I am not sure what argument you are refering to in terms of Sak-con...
But, I will let you know that you needn't worry about Kumoricon becoming
Sakura-con. At least not in the close years. We don't have the funding, the
backing, the attendance rate or staffing to be that big. We also have the
problem of being too close to Sakura-con to justify being just like them.
They are an industry convention - meaning they do a lot of stuff that is primarily
run by industry reps and leaders. You wont see many panels there done by
fans or about fan stuff. What you will see is a lot of great info from some of the
best up-and comming Anime/Manga creators, VA's and artists out there as well
as previews and exclusives that you might not get elsewhere. There will also
be a lot of people and a lot more activity. Thats just what being a big convention
industry grown is all about.
WE are a fan based convention - meaning our clients in panel and artists alley and
vendors hall and everything we do are very low key, low budget and high effort
groups. We do panels about anything and everything, have many different types of
Guests of Honor and a decent number of activities for our size. As far as I understand
it we do NOT get corporate funding from the big Anime companies, we do NOT have
Funamation/bandai/gainax logos all over our staff shirts and K-con merch cause they
don't pay us to be involved. WE sometimes pay THEM to have some small amount of
their content and in return we get cool viewings or giveaways or whatever we may
ask for. And it's all up to them what we get. Most of the stuff is all run by fans for fans.
That wont change for a good long time, especially because of Sakura-con. Two main
stream industry cons just could not function in this area, not yet anyway. We'd be
fighting all the time for content and guests and sponsors and it would be a nightmare,
and a battle that we'd end up loosing because we would be fighting Sakura-con, who
HELPS us with most things, and are also already in contracts and negotiations with
these companies, they would not be likely to break contract with a bigger and better
convention, if we were to switch over.
Other than that I'm not sure the bad vibes you get from Sakura-con. Everything is run
differently, and as far as I've seen Sak may share some of our staff and board, but they
have a different way for everything! (or almost everything) because everything they do
is done differently then how we have to do it... their influnce is more of a leg up then
an elbow in the way...
It's just kinda hard to see that cause we are in the shadow of our big sister! I know it's
hard to see the bright shinny new day, because problems will always occur... years of
epic fail will happen and dreams will be crushed into athousand pieces.... but we are like
the pheonix... and the rainbow after the storm clouds! We will arise anew! we will defend
whats ours! And no one can take that belief in the future of our very own Portland/Oregon
convention away from us! NO ONE!!!
*takes a breath*
....what was I saying?
Oh yeah... don't stress Sakura-con, it's just a different kind of ramen up there!
~Allykat
I hope ThiefKingsHier will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what he might be saying is: Because a lot of people who work for Sakura-con also work for or work with Kumoricon, there's a danger of attitude poisoning. (Not just attitude problems created by the situation.)
From working for WAY too long in retail, I think he has a very legitimate concern - the "bad apple" principle, i.e. one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel. Person 1 is having a bad day and does ABC wrong thing. People 2 and 3 see this and thinks that DEF isn't so wrong, since someone's getting away with ABC. People 4, 5, and 6 see others getting away with ABC and DEF, so is it really that bad to do GHI? And so on... it quickly downspirals, because what "someone else" is doing
always looks worse to us than what we're doing.
But I'm not as worried about it as it might sound, because I believe we already have the antidotes to this in place: 1) People who believe the best of each other; 2) A responsibility-based hierarchy rather than a power-based one. This can be exasperating in its own way, I admit - it's horribly frustrating to bring up legitimate concerns about what a staffer is doing wrong and immediately be greeted with "Well, they were probably just having a bad day" or "Were they being provoked?" But it means that instead of spreading like wildfire (i.e. the above scenario), nasty behavior tends to get damped out very quickly.
Attendees don't see it, because staff don't want to publicly trash-talk each other, but people who repeatedly act like jerks
will get privately asked about it. Most of the time, that itself will be enough to encourage them to tone down. When it's not, usually the person will find themselves increasingly isolated until they either shape up or ship out. It's not an absolute solution - but absolutes work very poorly in a volunteer environment. They're best left to the workplace, where the relationships are ones of power... and I have serious doubts about how effective they are even there. It may not be very heartening to know that so-and-so who yelled at us won't get "written up" for it. But the alternative is to try to make it a hire/fire scenario, with the board being the "owners" and the directors being the "managers," and whoever the directors don't like will get "fired."
That would be an absolutely sure-fire way to ruin Kumoricon.People don't generally "work" without "reward." At Kumoricon, the reward is feeling like you're making the world a better place for your con family, for people you care about. In the workplace, the reward is money. Take away both, and what do you get? The only staff who'll be willing to stay without getting paid will be the ones who get the "reward" of bossing others around. To get an idea of how well that works, try watching the way ill-paid prison guards usually treat those under their care.
I'm glad that we have the system as it is now, with the board being more like chaperones and the directors being team leaders who work with their groups instead of bossing them around or arbitrarily deciding who will get "hired" and who will get "fired." It keeps things warm and caring, like a family rather than like a workplace. Sometimes it means that jerky behavior doesn't get stomped on immediately, and that attendees won't get the "vindication" of watching the person who treated them badly get humiliated. But it works a
lot better than the alternative. Try to force power into the equation, and you'd very quickly end up with power-tripping staffers who would make the worst of the hotel staff this year look like saints.
