I'm working on the cosplay rules right now. One of my main hopes is that we will have some sort of CCTV feed available for participants to watch the other acts on. Of course, a part of this will be dependent upon what kind of space we have available backstage and whether we have the equivalent of a Green Room. Much of the issues with cosplay are due to the limits of what the hotel can provide us with. Usually backstage there's a dirty service hallway that contestants have to rush through to get to stage.
I was a judge last year. The costume judging was completed and winners were picked before the first act even went on stage. The judges scored the acts and had a pile of winners decided within 5 minutes of the cosplay ending... The part that took forever was getting the prizes -- they were down in OPs & since we didn't have an appropriate collection of prizes (The top winners all had huge groups!), they were printing up "kumoricon bucks"...which took a very long time.
I'll try to come up with some standardized award name / categories if that's what people want, however, I still want to allow the judges some leeway to invent names for some of the awards because there is always something that needs spontaneous recognition (Yeah, one year I got "Most absurd product placement" for a software pirate...go figure). Since we don't know how many entries there will be, we can't necessarily determine the exact number of prizes ahead of time....besides, if Bandai donates a box of DVDs for prizes, those have to be divvied up appropriately.
What I'd love to do is
(0) have the tech people get the main events room set up
night prior and microphones / sound tested.
(1) schedule Cosplay to start later in the evening
(2) hog the main events room all day to allow people to rehearse at any time -- we can have a sign up sheet for blocks of time for stage practice
(3) have CCTV in a large room which is easily accessible from backstage and has a good supply of food and emergency munchies so we aren't dehydrated
(4) Costume judging will be scheduled for 2 hours prior to event. Judging is timed *yey to our timer who kept us judges from spending too long on a single costume* so that each entry is not stuck there too long.
(5) Judging is done in a separate room - the green room - so that we can open the doors for seating well before cosplay is scheduled to start
(6) seating is open seating - if we've got several doors, open 'em all! - move fast and get to a seat. Ushers can keep an eye on open seats and can herd people toward them.
(7) GOOD: Cosplay forms available at REGISTRATION tables as well as at infobooth and in the hands of cosplay director and various cosplay minions. IDEAL: Cosplay form is a tear out page in the con-book that everyone gets with their schedule...so if you've managed to register for the convention, you should have seen the cosplay form at least once at the convention regardless of whether you're participating or not.
(
Either the MC or I will announce names of judges...don't know why we forgot about that before...
That should be a good start.
Now, then, anyone have the stage size information? Room layout? Is there a room that can function as green room? If I bring a 150' network cable will that solve the issue with getting a video feed from event room to green room? (Look, I own my own projector and have a laptop -- which has wireless-- so we should be able to get a digital feed to it somehow!! I'm sure someone owns a digital camera that we can rig up someplace in main events room...)[/b]