Rant & Rave (for those who missed it)

[Neko_Chan]

I had to leave early but I think that it would be a good idea anyway for people who had to leave early or didnt attend the rant and rave to have their raves and rants heard on the fourms, yes?

I would first love to rave about all the lovely people that attended our lolita panels and events. Thank you so much! And for the people in programming and in helping set up all the media things for us and for making everything run smoothly in the panels (a special shoutout to Poncho, even though he wont read this, for being such an AMAZING hotel catering staff member).

Also a rave about the pre-registered attendees line. I think that mailing out the badges was the best idea EVER and it was so well organized and it was run really smoothly.

Thank you to Maid Squad. I was so busy that I didnt get to help but thank you to all the kind girls and boys who helped move the lines along.

And then a little rant, I remember that Panelists had discounts and differnet badges in years past and I think that would encourage more people to be involved and do panels aswell.

And than about lines in general at the con. Trying to get people to come into our lolita sewing panel while the masqurade, bakazoku reunion and voice acting panels were going on was the worst and the lines were horrible. People were blocking the signs that we had made and we couldnt find any one officail to help move the lines along. Later we were sitting on the very right hand of the staircase near where the Slants were signing autographs, etc, after dancing oin stage we were SOO whiped out and a staff member kindly asked us to move. We werent blocking anyone and I thought it funny that people just seem to sit down WHEVER THEY WANT (aka in elvators, infront of elevators, infront of doors, infront of stairs, in the middle of the hallways, ETC) and are never asked to move while we four girls were asked to move after five or so minutes from a so called "fire hazard". It was like "where the heck were you a few hours ago?" and he just said that he was busy. So line controll and that sort of management went on and off but was generall not in our favor.

[Rushifa]

On the rave side, I had a great time this year!  Everyone was really nice, especially the hotel staff, suprisingly, and there seemed to be a lot more to do this year than last.

On the rant side, I have a few more problems...sorry, as they say, the bad always stands out more than the good:

First, the layout was a little wierd.  It was nice to have a big area for the Excibition Hall, but it felt wierd having to go out and around to get to it.  Also, once you were inside, it felt really confusing.  The poor Artist's Alley was tucked in the veyr back, and I know a lot of people never made it back there.  Next time I think Artist's Alley should be in the front, so you can pass all the pretty artwork on your way to the general venders.  Maybe even outside, so you can puruse while in line, or something (not with the parking garage set up, but if it were indoors).  It also seemed that alot of booths all sold the same stuff, and were all lumped together.

The hotel also had some layout issues (I know we had no control over it, but still).  It was really annoying having to go into an entirely different area to get to the up elevators.  It was kind of dizzying to go from hotel room to exhibition hall, and then back.  Also, we couldn't have very many people in the elevators, but from the first floor there was no access to the stairs!  I thought that was just odd.

Ok, last complaint, I swear!  I wish the mascuarade had been, well...more what it had been promised to be.  None of the music was very ballroom-dancy-y, and there wasn't much room in the hall.  I was all ready to waltz, but even the slow songs weren't very appropriate.  I want to see it happen next year, but I want it to work better!   Also, it seems like it should have been on saturday night, instead of sunday.  I ended up not going to the cosplay event so I could go to the ballroom dancing lessons, and then never actually went to them because of the long line.  It was...kind of disapointing.

Ok, to leave on a happy note, the gaming room was really comfortable, and pre-reg seemed to work really well! go staff!

[maetel]

a million thanks to Rian who was SO helpful and great at communicating with me to get everything organized for the tea party (and to get things for the other panels). AHHH SERIOUSLY I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH!!! there aren't enough exclaimation points in the world
and thank you very much to the panel guy in the red jacket/costume, you were a great help too! (sorry i totally forgot your name ;___;)
thank you for all the great people who came to the Lolita panels
thank you to all the staff for treating The Slants so well. they had an awesome time!



THUMBS DOWN to:
- the guy doing the "guns in anime" panel right before the Lolita Sewing panel who was a jerk and would NOT wrap it up and leave until 15min after the Lolita Sewing panel was supposed to start. not cool.
- the very drunk guy in his underwear who pounded on our door at 2am Friday night and asked if it was his room. then asked if he could sleep on the floor and got mad when i said NO. i have no idea who you are, gtfo plz.

[Irate Beldam]

And than about lines in general at the con. Trying to get people to come into our lolita sewing panel while the masqurade, bakazoku reunion and voice acting panels were going on was the worst and the lines were horrible. People were blocking the signs that we had made and we couldnt find any one officail to help move the lines along. Later we were sitting on the very right hand of the staircase near where the Slants were signing autographs, etc, after dancing oin stage we were SOO whiped out and a staff member kindly asked us to move. We werent blocking anyone and I thought it funny that people just seem to sit down WHEVER THEY WANT (aka in elvators, infront of elevators, infront of doors, infront of stairs, in the middle of the hallways, ETC) and are never asked to move while we four girls were asked to move after five or so minutes from a so called "fire hazard". It was like "where the heck were you a few hours ago?" and he just said that he was busy. So line controll and that sort of management went on and off but was generall not in our favor.

I agree.

I think that, if there's going to be someone doing crowd-control and such, they need to be thurough--and there needs to be more individuals conducting that job.

You can't tell some people to move, and not others.

It seems like they only had one guy on crowd control, and obviously, he can't be everywhere at once.
There needs to be more people.


I can understand that *too* many people on a staircase could be a fire hazard, but there were only four of us.
Also, there were DOZENS of people blocking the exit doors TEN FEET away from us.


I don't think I'd be worried about the stairs.
Why do the stairs matter, if by the time the con-goers got down them they couldn't make it out the exit doors and burned to death anyway because fifty people were sitting there? :/

[Ryu-chan]

Rant: yea the layout was so weird =X, the dating game was too short ;o; i...think thats all lol, everything else seemed to run by smoothly with a bit of normal technical errors.

Rave: the reg. line was long and hot but i loved how people would bring out water and such (actually i didnt have to be in the line cause i pre-reg, but i was in it anyways cause im an airhead LOL)
the peeps aka ones running the con were so helpful like when i lost my badge while dancing *yay!*

[Kimiski]

MY RANT:

See my post in the "I know I said this last year, but..." thread in the help, suggestions, complains forum.
Thank you!

[melchizedek]

I should start with the positive.   I commuted so I never experienced the hotel the whole weekend thing.  I was glad about the parking.  I NEVER had to pay for parking and always parked within a mile of the hotel.   

The registration people were amazing.  I still had the miserable memories of waiting in the sakuracon line for 2 hours even though I was pre reg, it seemed like there wasn't ever much of a line to get in. 

There were quite a bit of panels and when people didn't show for their own panel, some awesome people stepped up and ran the panel for them.  I thought that was way cool.

I also liked that the hotel had really good AC!!!!

As far things that could be improved on:

It seemed like some of the rooms had very thin walls.  Putting workshops next to the main while loudness was going maybe that wasn't such a great idea.  I didn't really like the layout of the hotel.  It seemed like a long narrow strip on two floors with access on both ends.  It would be better to have a space that is more square with better accessibility between floors.  Also, in the public areas it would have been nice if there was more seating.  Sometime I was hanging out and just wanted to sit back against a wall and watch the cosplayers go by. 

Also, I didn't really like the main room at all.  The stage was too low, I think it could have been a foot or two higher so that people on stage had better stage presence.   The room also was too small for some events.  I sat at the info desk just hanging out and so many people were disappointed that they couldn't get into the cosplay contest.  If there isn't a bigger room next year this'll be even worse. 

There was some problems with the sound system setup in the main area.  I don't know what it was but the quality of sound seemed quite low for how much stuff they had set up.  Things didn't sound mixed well at all for either of the two shows I went to.  I think there maybe is some equipment that needs to be replaced.  Or some more time doing sound checks.

Also, speaking of concerts, 1pm on monday seems a weird time to have a show.  Maybe it would have been better to have bands play back to back.

The viewing rooms were too small.  Almost all the time I went into one people were standing.  I also wasn't too impressed with the selection in the viewing rooms, maybe I'm picky but nothing really kept me there for more than an episode or two.

I also think that there should be more time / space to dances.  The ballroom dance (which I didn't goto because I'm deathly afraid of long lines) could be in the biggest room and be 4 hours instead of 2. 

I'd rather that the yojimbos be a little less assertive sometimes.  It seemed like a few people that were harmless got dealt with rather harshly.

[hikaru_maxwell]

Rave: Most of the convention was wonderful.  I was actually very happy with the room size compared to last year.  I mean, there was actually ROOM in many of the panels, and the really popular ones weren't overflowing with people who had to stand.

The hotel staff were polite, most of the con staff were wonderful also.  I absolutely loved that the J-rock room kept going to the very end when my friends and I went to go watch, even though they were empty and about to deconstruct. It really made the day for quite a few of us who were looking for something to do.

Rant: Inconsistency.  After being told by several staff members (quite nicely) that something we were doing was okay (with conditions like not overcrowding the elevators or doing things that were unsafe inside the hotel), it was quite a shock to have a particular staff member more than once (and quite rudely) inform people in our group that what we were doing was "not allowed" even though we had already been told it was alright, and there weren't any rules in the con handbook or the hotel rules that we could see that prevented it.  Even the hotel staff hadn't said it wasn't okay.

