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Anime Expo 2010 (Success!)
It's way early to be making this thread, but screw it. I'm excited.
This will be my fifth AX, and they've gotten progressively better each year. Highlights from last year included Zelda Mythbusters, pick-up games of Ninja in the halls, and a "We're All Dudes" singalong with Kel Mitchell, just to name a few.
A few orders of business. If you haven't registered already, I highly recommend that you do so as soon as possible. AX is a few bucks more expensive this year, so definitely buy as soon as you are ready to commit.
Sonic, we should plan on taking over that same spot in the hallway again this year, except this time be armed and ready with more stuff to play than just the Pokemon theme and Caramelldansen. I'm going to try and start compiling all the well-known video game and anime songs I can, plus some OCRs and 8-bit Collective mixes that people will recognize. With any luck, it'll be even larger of a fire hazard than it was last year.
WindUpBird, any idea where you'd stay? Because it would be super cool if you stayed, say, the whole week so that you could see the area and maybe hang out at a show with me.
DJ_Jinnai and Alex Leavitt went last year but don't post enough to arrange a meetup beforehand, so maybe we can fix that this year. Also, there's a chance that Bunnikun will come out for it.
Who else is thinking about it?
This will be my fifth AX, and they've gotten progressively better each year. Highlights from last year included Zelda Mythbusters, pick-up games of Ninja in the halls, and a "We're All Dudes" singalong with Kel Mitchell, just to name a few.
A few orders of business. If you haven't registered already, I highly recommend that you do so as soon as possible. AX is a few bucks more expensive this year, so definitely buy as soon as you are ready to commit.
Sonic, we should plan on taking over that same spot in the hallway again this year, except this time be armed and ready with more stuff to play than just the Pokemon theme and Caramelldansen. I'm going to try and start compiling all the well-known video game and anime songs I can, plus some OCRs and 8-bit Collective mixes that people will recognize. With any luck, it'll be even larger of a fire hazard than it was last year.
WindUpBird, any idea where you'd stay? Because it would be super cool if you stayed, say, the whole week so that you could see the area and maybe hang out at a show with me.
DJ_Jinnai and Alex Leavitt went last year but don't post enough to arrange a meetup beforehand, so maybe we can fix that this year. Also, there's a chance that Bunnikun will come out for it.
Who else is thinking about it?
Comments
EDIT: Also, just be advised that everything I'm putting forth is very much a "best case scenario" type of thing. It's quite possible that this could fail utterly.
*wanders off into the distance mumbling*...maybe just one speaker, the amp...
If we room, we should be each be dropped off (no parking costs) and bring our own food and drinks for the weekend (no need to buy, save money).
Alternatively, if we can all be suave and cool, we wont need to room because we can find... other accomidations. *boom chicka wa wa*
However, I'm not sure I have much incentive to get a hotel room, seeing how I live within easy driving distance. Sorry, guys.
Well, we'll have a meet-up somehow. Like I said in the other thread, I might go to Otakon, so if you're there, you might see me.
I plan on meeting virtually everyone in this forum someday. It's only a matter of when.
Anime con staff always has crazy drama. It's amazing to watch. Katsucon imploded (we're still waiting to see the results of that), AX is imploding, Animazement is imploding, never mind the countless smaller conventions filled with petty, meaningless drama year after year.
What is it about anime conventions that attracts petty drama?
The staff that stick around usually do so because they're all friends with eachother and possibly their department heads. Their primarily loyalty ends up being not to the convention, but to their friends within the staff (Rome had the same problem, really.). If the boat rocks too much, they'll bail en masse: no one of them would staff unless the others also staffed. This is why we keep seeing these mass resignations.
The senior staff or board members always say the same thing, that the lower staff should have raised their concerns earlier and worked constructively rather than bailing. Usually, at least as far as I can see, however, this is effectively impossible, as senior staff at these conventions rarely seem to treat any of the "common staff" or volunteers as anything more than barely managed animals.
It's obvious why the drama is exploding more and more.
My favorite part from this article.
"One of the responses regarding this issue is that none of the previous SPJA CEOs have flown business class on AX's dime, to which Sabec responded, "That's probably true, but… you guys have may not have necessarily been in a professional enough organization to know the world from my perspective…. If you're asking a new executive to come on board that has a lot of experience in the entertainment industry… you know he's reasonably going to expect the same kind of treatment that other executives at his level receive.""
It seems to me they picked a "CEO" that's a dick...
A. asks them for private client information
B. when the refuse (rightfully so), terminates their contract.
That is not good business sense. Not AT ALL.
I note that, had the convention treated its staff well, the impact of the first resignation would have been massively blunted.
As for the CEO, he's a bog standard uninspired corporate executive type. The problems with AX are far greater than one man. Remember, the anime industry in America is basically nonexistent, and AX is trying to act like it exists in the same space. It's trying to please too many markets, when the real money base for anime fandom right now is the fans themselves. They should kick the "industry" to the curb, raise prices, get more entertainment, and just be a convention.
The lack of communication among the staff, at least in the panels department, is amazing to me. The organization is so top-heavy that, as far as I can see, the majority of the staff are basically gophers with comped hotel rooms and longer hours. I don't believe any decision-making is possible, even for routine or emergent situations, for most of them.
Case in point. We are staff. The head of panels (whom we'd worked everything out with months ago) disappeared. When I contacted him (CCing the panels department), someone else responded basically saying "Yeah, I'm in charge now, and have been for a while. I'm scheduling everything myself, so you don't need to do anything yet." At no point was anyone in the department informed of the change until we started asking around.
The only updates we ever get are from the top level, and all information flow seems to be trickle-down. The one large meeting I attended was spent primarily in bickering over "disciplinary policy" and setting up panels logistics that were all swept by the wayside when the previous head of panels left.
I'm worried that by the time our own damn department decides if we're going to let ourselves do panels for ourselves, it will be too late, and we won't attend at all.