I feel like if I'm not careful here, this is going to turn into an argument very quickly. That said, I'll continue to try and answer
your points. Much of what you have surmized and thus found as "problems" have been addressed previously:
Elevators: Okay, yes, the elevators... oy... for people trying to get to their rooms this was a hassle, no doubts there. I think
many proposals are being made (I even have one for operations) to smooth out the congested times and make moving from your
room to the event areas a bit more feasible, that being said this is the crux of the problem. But NOTHING anyone says or does
is going to magically build any more elevators at ANY hotel. And if you think it was bad getting to your room here, trying stuffing
that many people through the elevators at double tree, you'd have the fire marshals and the hotel screaming about how many
people were trying to use the elevators at any given time constantly, not just at peak times. Perhaps we could use your very
logistical brain to come up with a solution for the people moving problem?
Outside Space: Welcome To Downtown Portland, where you can go in ANY direction and find fun stuff to do. There is Pioneer Place,
the mall with tons of shops and a food court, there is Court House Square with a great area to eat a lunch, listen to music and catch
a max to any number of great entertainment destinations. Plus it turned out to be a great spot for photo ops when it wasn't raining.
A park is just a park, and the Convention staff cannot "book" that kind of land for anything, at Dawn's little meeting we talked about how
K-con almost got in trouble in years prior and WOULD have been in serious trouble if it could have been proved that the parks were being
used officially by K-con staff. Holding anything in a public park means K-con staff cannot have any jurisdiction over it. Whereas, if we
decide to allocate money to it, we could Book parts of Pioneer Ct House Sqr and get security that can maintain that area for us for outdoor
fun!
Mistake, Learn From it: They did and they have, both sides. No one is out to get you, the Kumoricon Convention Attendee. We all want
you to have an excellent experience and return! Problems arose, and you mentioned some, but barely any of it is stuff that isn't already
being fixed in just preliminary talks, the rest they are working on. I talked a bit on elevators above but if you are concerned with moving
about the con space and getting everywhere instantly, welcome to convention life, even at Sakuracon there are lines and more lines, it
happens. Everyone who comes to a convention just needs to put on their "When at Disneyland" mask and just have fun, allow yourself to
be herded, queued and seated in places and just enjoy the sights and sounds and you will have a much better time than if you were
forcing yourself into areas to try to get somewhere as fast as possible. Have to wait 10 minutes for a elevator going up to your floor? Why
not strike up a conversation with the guests around you? Trying to get downstairs? Consider the stairs as one option for the high traffic times
and then board a elevator going up and make some friends along the way! Besides, you might end up on the 23rd floor and kareoke was
really smashing up there!
Hilton Exec: I didn't really say that.... I don't know where you got that Idea... sounds like what you have at your arsenal is a good amount of
the old rumors we heard about 10 days after the convention was over. Most of the previous year's (and some of them are the returning) exec
board have debunked a lot of this. There is no proof that the Hilton is going out of business, they are shutting down intermittently durring
the winter;
http://blog.travelpost.com/2009/09/04/hilton-portland-to-shut-down-this-winter/But this was a descision made earlier in the year that our board knew about, and was infact to prevent them from really hurting with the economy
the way it is.
Mr. Shove and Yell: Actually I probably did see him, and I talked with several of the people who were ubsurdly angry the whole time. I found out
a lot of them were given little information until very late in the game and when I thanked them for working with us and for understanding we are
just here to have a good time, and asked them if they had ever seen any anime's, they lightened up immediately. Suddenly they were being treated
like human beings instead of "The Big Bad Hotel Staff" or "The Human Direction Post". A lot of these people are used to high class and pompous
business guests who don't require the same attention we do. It was a culture shock for us to deal with 5 star hotel staff as convention staff and
it was culture shock for them to deal with 20 somethings in home made colorful costumes asking about things like "Bang Bang Neko" panels and
pocky club's whereabouts. It all probably sounded exactly like japanese to them, making them confused and frustrated and feeling like they were
wrangling 8 year olds for a barney convention. So thats how they started treating it, and it seemed to make things easier. When I started treating
them like how I want to be treated at my hotel, their demeanor changed instantly to the standard hotel concierge type person, at least until
someone started trying to go the wrong way down the walk way or tried to sneak by them down the escalator. ^_^ it's all in how you viewed it.
While I wont deny that it was incredibly wrong of them to be rude and incosiderate and angry, I do understand that it was all a matter of
miscommunication and confusions with rule changes that didn't apply to our type of group. As a frequent customer service worker (many jobs
titles but the same job) I know better than most that sometimes, the customer is NOT right, and while I don't know every given situation, I
can tell you I saw a lot of really abnoxious young and old people expecting that since they knew this or that, they ought to be allowed to do
whatever it was convention staff or hotel staff wasn't letting them do. Infact, I watched on while waiting for a panel to open in LIVE 1, a young
man bicker with that poor guy who was probably their almost the entire convention about his mask and why it was "THE STUPIDIST Blanking THING
IN THE Blanking WORLD THAT YOU CANT WEAR A MASK IN THE Blanking HOTEL!" I was shocked, because the poor guy (right or wrong for asking
the guy to take off his mask) was just relaying the message that had been set forth by the hotel and was getting chewed out by a kid just because
he didn't like the rules... sometimes i wonder how long before customer service dies due to the inconsiderate actions of those who think they
own the world just because they paid to be there.
Oh, and as a side note, if anyone shoved you, you should have filed a police report then and there for assault or at the very least filed a complaint
with hotel management, because touching you is NEVER okay, no matter what.
~Allykat