So my rant is basically that ALL the staff need to be clear on what it is and isnt okay for congoers to do (or where to sit), and that it would be lovely if they could be POLITE when asking for people to move out of the way or for them to stop something they're doing. Being treated badly by con staff makes for not as much of an enjoyable experience, and also might make it so fewer people want to repeat their con experience.

That is all.

[Neko_Chan]

Oh, and my friends and I pinned out badges to the waists on ours skirts/jumpers and we wore them like that for all of friday and saturday and it was only of late evening on sunday one staff member told us to wear them on our upper torso but we honestly didnt want to put holes in our blouses and the layards are too much of a hassle. And when put on with the lanyard, the badge is literally... one inch above where it would be where we pinned it. I understand the lanyard is given to us specifically but I just felt like it wasnt a big deal to pin in to ourselves.

[Irate Beldam]

I can understand the premise behind needing the red lanyards to recognize con-goers easily.

BUT.

Even people with red lanyards could easily fake being a con-goer. Most of the time (While I still had my red lanyard) the badge kept getting flipped around, so only the white back of the card was visible.

And if you need a rule for red lanyards, you might as well make a rule that every con goer has to look at their badge every fifteen seconds to make sure it's not flipped around.


I'm sure a lot of people got into Kumoricon events simply because they had a red lanyard, but no one bothered to check their actual card.

"Oh, they have a LANYARD. They must have paid for admission."


Personally I think if you want to check someone's badge, if it's really a big deal, you need to physically go up to them, look at it, and make an effort to see if they actually are con-goers are not.

Don't just stand by a door and try to pick out the red lanyards from amongst the crowd. :/

[Rushifa]

Oh, I remembered another rant!  The AMV Contest was physically painful.  And I don't mean the selection of videos.  I mean, the bas was -way- too loud.  There were a few instances when I was bored out of my mind because I couldn't actually hear any of the lyrics/dialogue in  a video due to the bass overpowering it.  I left there very unhappy, with a horrible headache.

Still on the AMV contest, I think it went on way too long.  They annouced that they had included, what was it, twice as many videos as last year?  I don't view this as a good thing. Alot of the videos didn't make any sense if you hadn't seen the series to completion, and I think because they didn't weed out more before the contest, the audience got stuck seeing more so-so videos than was necessary.  I mean, there were still alot of good videos, but by the end I was too tired and headache-y to really appreciate them. 

[Flatline]

Alright, as a Yojimbo I personally apologize for any inconveniences. I realize that the lines were long, and that it was difficult for a lot of people, and I wish there was a way to make things run faster, but there were definitely staff members that tried their hardest (Especially at the registration desks, they worked as fast as they could) to really get things done well for everybody. It's tough work manning a con of 3,000 people.

Onto my rant. This isn't directed at any one specific person or group, but just something I'd like to say.

Being staff, especially Yojimbo, is VERY difficult work. Yes, we have our communication problems, yes, we may have some stupid policies, and yes, some of us may not be nice. But really, some of us break our backs to keep things safe, orderly, and hopefully fun. This is especially true for Yojimbo. A lot of us work for pretty much the entire convention, often with few breaks and little (sometimes no) sleep at all. And all this is volunteer work. We volunteer our time for people, and I know that there are times when it may seem like we're only about rules and other things, but I'd just like to try to mention that we really do work hard. Sometimes I feel like it's a thankless job, honestly. I actually didn't do much at the convention at all because I was working quite frequently. Sometimes I'd get free time, then immediately get called up to do yet another shift with no relief for quite some time. This is something that I know most, if not all Yojimbo have to deal with. And it almost seems like some people have more to rant about than to rave about. I just hope we can do better for everyone next year, and I apologize for this year's problems.

[Kyuubi]

This year, I took a step that I didn’t think I’d be taking until I had a good few years of K-con under my belt. But since my sister and friend pushed me into it, I had no choice. I was appoint the Signage King of this year’s Kumoricon. You’ll see my name in the Con book with the title Signage Coordinator. And, here’s my little tiny rant/rave on that:

1- I loved doing it. It was great helping out the convention and seeing the fruits of my work being printed out (Awesome job on the printing job, Meg. :3 ) And seeing them be used. I hoped they were helpful to the people. Next year, I’ll make more to allow for different uses for them.

2 – My only little gripe of it was that I was the only one doing it. Normally, I’m fine with being the sole person of doing something. I did it mostly in school anyway. But, I would have loved to have an assistant, or a Co-Signage Coordinator next to me to help me make the signs that the staff needed during the convention.

Okay, off of the signage stuff. And now onto the con-goer stuff. I didn’t have much stuff to argue about, mainly because I was running around doing staff things like making signs or helping with registration. I do agree with people that the layout was a little wonky this year, but it was easier to find my way around than it was at the Red Lion. And the late knowledge that we could use the stairs was a little annoying. But, I can look around that.

All in all, this con was the 2nd greatest one that I’ve been to. And I’m going to keep coming.

p.s. Dang my resolution for making my posts short! D:

[Irate Beldam]

@Flatline:
Well, part of your post seems like it was obviously just directed at something I/ others said, so there's no point in saying it wasn't directed at any particular person/ group since it sort of was, so there's no point in saying it wasn't. XD
If it wasn't directed at us, they sorry. : P Otherwise, it must be a conicidence that you directly replied to something I was talking about just two posts before you~


Anyway, I think it's great that there's so many wonderful individuals willing to volunteer. Without them, the con wouldn't be possible!

However, if someone volunteered and then says "Aw, I didn't get to go to many events at the convention..."
Well, they did sign up to be a volunteer, so they should be expecting as much.
I don't think many people, including myself, are inclided to feel sorry for someone who didn't get to do many events when they signed up to be a helper of their own accord.

I'm very sure you were all doing hard work. I could tell by how exhaused so many volunteers looked, and you can bet every single con goer who had fun really respects that.
However, in the professional world, no one cares if "You didn't get a break." or "You were tired." Or "I couldn't do two things at once!!"
I have a job. And *I* don't get people feeling sorry for me.
I have to work really  hard and if it's not good enough, I'll get fired.
No one feels sorry for me if I don't get a break or if I've been on my feet for twelve hours.
A job is a job, and if the job is too much for someone, they shouldn't take it.


People are more likely to give out rants, though, because I think most people feel that the good things that went on are ovbious and unspoken.

Also, people that were just regular con-goers don't necessairly know what kind of work goes into making a convention like this, so they can't fesibly thank helpers and staff for something that ran flawlessly which they have no knowledge of. All they can point out is the things that went wrong since that's all they were able to notice.

The fact that there have been VERY few different rants so far indicates that all you helpers were doing a wonderdful job for the most part!

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, I'm just defending my point--the con went really well, simply not perfectly, considering nothing is perfect.

Some things could have gone a tad better, and there are ALWAYS things to be improved upon, in cons, in life--in anything.

[kylite]

while i can understand your view bedlam, I must point one thing out.

Yes we DO volunteer and thus we don't get to see many events, but we DO get to be treated like trash by quite a few people who think that since we are staff, that they can just disregard what we say or yell at us on a regular basis for doing our jobs. 

I know you were not one of those who did BUT that is what happens.

so next time you see someone just doing their job at a convention to help clear a hall, or guard a door or seat people at an event, a simple thank you can make a world of difference. we are after all humans too.

[Irate Beldam]

while i can understand your view bedlam, I must point one thing out.

Yes we DO volunteer and thus we don't get to see many events, but we DO get to be treated like trash by quite a few people who think that since we are staff, that they can just disregard what we say or yell at us on a regular basis for doing our jobs. 

I know you were not one of those who did BUT that is what happens.

so next time you see someone just doing their job at a convention to help clear a hall, or guard a door or seat people at an event, a simple thank you can make a world of difference. we are after all humans too.

Well, it's not really a view, it's a  fact.

Some thirteen year old con goer who has no idea how things work behind the scenes at a con shouldn't be expected to thank someone for something they don't understand and couldn't *possibly* know.


I do understand what you're saying, though, it's a thankless job, but a lot of people work in thankless jobd in real life, including myself.


I don't know why anyone would treat a volunteer like trash, though, that's kind of rude.

It's not like I don't appriciate them of course, it's just that if someone says "PLEASE MOVE NOW, YOU'RE BLOCKING THE HALL" with a sarcastic voice and rolls their eyes, my saying "Thank you! n__n" at that point would seem a bit out of place, to say the least.


Maybe next year on the last day of the con there should be like...hmm, a "Volunteer Thank You!" panel or something?

I think that sounds kind of interesting!

