down there. It's even less worth it since our friends aren't going, mostly because they won't mail the badges. We've been trying to make nice with them for years, and they keep pushing us away. If that's how they want it, that's how they can have it.
We still love the convention, and would like to get back on track, but I think I've given up trying to get through to them. If they want to talk to us, and work together again, we'll gladly do so. Until then, PAX is in one month, and has been more cooperative and communicative than any other convention ever.
Really, if you read the entirety of my email conversations regarding our staff/panelist duties at Otakon 2010, at no point did anyone on Otakon's side ever ask anything of us. No task was ever given, no commitment was ever made. We'd declined the free hotel room and any of the other staff perks (we had no need of them). We'd might as well not have been there for all Otakon asked us to do. They expected us to show up to Otakon blind and, I'm assuming, work somewhere in some capacity not to be known to us until we'd arrived.
The rest of the staff (operations, guests, etc...) seemed perfectly fine, capable, and together. The panel department was in utter disarray. Sadly, the panel department was our primary interface to the con. Had we been operations or something else, I'll wager we wouldn't have had any of these problems.
If they don't ask us to do anything as staff, then there's nothing we can do about that. If they kick us off the staff, it won't be any different than it was when we were on the staff (excepting that I won't be able to made suggestions in the staff forum any more).
Friday sucked balls because I was exhausted after driving eight hours. I bailed pretty early and slept at the room for the rest of the day. I regret missing Gerald's hentai panel
Saturday was a bit better. I saw a shitty amv panel that was saved by pictochat. At this point I had lost most of my faith in the convention's programing and decided to make my own fun. I would challenge anyone with a DS or that was cosplaying a Pokemon character to a Pokemon battle. Everyone I battled was a cool dude. The mech fan panel was ass, but I got to say hello to Gerald while I was leaving. I really didn't see anyone from internets at this thing. Video game room was alright. I lost at Street Fighter and watched some good people play Street Fighter. I also went to the Make a Manga panel and caused shenanigans. Mutant Girl Squad is a work of high cinema.
Sunday was just waiting in line to wait in line to buy cheap shit in the dealer room.
Also, driving eight hours isn't worth it. You should fly, go to conventions that are closer to your home, or get there the day before.
I mean, missing the Yoshida Brothers isn't the end of the world, and one concert does not a con make.
Unless that concert is Amon Amarth. But that's a different story.
Actually, and this is a tangential point, I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and he mentioned that Type O Negative had a $2,000 performance fee. Pay them 2 grand, and they'll play in your back yard for 30 people. I wonder if Amon Amarth has a similar fee.