Venders feedback from some friends

[mira]

Hello there.  I just wanted to pass this along.  I live in Seattle and frequent many anime related businesses.  I have become friends with several merchants.  Two specifically planned on coming to Kumoricon.  But in both cases they said they didn't hear back when they first contacted organizers and so decided to pass.  I think, and I can't speak for them obviously, that the feeling was they just weren't that valued.  But I thought it was info that staff might want to know.  Since the vendors room seemed so...empty... perhaps some review of vendor/con communication might be in order?  

mira

[Radien]

I don't know if you saw the thread, but another staffer stated that the reason there were three empty tables in the dealer's room was because a vendor who was taking up three whole tables got kicked because he was selling bootlegged stuff.

However, that doesn't account for everything, so I'll step aside and let the dealer's room people explain/listen.  All I can say is that your dealer friends definitely weren't snubbed intentionally.

[mira]

However, that doesn't account for everything, so I'll step aside and let the dealer's room people explain/listen.  All I can say is that your dealer friends definitely weren't snubbed intentionally.

I'm sure they weren't.  I didn't mean to imply that.  I'm just saying that perhaps there wasn't clear communication and feed back to vendor inquiries.  I don't know if this is true or not.  But it certainly wouldn't hurt to look at the issue.

mira

[EvilMonkey]

I take full responsibility for the lack of communication with the dealers for the dealer's room this year.  After getting the Con Chair duties, I neglected the Dealer's room duties a bit as I was busy trying to manage several things at once, and didn't get the time to hand off the duties to someone else.  This year I already have a trainee who's willing to take on the exhibit hall task, so if you want, you can have the exhibitors contact us again for next year.  We are still working on finalizing the details for next year, but as soon as that's done, we'll have a new contract and more details for the dealer's room.

[Radien]

I'm sure they weren't.  I didn't mean to imply that.  I'm just saying that perhaps there wasn't clear communication and feed back to vendor inquiries.  I don't know if this is true or not.  But it certainly wouldn't hurt to look at the issue.

mira

Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that either. I was just stressing that the lack of communication had nothing to do with their specific value to the con. As Sean just stated, it has more to do with getting a late start. We had no volunteers for con chair for a few weeks; Sean took it up because he felt he was in the best position to do the job (and the rest of staff agreed).

I vote we follow the precedent set in the webcomic "Conscrew," and force serious rule violators to take the position of con chair of the next Kumori Con as punishment. j/k

[mira]

I will definitely try to talk my favorite anime retailers into giving Kumoricon another try.  I know the big turn out this year will be an added enticement and if you guys do your end of the deal then things should be better.  It sounds like you were aware of the issue and taking steps to remedy them for next year.  

mira

[FilkAeris]

The vendors were amazingly kind.  On Friday night, I was wandering the hotel looking for something to make eye-catching promotional signs for the fanfiction panels etc., and I noticed what looked like a lot of pieces of white posterboard being used to hold down stacks of posters.

I asked the vendor if I could have a few to make signs with, and he said 'sure'...and then I went to grab them and realized they were just more posters!  I asked if he was sure that was okay, and he told me to go ahead and take some, on the house.

Hence, this great guy helped create the speech-bubble posters of Naruto and Kenshin that decorated the doorways of the various fanfiction events!  Kudos and thanks to him!

(He was also one of the various congoers, hotel staffers, and vendors who donated items--food, posters, paper, pens, blankets, folders, and time--to the fanfiction events.  Which was good, because we had no budget money and would have had to pay for those things out-of-pocket.  *sigh*)

[Dustin]

I don't know if you saw the thread, but another staffer stated that the reason there were three empty tables in the dealer's room was because a vendor who was taking up three whole tables got kicked because he was selling bootlegged stuff.

Yeah, that guys tables where at the front. Alot of the tables in the back didn't get much usage. I think some more venders sure could have taken them up.

IMO, I only know where that guys tables where because I am the one that turned him in (Rip me off on Naruto cds, HMPH!).

Anyways, I would like to see more venders next years. I was hoping to find some things and I didn't, so the vender room was a bit disappointing to me, and I even walked through it multiple times just to make sure I didn't miss anything (Also, on the last day, I tried to see if anyone lowered any prices, but, that was a bit of a no go there. Gotta save money when ya can, its expensive being an Otaku).

[BigGuy]

I think on saturday someone was asking me if they could get one of the empty vendor tables, and I went to check. On the diagram of the vendor room all of the tables had been reserved. I think what happened was some of the vendors didn't show. I might be completely wrong, but I think that was part of why it was so empty in there.

[Radien]

FilkAeris:

Whoah, that's awesome! If other dealers were that nice, too, then I think they deserve part of the credit for our high hospitality rating!

Dustin:

Well, while I'm not sure whether I met the vendor and I don't want to judge his character, I'm certainly glad that was brought to a halt.  It's perfectly alright to say that fans should be able to make the decision of whether it's moral to buy them or not (for instance, I wouldn't feel bad about buying a bootleg reprint of something that's been out of print for years, like the Lunar vocal albums), but if the price is jacked-up to book value, they may have no way of knowing what they're getting.

BigGuy:

Hmm, well, while that's partially speculation, let me offer another possible speculation of what might have happened:

Given our communication problem, perhaps some dealer's called/emailed/wrote in to reserve tables, they were recorded and set aside, then were never informed that they did in fact have a table reserved.

I'm just mentioning this because it's the type of problem that's happened at Sakura Con before: specifically, the pre-reg lists were accurate online, but the paper pre-reg receipts didn't get delivered until after the con. That happened a couple of times, two or three years ago.

[zenix]

the dealer that was sellin the yogurt cup things let my sister have a free sample ended up buying like 8 of them

[Kei-Kei]

That was the vendor on the left of the doors. She was selling ten packs of Pocky too, which I bought. That girl was so nice. If you're on here, you are awesome!