[Teuvan]

Rave:
The "Anime That Scarred Me For Life" panel was amazing. Way better than I expected. I'll try to catch it every time the con has it from now on.
Over Nine Thousand was also very awesome. Panels driven by the audience's questions always seem to be the most entertaining, and Sean was an excellent speaker.
Anime Hunters was surprisingly funny. When I first heard about, I saw an FF7 reference and immediately ruled it out. But I ended up dropping by the panel anyway, and it turned out to be very funny.
This year's dance was actually the first dance of any kind I've ever attended. That said, I enjoyed it quite a lot. I almost feel bad for skipping it in favor of the Gankutsuou showing last year, but Gankutsuou is incredibly awesome, and that particular showing was lots of fun.
The Host Club Tea Party was lots of fun, even though I never actually got a cup of tea.
Both the Slants and A-Key Kyo concerts were great. I'd love to see them again, especially A-Key Kyo (just out of personal preference; both bands are great at their respective genres).
The charity auction was more fun than I'd expected. I bought the Pyramid Head costume piece and Vash's 100% aluminum foil gun, both of which I absolutely love.
The exhibitors hall was great. Much better than last year, which says quite a lot. I found out about several very talented artists and ended up spending a small fortune on artbooks and doujinshi. Although I spent enough on Type Moon fan material to feed a small country for a year, I HAVE NO REGRETS IN MY EXISTENCE!

Rant:
I'm pretty annoyed by the cosplay contest. I was told by a staffer that the line would be inside, but I eventually noticed the line was forming outside. At that point, the line was at a ridiculous length, and I'd have lined up earlier if I had known the line existed. After I finally got to the back of the line, we were informed of a ten minute delay. Apparently, the ten minute delay was for the announcement of another ten minute delay, which actually turned out to be a twenty minute delay. I can understand there being delays, but if you can't give an accurate estimate of how long a delay is going to be then don't give one at all. I'd rather be left in the dark entirely than hear "10 mins to go lol...until we tell you to wait 10 mins again that is lololol...and by that we mean 20 minutes LORFMA."

Finally, we were seated. I ended up in a seat sorta toward the middle of the room, which I was sorta surprised by since I was near the back of the line. Figured I'd be in the far back corner. Well, it turned out I might as well have been. I could hardly see anything, and it was also pretty difficult to make out what was being said over the speakers as well. The randomly inserted technical problems did not help the situation. The main problem, in any case, was not being able to see what's going on. I mean, what's the point of having a COSPLAY contest when a large portion of the audience can hardly see the performers? Correct me if I'm just sounding stupid, but couldn't there have been a view screen showing what's happening on-stage? I'm not an audio visual expert, but I can't imagine such a thing being hard to do. And it would have made a huge difference to the people in the back rows. Keep in mind that I'm not the only person who had trouble seeing things, and that I came across several others who shared my annoyance. In any case, I'll probably skip the contest next year unless I hear plans to make it more accessible.

Other than that, my only real problem was with the hotel layout. It wasn't absolutely horrible, but it wasn't properly set up for a convention like this. But since the con's being held at a different one next year, I guess there's no reason to complain.

[Kyrraven]

I've got to put in a rave for the anime piped into our hotel room! There were two channels showing anime throughout the con... very nice!

[Irate Beldam]

I've got to put in a rave for the anime piped into our hotel room! There were two channels showing anime throughout the con... very nice!

I thought that was kinnda neat when I ran across it! At first I thought there were like, anime channels on cable in Washington or something. x3

[Shiv]

This first part is actually a response, mostly to address Bedlam's points regarding yojimbo:
EXTRA IMPORTANT PRE-EMPTIVE EDIT: I'm not angry at Bedlam, or really anyone, at all! I want to clarify this ahead of time. I'm not even agitated. Please keep this in mind when figuring the tone of the post while reading it.

As a yojimbo, you get to know the inner workings of things, to a degree, and the safety and liability concerns that go along with a con. Most people don't think about these things, but if we were to ignore them entirely the con could not continue to exist. What most people also don't realize is that we're simply trying to keep you all safe and the con alive for years to come because we, too, enjoy having a con where everyone can geek out (and I use this term affectionately, because it also applies to me) over anime and have fun with other people who share their interests.

If you think it's annoying to be moved in the hallways, to have to move closer to the wall when in line, or to be relocated when sitting somewhere, try thinking about the other side of the coin: How annoying would it be to you if you couldn't get through the hallway because people were inconsiderately standing in the middle of it, completely oblivious to the fact that they were obstructing you from your destination, or forcing you to uncomfortably squeeze or muscle your way through? What if you were running late for the panel you wanted to see, all the way across the hotel, and all the hallways were haphazardly filled with people? Most importantly, what if there was an emergency, or better yet, what if you were the person having the emergency, and help was delayed because the hallways had to be cleared every single step of the way?

We're honestly not just bossing you around to be jerks, I can certainly vouch for the fact that the folks I worked closely with weren't. We care about your safety and convenience as a whole and the work we do is all for you.

I'd also like to add that inconsistency in enforcement of rules stems from a couple of causes. First off - we simply do not have enough people to enforce the rules at all times. The number one thing that would help this is if more people would volunteer for staffing, especially for yojimbo positions. One yojimbo simply can not possibly keep track of what everyone in a crowd around them is doing. Not even one really, really good yojimbo. One sleep-deprived-got-three-hours-of-sleep-been-walking-for-hours-on-end-and-had-one-break-for-food-all-day yojimbo, which is what we often get when we're short-staffed, is lucky to remember their room number by the end of the day, let alone attempt to keep track of what the hundred or so people around them are all doing. The final contributing factor, though, is the fact that many, many things are simply judgment calls on the part of the individual. A yojimbo walking by at one time may consider your current location or activity to be safe, another may not. The yojimbo in question may even be mistaken on their call in any given instance, but the fact is that people often see things very differently.

Another thing I'd like to add, and this is specifically regarding a parallel you've drawn, Bedlam, is that you can't really liken this to a job. None of us are paid. In fact, though many people are not aware of this, we actually still pay to be staff, it's not a free ticket. Additionally, we sink a lot of money into this between the hotel room itself (which is pretty much required if you want to have any hope of getting where you need to be on time, let alone stumbling back to your hotel bed/floor when the long day is done), feeding ourselves, and transportation - those on staff who travel from out of state or the further out cities spend a good chunk of money on gas alone.

Finally, it is not a fact that you should not expect to thank a person for helping you or other people, let alone for volunteering their time and energy in such copious amounts. If you would thank a person simply for holding a door or saying "bless you" when you sneeze (and I hope you would), why wouldn't you thank them for helping to staff an event that you look forward to for months, or even the entirety of the year?

To wrap this bit up, while it does sound like a rant, and actually largely is one, the real reason I've wrote it is I thought it would be fair to let everyone (this is not targeted solely at Bedlam, I really am sorry if it feels that way) know why things are the way they are and to better inform you so you may know what things are like on the other side of the fence. We often feel under-appreciated for the work we do, but anyone can help to fix that by at least understanding why it is we do what we do and helping us to help your fellow con-goers.

So, on a lighter note, do the right thing: Hug a yojimbo next con and tell them thank you. It would make their day!

My apologies for this issue hijacking the thread. We now return you to your regularly scheduled rants and raves:


I didn't miss the rant and rave, but here's a few points on the con (from a less-staff-ish viewpoint) I thought I'd share with those who did:

RANTS:

• Volume level of The Slants concert

-The music was so loud you could hardly hear it, if that makes any sense. I'm not one for earplugs, but working the door at the far end of the event hall I finally gave in and used earplugs. I honestly couldn't tell you if the music was any good because it was nearly impossible to really listen to it. The sound check was sounding pretty good, but then they turned up the volume... This was pretty much already mentioned in the rant and rave, but I figure it's worth mentioning again.

• Elevators

-It's pretty much pointless to complain about this, because they're a bottleneck in any hotel, but the elevators were a huge slowdown both for attendees and staff, and stairs are enough to make anyone curse their every step after so many hours on your feet. These elevators also felt disconcertingly underpowered for such a new location. This is beyond the power of the convention to fix, but not immune to my desire to complain about it.

• Not enough yojimbo

-There were not enough yojimbo to keep things moving smoothly everywhere at all times. Things slipped under the radar that shouldn't have simply because there weren't enough people to address all issues at once.

RAVES (Yay):

• Anime on the TVs

-That was a nice touch. Very awesome.

• People in general

-You're a great group, honestly! Especially this year. I liked attending, but I like working on staff even more because it's really satisfying to volunteer for a convention with so many nice, friendly people. It's what keeps me coming back.

• The people in lines

-Okay, so this is from a yojimbo point of view, but people in lines were amazingly patient, and for the most part, very understanding of the fact that the yojimbo had to keep the impact of the line minimized on traffic flow, with the exception of corners, but everyone knows its hard to keep the corners well organized, especially when you're with friends. Yes, yojimbo know that too, believe it or not  . You guys were really awesome this year.

• Nearby park

-Having a (clean, safe) park nearby to go have fun or relax outside in was nice. I didn't spend any time out there that wasn't en route to get food, find a roommate, or pick up trash, but the time spent out there was relaxing. Yay for having a reason to go outside.

• Vendors' Area

-The space was laaaarge. Very nice. Lots of cool things to buy... unless you are poor like me and have no job ;_; Though I still bought a few toys because I have no willpower.. sigh

[SandPuppeteer]

Rave: Dealer's room. Excellent choice, I think. No over-crowding due to limited space. The fans kept everything cool. And because it was in a place built to dampen the noise of cars, it didn't get mind-numbingly loud like dealers rooms can be.

Dance lessons. Although it was over crowded, it was an awesome idea and the instructors did far better than I expected when it came to handling the people.

Rant: Mask making was really poorly organized. All of the supplies were squished onto one table, with only one person running things back and forth.

Masquerade. What the hell was up with the music? Did someone just pull out their anime music collection and play it on random? I did have fun, but I expected something a little...fancier. If I'd wanted random music and goofing off I would have gone to one of the other two dances. I understand not making masks mandatory in the end, but completely trashing the whole masquerade concept? The conga line didn't help matters much.

Mixed feelings:
Staff. Most of the staff was amazingly helpful, and I know they were trying their best. But some people were just flat out rude. I was half an hour late to the masquerade and ran to the door, thinking people were lining up for other things. When I asked the guy at the door if I was in the right place, he just looked at me and said "uh...line!" and that was it.

Location. I was a little uncertain when I heard it was in Vancouver. The biggest draw back is getting there. Next year, there won't be any weekend service between Portland and Vancouver. But the hotel itself was great. Most people are saying that the layout was weird, but I liked it. Two decently open areas was nice. Plus the park was awesome for photoshoots. So in other words: building itself is a plus, physical location is a drawback.

[hitokiri]

So, on a lighter note, do the right thing: Hug a yojimbo next con and tell them thank you. It would make their day!

I always smiled or waved or thanked the people running the gaming area, because the people at the entrance/exit seemed bored sitting in the chair. ^_^

Thaaank you yojimbo people!    This was my first year and I only made it to 2/3 days, but I'm for sure gonna pre-reg for next year as soon as I can, because I had a awesome time this year.

[melchizedek]

I must admit, the gaming area was ran extremely smoothly.  Great job.

[Irate Beldam]

This first part is actually a response, mostly to address Bedlam's points regarding yojimbo:
EXTRA IMPORTANT PRE-EMPTIVE EDIT: I'm not angry at Bedlam, or really anyone, at all! I want to clarify this ahead of time. I'm not even agitated. Please keep this in mind when figuring the tone of the post while reading it.

As a yojimbo, you get to know the inner workings of things, to a degree, and the safety and liability concerns that go along with a con. Most people don't think about these things, but if we were to ignore them entirely the con could not continue to exist. What most people also don't realize is that we're simply trying to keep you all safe and the con alive for years to come because we, too, enjoy having a con where everyone can geek out (and I use this term affectionately, because it also applies to me) over anime and have fun with other people who share their interests.

If you think it's annoying to be moved in the hallways, to have to move closer to the wall when in line, or to be relocated when sitting somewhere, try thinking about the other side of the coin: How annoying would it be to you if you couldn't get through the hallway because people were inconsiderately standing in the middle of it, completely oblivious to the fact that they were obstructing you from your destination, or forcing you to uncomfortably squeeze or muscle your way through? What if you were running late for the panel you wanted to see, all the way across the hotel, and all the hallways were haphazardly filled with people? Most importantly, what if there was an emergency, or better yet, what if you were the person having the emergency, and help was delayed because the hallways had to be cleared every single step of the way?

We're honestly not just bossing you around to be jerks, I can certainly vouch for the fact that the folks I worked closely with weren't. We care about your safety and convenience as a whole and the work we do is all for you.

I'd also like to add that inconsistency in enforcement of rules stems from a couple of causes. First off - we simply do not have enough people to enforce the rules at all times. The number one thing that would help this is if more people would volunteer for staffing, especially for yojimbo positions. One yojimbo simply can not possibly keep track of what everyone in a crowd around them is doing. Not even one really, really good yojimbo. One sleep-deprived-got-three-hours-of-sleep-been-walking-for-hours-on-end-and-had-one-break-for-food-all-day yojimbo, which is what we often get when we're short-staffed, is lucky to remember their room number by the end of the day, let alone attempt to keep track of what the hundred or so people around them are all doing. The final contributing factor, though, is the fact that many, many things are simply judgment calls on the part of the individual. A yojimbo walking by at one time may consider your current location or activity to be safe, another may not. The yojimbo in question may even be mistaken on their call in any given instance, but the fact is that people often see things very differently.

Another thing I'd like to add, and this is specifically regarding a parallel you've drawn, Bedlam, is that you can't really liken this to a job. None of us are paid. In fact, though many people are not aware of this, we actually still pay to be staff, it's not a free ticket. Additionally, we sink a lot of money into this between the hotel room itself (which is pretty much required if you want to have any hope of getting where you need to be on time, let alone stumbling back to your hotel bed/floor when the long day is done), feeding ourselves, and transportation - those on staff who travel from out of state or the further out cities spend a good chunk of money on gas alone.

Finally, it is not a fact that you should not expect to thank a person for helping you or other people, let alone for volunteering their time and energy in such copious amounts. If you would thank a person simply for holding a door or saying "bless you" when you sneeze (and I hope you would), why wouldn't you thank them for helping to staff an event that you look forward to for months, or even the entirety of the year?

To wrap this bit up, while it does sound like a rant, and actually largely is one, the real reason I've wrote it is I thought it would be fair to let everyone (this is not targeted solely at Bedlam, I really am sorry if it feels that way) know why things are the way they are and to better inform you so you may know what things are like on the other side of the fence. We often feel under-appreciated for the work we do, but anyone can help to fix that by at least understanding why it is we do what we do and helping us to help your fellow con-goers.

So, on a lighter note, do the right thing: Hug a yojimbo next con and tell them thank you. It would make their day!

[/size]

It's pretty obvious you're trying to keep people safe, of course! It's just that, if a con goer who is simply walking around get yelled at by a volunteer everywhere they step to, that's not giving them a pleasent con experience.

The other side of the coin? Not being able to walk in the halls? That was actually already happening. During a panel my friends were running, both doors inside were completley blocked by a line to the masquerade ball. There was no one there then to move those people out of the way.
So we kindly asked the few people in the way if they could possibly step to the side for a few moments.
Now, take in to consideration that the panel we were running had just been taken over by the panel in front of it and had stolen a half an hour from our panel's time. Everything was very stressful, and no one was helping us.
And yet, we were still kind to the people who were standing in the way, and did not use harsh tones of voice to them when we requested that they give us a few feet of room.

I'm not saying all of the volunteers were mean, I'm simply trying to say a few of them were a bit snappy at times.
No matter the circumstance, do you think that's acceptable behavior for someone who is supposed to be acting in a professional manner at all times?


It's unfortunate that there's not enough volunteer members. However, if there aren't enough volunteers to run a convention this size, the convention needs to somehow aquire more volunteers OR have a cap on the con attendence to let less people in.

If there are only so many volunteers to account for so many individuals, the convention can't put too much on its plate.
One cannot simply blame lack of volunteers on things that go wrong. If there's not enough, get more, or make the con smaller.
It makes things seem really haphazard and unprofessional.



I actually considered the whole volunteer/ no pay thing right after I posted my last message.
But my parallel wasn't on the topic of money, more rather, on the *responsibility* of taking a job, paid, or *not*.
No matter what, if someone agrees to take a position, they need to realize they probably aren't going to be thanked.
It's sort of like the difference between an office worker and a house painter.
An office worker works behind the scenes, but all week painters have been re-doing our appartments paint, and I always feel the need to walk out and bring them lemonade because it's hot outside and they look tired and thirsty.
I thank the painters, but it's not like I thank the lady who sits in a desk out of the way at the bank when I deposit a check.

Some jobs are just more covienient to thank people in, and I think that's something people really need to understand.
It's really polite to thank people who make things work, but the thing is, you can't thank every single person you meet on the street, or your vocabularly 24/7/365 would just be one big "Thank you!"
It seems like you don't like the fact that people didn't give enough thanks, but just because someone didn't say thank you to you doesn't mean they didn't say thank you to someone else--it doesn't make them a bad person for not saying thank you right and left.

To me, though, seeing a bunch of kids have fun would be thanks enough for me, if I was a volunteer!

If, say, I was trapped in a crowded hallway and getting bumped around and a yojimbo came up and cleared the hall and made everything orderly, now that would be a cause for thanks.
It's just that if they specicfically tell someone to move when they don't want to or don't undertand why, saying thank you makes no sense.
That's like having someone do something negative to you and you replying with a positive.
You will meet VERY few people that will let you slap them and then reply with a "Thank you! n_n"
Of course I am saying it in no way directly corrilates with hitting someone, I'm simply trying to draw an intellectual parallel between using a positive to respond to a postitive, and a positive to repond to a negative.
I hope I wasn't too confusing there. x3


Honestly though it's not like I personally don't understand to a degree what dealing with a bunch of young kids as a volunteer is like--I've done in myself, and it's no picnic. I've been on "both sides of the fence," and I still feel the way that I do.

Well, I don't like people touching me so hugging is out, but if I see someone being helpful I will deffinitaly thank them. : )



I guess I'm just really really trying to put forth that with certian types of jobs on a certian basis, even if the working individuals deserve SO SO MUCH thanks, it's often not the place or time to give it.

I really think it would actually be nice to have a panel to thank the volunteers next year. Like, a special party or something with dinner and prizes that ONLY volunteers would be allowed to get.

If people know it's a volunteer basis but they have the possiblity of winning something at the end they'll be more likely to agree to volunteer.
I know it's mean to dangle a carrot in front of a horse but if you need more volunteers, give them the possiblity of getting something.
People naturally seem to want stuff, so that might work.


I hope that didn't come off as rude, because it certianly wasn't meant to. Just like you, I'm simply trying to indicate ways that might make the con work better. (Which is why I bolded a few things.)

I know everyone is working damn hard, it's just that working hard doesn't make everything flawless and perfect.
Just because I tried on my math test, my teacher isn't going to pass me for "good effort" if a few of the answers were incorrect.

That's the real world, and I think we should all try to live in it.

[TanisNikana]

I'm gonna put this big, bold and centered because I've said it every year and no one heard me at the actual event:

KUMORICON NEEDS TO BE A 24 HOUR CON

[/glow][/b]

That said, what are we supposed to do during 2-8 in the morning anyway? We are all wicked, none of us sleep.

[Daidouji]

Rant/Rave- I had problems with my pre-reg. It wasn't mailed to me so i went to the pre-reg desk and they sent me to will call. Then will call said they didn't print it off at all, so they sent me to registration, where they said they couldn't print any off at the moment so they gave me a day pass and told me to come back tomorrow. So, I did just that and was told that will call had some new prints. I headed over there and they said this was false and that I should go to registration. I got back to registration and they gave me a nameless badge that would still work and said I should come back later and they will print it off. So while it was pain to bounce back and forth from the same places, my rave for this was that most of the staff were very kind about it.

Rant- The music for the mascaraed ball didn't work out very well because they were mostly in 4/4 beat where as 3/3 is much better suited. Plus the room was way to small for all the people that were in there, my friends and I just left after about ten minutes because it was to crowded, and think that maybe they should pick a different time next year so it can be in the main/big room.

Rant-There was that guy at the FMA photo shoot that was rambling on about Ed being a shrimp, it was rather annoying and it was getting in the way of the phoyo shoot. haha

Rave- Amazing people! Everyone was so much fun and really nice! I had so much fun and didn't want it to end! ;_;/=D My friends are all saying the same thing and are really excited for next year haha.

[Saigin]

Rant- Friends and I went into the game room and we were told to check out anything it required ID, and the rules weren't clear enough so we went and asked a person at registration to learn that you DIDN'T need ID, so we went back in line, the front of the line and everyone cut us so we left came back an hour later and learned that you needed ID to check out stuff but one person could check out everything you need. So we finally got it all to work out.

Rant- The Super Smash Bros tournament was ridiculous, they asked for 10 minutes to figure out brackets only to wait half an hour to an hour for it to begin, then they tried having the same battles over and over again. It was awful.

Rave/Rant- We the Tetris pieces had so many pictures of us, we felt bad when people asked to have our picture in the middle of a hall stopping traffic flow. Also we kinda got tired  of getting pictures. But it was still alot of fun.

Rave-The Con was a blast, although confusing it was very enjoyable.

[gemineye42]

On behalf of gaming, thanks to everyone who had good things to say.

I'd love for Kumoricon to be 24 hours, but somehow I have the feeling that if we can barely manage to get enough staff to be working during the CURRENT schedule, we'll never have enough staff to work it 24 hours, lol.

Check the gaming thread for some thoughts about next year.

[COMaestro]

Okay, I was at rant and rave, but many people weren't and so I'm going to cover some things that were said there, so sorry if this is repeating for some:

RAVE:
   The hotel staff were SOOOO great and pleasant and wonderful. They are so sad that we're not going to be there next year.

   Prereg line moved SMOOTH. We started with three lines, and after just an hour or two had it down to one! I helped with giving the lanyards and swag bags and was having trouble keeping up with the people coming through the line. So the prereg line was handled perfectly and needs to be reimplemented next year.

   The lanyards were a good idea as a quick ID for if someone should be allowed in a con event. I noticed most of the smaller events didn't really get checked closely, but the larger ones like opening and closing ceremonies, AMV show, concerts, and the cosplay seemed to be checked very well. I think it kind of depended on yojimbo, some were more careful than others. And in the case of adult events, actual state issued ID was always checked, which is great.

   Vendors room was a great size and had a pretty good mix of products. There was plenty of room for everyone down there and most of the vendors were very friendly.

   Although I never got in there, gaming seemed to be running pretty smoothly, and having some actual arcade games was awesome.

RANT:
   First I want to make a clarification between staff, yojimbo, and volunteers. All the yojimbo are staff, and all the staff are volunteers in that they are not paid and they work hard to pull off this convention and see that all of us have a great time. They still pay for admission, at a greatly discounted rate, but they are expected to work at least a large number of hours, but ends up being for nearly all of the con. However, your average volunteer is someone who pays the full rate and is there mostly to enjoy the con, but also to help out the staff in whatever way they can. There were even planned perks this year to encourage people to be volunteers, but it kind of fell flat at the last minute due to an error in planning. I always intend to be a volunteer but never staff because there will be panels and such that I really want to go to, and as a volunteer, I have the right to just say, "I'm leaving to go here," and that's that. I did miss some panels and was late to others because I was helping, but that's fine.
   One perk that was not un- but under-implemented was the honorary staff perk. After a bunch of hours of volunteering, you'd be made honorary staff. This is all fine and dandy, unless most staffers don't know about it, or have any real outside way of recognizing it. It was a real pain to be told to go...say...grab something from the vendors hall before opening hours, and not have the yojimbo there recognize you and allow you in. Luckily this didn't happen to me because when I did have to do this the person there knew me and knew all the work I had put in to the con and let me through, but there were plenty of times I needed to go somewhere either because I was told to by a staffer or just because I was going to help out on my own accord, and was stopped until I could get someone who knew me to okay it. Honorary staff, and volunteers in general, need a very easy method of identification that the entire staff is aware of. Okay, sorry about the novel, moving on...

   The sound for most events in the main events hall was shoddy. I love the AMV show and always go, but if you were near one of the speakers, you couldn't understand anything that came out of it. The trailers portion of the show came up, and it SOUNDED like a movie trailer, but I couldn't understand one word that was said. Seemed the bass was cranked to 11 and the trebel wasn't on at all. I didn't go to any concerts so I can't comment on them, but judging from other posts, I'm willing to bet this was the case.

   The hotel was simply too small. There weren't enough areas in the hotel to just hang around sitting back and watching the people go by. There also weren't enough rooms for panels, which is why there were panels going on in rooms next to a concert, which would then drown out anything going on in the panel. Need more rooms so those adjoining the main events hall, which is where most concerts and the dances happen, can either be empty or used for random stuff when loud stuff is taking place. Next year will be a different location, I know, so this rant should be mostly addressed anyway...

   I think there needs to be a better set up chain of command for the staff. For instance, if a crisis is happening that is an ops problem, the people at the info booth need to know who to talk to instead of just heading for the ops director or con chair. A well established chain of command that all the staffers and the volunteers are aware of will help keep stress off the high muckety-mucks and let the people under them take care of the smaller crises, leaving them to deal with major issues. Truthfully, I think this year was better than most at this, but there were still various things that popped up.

   Speaking of staff, I think there needs to be a probationary period or something. There were some last minute staff sign ups this year, and probably are every year. People who had been volunteering and decided to just go ahead and be staff. The problem is, becoming staff is a huge responsibility, and the person is sometimes an unknown factor. Are they dependable? Do they follow instructions? Are they honest? Etc. I know there were some of these staffers that I saw all the time running back and forth, and others that I didn't see once at the con. It's possible they were doing some kind of behind the scenes work, and if so great, but if not, should they really have been staff at all?

Minor Rant regarding the $0.99 costume contest. My girlfriend went to this and was turned away saying she couldn't participate because she already had a costume. Um...how many people were at this con who DIDN'T have a costume?? Not too many, and I'm willing to bet they weren't all at this panel. It's not like she was going to tie a ribbon around her head and say she was the character she was cosplaying, she would have done something original, within the rules, and just happened to be wearing another costume underneath. What's the big deal?

RAVE w/RANT:
    I LOVED the fact we had two channels of anime playing! The only problem was the variety. I'd wander in my room from time to time, to almost always find the same episode of Gundam Wing or Fruits Basket playing. I know Ragnarok and Ah! My Goddess were also in the lineup somewhere, but a bit more variety would be appreciated.

   I Raved about the vendor's room, but I do agree more variety there would be good as well. You can only pass by so many of the same keychains, cell-phone charms, and plushies before getting a bit bored. Also how much manga do we really need? Admittedly, I can't think of what else we could put in there to add variety, but I'm sure other people might have ideas.

Okay, enough from me. I think as someone who sees things from both the attendee side and the staff side I kind of covered more than I needed to, but just wanted to throw all of this out. Sorry for ranting for so long!

EDIT: For those complaining about the masquerade ball, I heard at the rant and rave that the interest in the event was unexpected, which is why the room was so small and this should be rectified next year. Same for the Ouran Host Club Tea Party. And I think a more classical selection of music is on the agenda as well.  ^_^

[laurifer]

Well this was my first con experience and I thought it was very good...I don't really have a lot of rants as opposed to raves but I'll just list some stuff I guess:

Lines: I didn't have to stay in lines very long. Closing ceremony was the only one we waited for an hour for but we wanted really good seats so we waited in line an hour before it started. Pre-reg went really fast and I'm glad I didn't have to wait 3 hours to get in like some people have in the past And yeah the lines can get long but we were only stuck in long lines cos we didn't really plan what we were doing. And some lines [like when the vendors were opening] weren't a problem since we didn't have to wait [we were running errands for Pocky Club so we also got to use the elevator BEFORE IT BROKE grrr].

Panels, etc: There weren't a lot of panels I was interested in...I'm not sure if it was just wasn't interesting for me or what but I wish there were more panels scheduled throughout the day. My friends and I literally spent hours wandering aimlessly cos we had nothing else better to do D: Well at least we got to talk to a lot of people lol

Exhibitor's Hall: I don't get why people complain so much about how hot the vendors area was...the fans that were running kept the hot air out of there and since it was underground it was a lot cooler. In fact, when my friend and I weren't doing stuff, we'd just hang out at the Pocky booth to cool off and rest [since it wasn't crowded like the hotel]. It's really nice to just sit and relax and cool off when there's too any people clogging up the hotel's hallways [which was also another problem]. And I know someone who works at the Uwajimaya booth and he didn't complain about the heat or anything when I talked to him. Maybe there's some spots that are hotter than others? I dunno. And yeah I was kinda mad the artist's alley was in the back...I didn't realize some of them were back there until Sunday, and by the time I got there the bookmark I wanted was all sold out.

Hmm I don't know what else to say...it's my first con so I don't know how everyone else feels about this so no hard feelings lol

[reppy]

Rave: Loved the dance on Saturday. I really have not had that much fun in a long while. There was a great selection of music and the atmosphere was fun and silly. I was really apprehensive about going to the dance (my brother and friend kind of forced me) because my knees were kind of aching and well, I sometimes have panic attacks and such in environments where I'm getting all worked up (dancing), especially with loud music, lots of people and flashing lights. But I didn't, so I was really happy and enjoyed the hell out of the entire thing. I think I danced pretty much the entirety of the time. Ended up being extremely sore and tired, too. ^_^ Slept like a baby, though! :p

Rave: Pretty much every single person I had the pleasure of talking to was extremely friendly and all around awesome. Example: after helping clean up the park, we were told to go to con ops room.. which is the 3rd floor. So, you either go up the elevator or go up the stairs with a key. I'm extremely claustrophobic, so the elevator is NOT an option. Heck, even going up the stairs (it's cramped and entirely concrete) was extremely difficult. But the people I had just met said they'd go with me so I wouldn't have to go up the stairs alone. Maybe not the most epic thing in the world, but I thought it was a pretty damn cool gesture and it wasn't something they were obligated to do.

Rant: We waited about 15-20 minutes for the "History of RPGs" panel to begin because the room was missing its projector. It was an interesting panel, but people were starting to leave as it was taking more and more time to secure a projector. The presenter tried to keep us busy with some trivia and discussion, but us anime fans tend to have ADD and need to look at pretty things on a screen. :p

Rant: A lot of con goers didn't seem to clean up after themselves. I don't really know what the con itself can do about this (besides having a bunch of staff/volunteers that cleans up after slobs all day long). Perhaps they could make sure to remind people to clean up after themselves during opening ceremonies and perhaps even during the con itself? (Note: I don't blame the con goers for the mess in the park. I don't know how much of that was con goers and how much of it was a result of the 150th celebration of Vancouver that took place on Saturday. And I really do hope that none of those Steel Reserve cans in the black bags were from the con goers. ^_^)

I know some people complained about rude staff/volunteers. I personally didn't witness it. I generally understood that the person that was telling you something 1) probably had to say it about 300 times already 2) has to speak loudly enough to be heard over all the commotion 3) is not being paid and doesn't get much sleep. Also, I tended to be moving a lot or hidden away in a corner so I didn't block traffic much. Well, me and some friends did get told to be quiet once when we were outside of the manga reading room. I felt bad because I totally forgot people were reading manga, especially since it was kind of late at the time. ^_^;;;;

[COMaestro]

Panels, etc: There weren't a lot of panels I was interested in...I'm not sure if it was just wasn't interesting for me or what but I wish there were more panels scheduled throughout the day. My friends and I literally spent hours wandering aimlessly cos we had nothing else better to do D: Well at least we got to talk to a lot of people lol

Exhibitor's Hall: I don't get why people complain so much about how hot the vendors area was...the fans that were running kept the hot air out of there and since it was underground it was a lot cooler. In fact, when my friend and I weren't doing stuff, we'd just hang out at the Pocky booth to cool off and rest [since it wasn't crowded like the hotel].

I have to agree with both of these points. Whenever I was downstairs in the vendors room, I thought it was much cooler than it was outside, even with the mob of humanity around. And the panels were a bit of a letdown this year. I really like the AMV's and the cosplay, and also seeing the voice actors, and there was some new, really innovative stuff, don't get me wrong, but those just didn't really interest me. I know we tried to get some more traditional Japanese panels, like Ikebana, Bonsai, calligraphy, tea ceremonies and such, but none of them happened, even though I know for a fact someone agreed to do calligraphy. I know someone will say, "if you're disappointed in the panel selection, run one yourself." That might be true, but that'd fill an hour or so and then what? And so many panels get cancelled or shuffled that I would fully expect any panel I ran to conflict with something I really did want to attend. I would like to see more of Japan in our con. Some Japanese seiyuu or manga-ka or J-rock bands. Maybe we're just not a big enough con to get them to come yet???

In fact, the schedule change thing is another rant. There seemed to be a lot this year. I believe it was someone setting up the masquerade ball or the dancing lessons complaining about the guy doing the firearms in anime panel. If you look at the printed schedule, that panel shouldn't have even been in the same ROOM as the ball. Admittedly, he should have wrapped up his panel faster, but sometimes it's hard to stop talking when you're really enthusiastic about something, and if it's the guy I'm thinking of, he's like that with guns. And it's just silly that his panel got moved to where it was anyway.

EDIT: Ooops, it was the Lolita sewing, not something for the ball that was the complaint, so they WERE in the same room. I do know that the times got moved though because I remember seeing them written on the board at info desk, so still, too many schedule changes.

[FizzTheCarbonated]

My review is here.  I thought that's what that sub-forum was for...  Maybe my post could be moved to this thread or something.

[Wanganator]

Rant and rave? I got a few of my own:

Rant:
Why didn't you get a DDR machine? I mean the Cobalt Flux pads were sweet, only if the pads don't slip on that carpet!!! Somewhere down the line I heard someone mentioned that the president wanted DDR pads with bars or something like that, then the rest of the board said no, even if we have the money to get it. Don't quote me. but that's what I've heard, unless if you guys were short on money then it can be forgiven. Regardless, the DDR tournament was probably the worst, cause nobody could perform to their fullest abilities. I lost in the first round because the pads moved so much!

The saturday and sunday raves weren't that bad, except the fact that they played mediocre music. I personally though that it can do better. What was up with that 80's song anyways? I didn't recognize it at all, and then the constant chain of mosh and monobeat music. just so repetitive, what happened to trance and a rhythmic bass line? Then after the midnight purge of minors, all that's left was the drunk people and a few stragglers, including me who was the poi swinging guy only there to practice my moves a bit more, and the glow staffer by the name of chris (or so I think that's what his name is). Wish it was more lively after midnight. (Ok that Yatta Song was pretty fun.)

Dealer's room, a bit hot, I feel sorry for the Artist alley, poor location, and in the corner where it's the most unbearable. That air mover was working overtime.

And elevators, don't forget the elevators, I lived on the 7th floor, and to get there it would take that elevator to stop at every floor. What's worse is that I feel sorry for those on the floors in between 2nd and 7th, because it's always full and they cant get anywhere. But that's not something that can be fixed. Still it was bad.

Rave
The people! Met the coolest bunch there. I came into the convention by myself, and left knowing at least 10 people and known by even more. Lost all inhibition that I carried with me to the other cons. so that was why I had so much fun.

Artist alley despite the temperature, the artists were all awesome and cool, I was asked to help out at one of the tables. so I did on the last day, helped her pack and get her on her way. BTW what was all that "Matt Daemon" thing all about?

Rave. I got into that circle on sunday with Chris to and showed our stuff, and had photos taken and stuff it was cool. If you can weild anything with light at a rave you get a lot of attention. I wouldn't mind teaching it to people all you gotta do is ask and I'll be happy to teach.

[ThiefKingsHier]

 First of all I would extend my utmost gratitude to waffles, the Kumori con chair ( Im sorry, I dont know your name) and any of the other staff who helped me out Sunday night.

Id lost my badge. We went upto to ops and the guy tehyre seemed like he really didnt want to help anyone.
I told him " I Know my badge number, I have pictures of me with my badge from earlier, and look, my sword is peace bonded; by Waffles ask him. Infact, I just want into the dance. Cant you have someone escort me and Ill get a new badge tomaro?"
Nope, wouldnt hear any of it. He just told us there was nothing he could do and to 'get out if you dont any business."
I understand he was just trying to cover his own ass but he obviously did not try very hard to help me.

Finally Waffles heard about th issue. He said it was bull since hed talked to me both nights and yes, peace bonded my sword AT THE REG LINE.
He told me that he would take me to someone who could help.

I dont know who he was but he NO help. He simply said " So you lost your badge what do you want me to do about it?"
Then the con chair showed up and told me that this whole thing was rediculous as she had LEFT them with instructions on how to deal with this, (proving they hadnt tried very hard)
and that she would give me a new badge free of charge becuase of the crap I had to go through. Which was so very awesome of her.

Also, that night my friend said she had gone back upto the 3rd floor and walked in on the guy ranting about how some " Stupid b**ch was in here trying to get a new badge and wouldnt leave."
I asked one of the Yojimbos and ofcoarse he denied it saying " Oh no hed never say something like that hes too proffesional or maybe she misunderstood" but ofcoarse, not telling me what he HAD said sinee the Yojimbo was there at the time.

Whateer. At this point its pretty much my word vs his so Im sure arguing it is pointless. It doesnt matter, in the end theyre only hurting themselves by defending and keeping staff like that.

But wait! Theres more!

Theyre was the guy guarding the dance who refused to let in a girl who looked young but had a blue badge.

This absolute jerk who for some reason decided that although EVERYONE in the lobby had props he needed to harrass my friends, not asking, but yelling in a VERY rude manner " ARE YOUR WEAPONS PIECE BONDED!?" When I said it was he snapped " WELL I DONT SEE IT!"  So I put it rigth infornt of his face he comaplined that its " A blue tie and this years are orange and green  so it couldnt be official"
He piece bonded my friends sword that shed just baught and in a dirll sergant like tone went on about " Do you understand what it means to have this piece bonded" and then went on to 'read her rights' so to speack.

After the cosplay chess game we were TRYING to be helpful and move the chairs back to were they were. When this staffer came in barking " DONT MOVE THOSE CHAIRS! DONT MOVE THOSE CHAIRS!" Ofcoarse, it turned out his reasoning was that we werent staff.

After a while I began to wonder if staff actually help people, or just B**ch at them.

Yes, I know staff dont sleep woe is me and all that crap. You know what? I dont care.
A lot of people at conventions dont get sleep, and being on staff is a CHOICE.
 
While theyre are some staffers who are just wonderful and do not take theyre issues on the attendees and really want to help ( and I am VERY greatful for therye hard work. You guys rock XD) It seems that thayre are also quite a few who simply do it for the free registration and power. They really need to be dealt with.

[superjaz]

rave: yay prereg!!! smooth, and plentiful ice water everywhere! neat stuff in the delealers room and chease cake at host club tea party! and neko pan bakery!!

rant :
yup when i went to .99 cent costume contest I was kicked out because i already was wearing a costume and no i couldnt go change cuz my clothes were stored in a room i didnt have a key to, i went to the first costume contest and it wasnt a problem then.

re-rant:on the volunteers, with the exeption of the cat maids and a group that picked up trash in the park once, were frankly treated like crap by a lot of people. we still paid full admission to work our butts off.
this was mentioned breifly at rant and rave, and one of the directors thought this meant we wanted voteting rights but no this isn't about wanting staff rights or perks but the recognition for all the hard work we do before and during the con

we  put in in 8-12 hours a day during con, not to mention the 30-40 hours of volunteer work before con from all the things we do year round like stuffing envelopes with badges and assembling the swag bags and manning the k-con booth at other events, and street team stuff and going to shops to ask for donations for charity auction

only to get unintentionally snubed at closeing cerominies, wth the exeption of the group of volunteers I was sitting with, no one else noticed, and that really hurt, think about it, a group of people who picked up trash got rounds of aplause for working for a hour and prizes... and the peeps who were putting in long days at the info desk and registation totaly ignored, ouch so unloved

its like DO you want volunteers for next year? or not cuz the or not seems to be the case. i do have better things to do then spend my saterday coming to meetings and going to envelope stuffings, like watching anime or actualy finishing my cosplay before the convention

(ps not to skip the maid squad or the people who picked trash or anyoe else who put in hard work your great, i just would like every one to get the recogization they earned, i initially wanted to do maid squad but i was needed at the info desk)

[totemo_oishii]

Out of all my past con experiences, this was the best. 

Raves...
- I absolutely LOVED the spiffy new cards/badge and the fact that they were mailed out beforehand. Fabulous. Pre-reg ran by smoothly, it looked.
- Maids with signs? Awesome idea too!! [thumbs up] They were really nice too. One of them wore a really awesome black poofy skirt. XD
...and much more. It was just great.

Rants...?
- I was sitting near the middle at the cosplay competition, and since I'm vertically challenged, I could hardly see anything. That might be my fault though. >___<

[TanisNikana]

Out of all my past con experiences, this was the best. 

Raves...
- I absolutely LOVED the spiffy new cards/badge and the fact that they were mailed out beforehand. Fabulous. Pre-reg ran by smoothly, it looked.
- Maids with signs? Awesome idea too!! [thumbs up] They were really nice too. One of them wore a really awesome black poofy skirt. XD
...and much more. It was just great.

Rants...?
- I was sitting near the middle at the cosplay competition, and since I'm vertically challenged, I could hardly see anything. That might be my fault though. >___<

The maid thing really was quite awesome, as opposed to last year's angry yojimbo telling us to keep the registration line up against the wall...

[ThiefKingsHier]

its like DO you want volunteers for next year? or not cuz the or not seems to be the case. i do have better things to do then spend my saterday coming to meetings and going to envelope stuffings, like watching anime or actualy finishing my cosplay before the convention

Then dont do it. Ist that simple.

No, we dont want to do it. Thats why we dont. Rather than voulenteering and pulling the whole martyrdom thing, we just dont it.

I understand that the con needs volenteers. And I know not all of them have such a nasty additudes but the truth is; a lot of them do and its diffcult to sympathize or even appreciate what they do when they just ran around barking orders at attendies.

Becuase of this its truly unfortuante that the ones who are decent and helpful human beings end up getting crap as well. I do feel for them on that one.

Raves: This con was just awesome. I have never been so compeltley exauhsted and just messed up ( That means it was a con of epic perportion) I LOVED the area ie the park across the street. It was great for photo shoots. The dance on Saterday was amazing. The glomp circles were fun, all the peopel were very friendly..just awesome.

[Valkie]

Rave:
-Pre-registration check-in was wonderfully easy! After the disastrous lines for pre-reg in 2006, this year was a super welcome change.

-Hotel layout. I know a lot of people here didn't like it, but I thought it was a lot better than the Red Lion was, at least. It was nice and open, and easy to learn the layout of. (although I wasn't staying in the hotel so I didn't have to deal with the annoying elevators, haha. ^^;)

-The dealer's room! It was really big which was great. Although I agree that artist's alley was in a bad spot, I know I barely got back there myself.

-Free coffee/tea/cake at the Host Club Tea Party was so so nice, and it was a great place to socialize and relax. Although the Host Club members needed to be doing more seducing. :O

-Hotel's AC! It was so nice not being way too hot during the con.

-Having the park for photoshoots.

Rant:
-The mask-making panel wasn't prepared for the number of people that wanted to attend it. Next year a bigger room/more supplies would be nice.

-The masquerade ball. It was way, way too crowded and the music was all wrong. It felt more like the regular dance than a ball. I also hope the mask rule is upheld next year (although I understand why it wasn't this year) hopefully the mask-making panel will be prepared enough next year that getting masks won't be a problem.

All in all the Con was AWESOME, probably my favorite Kumoricon thus far. Thank you to the staff and volunteers for all your hard work!

[totemo_oishii]

-Free coffee/tea/cake at the Host Club Tea Party was so so nice, and it was a great place to socialize and relax. Although the Host Club members needed to be doing more seducing. :O

lulz. XD

I promise we'll do better next year. A lot of us joined the Host Club last minute - even I had no idea what we were doing! Mr_Mustash has fabulous plans for next year.
Whoever had Tamaki as a host was lucky, he was totally in character. XD

[superjaz]

sorry for wanting to be treated human instead of less then a con goer?

when you say volunteers do you mean them and not yojimbo and other staffer cuz there is a differnce seems like every one says volunteer when  they mean staff

 thing is i dont want anyone treated poorly at con people should have equal treatment.
And no I wont do it again if it mean watching other people treated like crap, because unlike YOU it bothers me, and i hated seeing people volunteering and getting chewed out because of it, then again I CARE about people, I should just switch to being a regular congoer who take all the nice things forgranted

and no its not that simple i said i would help out during con especsuly since the volunteer manager and registraton manager were the same overworked person so i told her i would help her and I if i say i'm going to do somthing I do it, maybe other people can just walk away from responsibilities.
did you like having an info desk? did you like prereg going so smoothly? volunteers helped a lot with them.
i guess not

[ThiefKingsHier]

 Actually, I thought it was staff that was being dicks but everyone corrected me and said was voulentters. So your probabaly right. But I dont know the differance.

 If the staff really is bullying the volanteers as well as attendies then something seriously needs to be done but tah tgoes for anyone with tha tsort of behavior.

 And dont take it out on me, the insulting was compeltley unnessecery and really only further convicnes me that your perfectly capable of being the rude 'I got no sleep and am going to punish the attendies for it"-type volantter.

Well now you know your nto cut otu for volenteering. And wotn do it again. Seriosuly your being incredibly whiny about this. I may have some  sympathy if you could rant without playing poor little Cinderalla who is being taken for granted by all the cruel attendees.

Everyone at con can be incrdibly rude. I think the best way to solve this is for everyone on all sides to stop taking crap out on others...and seriosuly get rid of the ones who are just plain mean.

[RoamingGnome]

Ok now lets not try to vilify anybody.  There can be examples everywhere of con goes, volunteers and staff members who may not been at there best.  Last years con I was just an attendee and felt there were things that could be improved so I helped out this year as a yojimbo and believe me my eyes were opened to all the work that went on in the background.  That includes both staff and all the wonderful people who volunteered before, during and after the con was over.  All of you are the reason the con functions.  Also would like to thank all those who went to the con sense without you there would be no reason for a con in the first place.  I would hope that we can keep this civil as a rant and rave.  No need to point fingers.  If you have suggestions on how they can be improved next year please tell us it really really helps us out a lot.  Also raves help to.  Its nice to know that all the late nights and early mornings brought about a smooth and wonderful time to others.

Now just as a suggestion from a staff member is that maybe next year we could have at the info booth a rant/rave card and box to collect them.  That way during the con if a con goer either sees something they really really like or something that could be improved or hurt their experience they can write it down and place it in the box for us staffers and volunteers to read and hopefully continue doing or improve upon next year.

I do hope all in all that everybody had a great time and hopefully we shall be seeing you all next year.

[SephiChan]

I have a bit to say, but instead of being rants or raves, they're more like questions of "what happened here"?

-Photoshoots. At least the FF/KH photoshoot was very disorganized. Our Rude ended up taking control and moving people around for shots. I was under the impression that if you--con staff, volunteer, or even just an attendee, no matter who you are--schedule the photoshoot, YOU are responsible for coordinating it. That was a little sad.

-Smash Brothers Tournament. I promised I would not flame about this, because I understand that things happen. But I was towards the end of the brackets and it took (no exaggeration) -two and a half hours- past the scheduled 7 PM start time before I even played my first-round match. My friends and I had other things we wanted to do, and it just felt like squandered time, sitting around in the game room, afraid to leave for fear of being dropped from the tournament, but having nothing to do inside. What happened here...?

-Karaoke room. Okay, so I didn't go to the contests, but the karaoke lounge was tiny! Did it actually accomadate a reasonably-sized audience for the contests? I was honestly shocked that it was about the size of a panel room, and didn't really have a stage. I can understand if maybe the room's popularity has dropped and thus doesn't need larger accomadations. I'm just curious as to why it was in such a small room.

-The Sunday night dance. It wasn't a dance at all. It was a rave. Why wasn't it written on the schedule that way? I loved the dance on Saturday night; that's my kind of party. But if I'd known the one on Sunday was a rave, I probably wouldn't have gone. My issue isn't that I don't like raves, it's that I would have preferred it to be called what it actually was as to not mislead anyone.

Okay, so maybe those things are somewhat negative.
I do have to say, though, that I was thrilled with convention policies in general. You guys established rules that didn't completely get in the way of attendees having fun. It really had a small-convention feel (in a good way) like it should, and I had a blast because of it. Everyone on staff generally did a great job. Anytime I had a question, I was taken care of--even if the staff member didn't know the answer, they found it for me. THAT is something that has been lacking at other convetions: customer service skill. I really appreciate it.

[ThiefKingsHier]

Ok now lets not try to vilify anybody.  There can be examples everywhere of con goes, volunteers and staff members who may not been at there best.  Last years con I was just an attendee and felt there were things that could be improved so I helped out this year as a yojimbo and believe me my eyes were opened to all the work that went on in the background.  That includes both staff and all the wonderful people who volunteered before, during and after the con was over.  All of you are the reason the con functions.  Also would like to thank all those who went to the con sense without you there would be no reason for a con in the first place.  I would hope that we can keep this civil as a rant and rave.  No need to point fingers.  If you have suggestions on how they can be improved next year please tell us it really really helps us out a lot.  Also raves help to.  Its nice to know that all the late nights and early mornings brought about a smooth and wonderful time to others.

Now just as a suggestion from a staff member is that maybe next year we could have at the info booth a rant/rave card and box to collect them.  That way during the con if a con goer either sees something they really really like or something that could be improved or hurt their experience they can write it down and place it in the box for us staffers and volunteers to read and hopefully continue doing or improve upon next year.

I do hope all in all that everybody had a great time and hopefully we shall be seeing you all next year.

 Your right. Everyone is cpaable of being a complete jerk. Attendies, staff, and volaenteers. All I know is that the crap I recieved seemed to be for mthe same few people.

 But on the other hand you seem to have nothing but praise for the staff. I appreciate theyre hard work, I really do. Iv give nothing but praise to those who helped me out. However, it is easy to forget theyre hard work when you have one yelling at you in a very condescending tone, or who is compeltley unwilling to help.

[thestav]

FOR HTE LOVE OF GOD HERE IS MY O_o i guess my myspace.. myspace.com/crackipow

any way ye i was the konohamaru with the box and the beat from jet set radio ><

[FizzTheCarbonated]

-Karaoke room. Okay, so I didn't go to the contests, but the karaoke lounge was tiny! Did it actually accomadate a reasonably-sized audience for the contests? I was honestly shocked that it was about the size of a panel room, and didn't really have a stage. I can understand if maybe the room's popularity has dropped and thus doesn't need larger accomadations. I'm just curious as to why it was in such a small room.

The contests were actually held in a different room, the big one next to gaming.  Same room the Anime Dating Game and the Masquerade Ball were in.

[Mr_Phelps]

Rant/Rave- I had problems with my pre-reg. It wasn't mailed to me so i went to the pre-reg desk and they sent me to will call. Then will call said they didn't print it off at all, so they sent me to registration, where they said they couldn't print any off at the moment so they gave me a day pass and told me to come back tomorrow. So, I did just that and was told that will call had some new prints. I headed over there and they said this was false and that I should go to registration. I got back to registration and they gave me a nameless badge that would still work and said I should come back later and they will print it off. So while it was pain to bounce back and forth from the same places, my rave for this was that most of the staff were very kind about it. 

I personally apologize for this one.  We did not communicate the process for lost badges between the different staff areas very well this year.  There were a few problems behind the scenes that caught us flatfooted and we could have handled them better.

What I can say is that next year we will have a well defined plan in place and plenty of time to get everyone on staff on the same page.

RAVE: 
The Reg Volunteers were awesome!!!  These people gave up tons of their own time at the con just to get the at door/pre-reg attendees into con space.  It went so much better than last year.
The Con Chair (Meg) is the one who is responsible for those spiffy new badges and now that “most” of the problems are ironed out we are in GREAT shape for next year!!  Thank you, Meg!

[MichaelEvans]

Improvements to make:

• - Very Large Signs, posted well above head height, both labeling rooms and others showing you which rooms are down which direction of a hallway.  (The same for info desk/etc, since crowds blocked the signs)
• - Signs in the registration area might also help.
• - Mark out the direction and Open Time of lines for events near the walls near the rooms.  If possible marking the floor with masking tape or some other visual clue could also help.
• - Vendor room times with the other rooms.
• - Continue the process of re-sizing rooms to events.
• - Anime that Scared me for Life, should probably, unfortunately, be an 18+ event, because of things the audience will bring up (Mostly descriptions of things they saw at too early an age that minors shouldn't hear about).  However, the time it was at Was very well planned, it should be before the very late stuff.
• - Better Parking information (in the guides).
• - Better ATM information, including informing banks with ATMs near the hotel about the massive use.  (I know we did this this year, but we should give them more lead time and reference the prior ATM wipe-outs.)
• - Viewing room early time slots might be to have a room for something kid friendly, like the Hello Kitty / Hamtaro / etc genera.

Raves:

• - The panels I could attend were awesome.  (Apocalypse in Anime, Anime that Scared me for Life)
• - Staff (hotel and con) were in general awesome.

Unfixables?:

• - Wireless internet was effectively free, you didn't even need to go through a captive web-page (AWESOME FOR Nintendo DS's !!!) ONLY on the ground floors.  Upstairs you had to be a guest of the hotel.  Free wifi (or at least hardlines) everywhere!!!
• - Elevators were horribly mis-configured.  The doors remained open too long and there was no way of informing the elevator that it's maximum occupancy efficiency and to not stop until someone gets off.
• - The way this hotel was laid out, the all floors elevators should NOT have gone to floor 2 at all.  The  2, 1, and garage elevator should have been used between 2 and 1 instead.
• - The stairways were way out of the way, and there weren't wide details about how they could be used or where they were.  We didn't even see signs noting where they were.