Valid complaints:
First of all, thank you for not complaining about Pocky Deliveries, it was not the fault of the con staff after all. I think we missed about half of them this year since I was so distracted with the Hall Cosplay Contest (which went well, luckily). Next year I’ll be doing any work for the convention beforehand and my only focus during the convention will be running Pocky Club. Now that the frustration and sleep dep is gone I’m feeling much better about how my part of the convantion went.
Yojimbo claiming that only certain colors of peace bond ties were for this year. There was no special color of peace bonds, I heard about that happening and was quite embarrassed. Blue were probably completely used up on Friday night before he got there. How silly.
Indoor lines blocking the doors to other events. There was little planning done for how to handle internal lines and I apologize for that as I had something to do with layout. The Hotel may have switched entrances on us but I know that the workshop and Live Events hallways were left alone the whole convention. Maybe we can get some protocol for the yojimbo and Maid Squads next year.
DDR Machines instead of pads that slip. A very popular request and I don't really know what the story is behind this (we now know that it was broken before con). I think that this year they budgeted for Wiis and a PS3. Next year we’ll definitely be able to rent one and at some point we may buy one, but that’s just speculation.
Not having enough staff. Yes we know, we try and get as many as possible. Compared to how many we had regged and signed up, only about %60 of the yojimbo showed up (this number is from memory and I was glad to see rictheron back it up). I know of about a half dozen other staff in other departments who didn't show up (some of whom were panelists, causing even more issues)! We can't just make more people staff and volunteer. We will always be trying to get more staff and volunteers. If it was a big enough issue for you to complain go ahead, just know that we've known about it for 4 years.
Various specific panels. There were such a wide variety of panel issues with so many different people involved that I can't really comment on it much (especially since I am not supposed to go into some of the details in public). Suffice it to say that while some of the issues will likely happen again we are taking steps to fix many of them.
Height of the stage in main events. We did not find out that the stage was so short until very late in the game, too late for the budget to rent one from an outside source. We are aware of this issue and will try and bring it back up to the usual 4 ft tall stage next year. For those of you who helped Friday morning, you'll know how much worse it could have been.
Hotel Layout is what it is. Kumoricon will always have to conform to the space we are in unless a millionaire runs for Chair and builds us a hotel. Complaints about the rooms and passages are always valid and us staff need that information so that we can plan our layout better at each new location. Just make sure to word your complaints correctly and try not to blame the staff.
--Next year we'll be at the Doubletree, those of us who were there in '05 will be able to navigate it but I admit it will be even more of a challenge for people who have never been there before. If you live in the Portland area (that is, you have a Tri-Met stop nearby) I suggest heading out to Lloyd Center sometime and walking around inside the hotel to get a feel for the place. It isn't as high tech as the Hilton but I think you'll like it. There are three levatos that are glass (scaring the acrophobes more than the claustrophobes) and a back elevator for the 2 convention floors. A set of side meeting rooms that are separated from the rest (where creation station was in '05) making them quieter if a bit hard to see. Going by the numbers, the Main Events hall should be bigger than this year's
and there's DEFINITELY more guest rooms. The park may not be very good but there is one there, and you can always hop on the MAX and zoom around fareless square if the shopping in the vendor area or LLOYD CENTER isn't enough!
Host Club not seductive. From what I saw when I made my Pocky Delivery there you are absolutely right. If I shape up and lose this belly I promise to get a blue blazer and help Mustash out.
(I haven’t watched the videos yet so hopefully I am wrong)
Bullies on staff and in Volunteers. Yeah, some people let power go to their heads. Some people feel that they are entitled to everything and should never be inconvenienced. We have jerks on staff because we need all the staff we can get. We don't like it when they are jerks and we tell them to be more polite but we need as many people as possible working behind the scenes and we have to balance the complaints of rude staff against the complaints about not enough staff. All I can do is apologize to the people who were treated rudely by our staff (both attendees, volunteers, and fellow staff members).
---Corrections:
*Moving Chairs was allowed. STACKING chairs was not, this was policy from the hotel and some staff were more interested in enforcing it than others.
*The Hotel declared the elevator off limits rather than locking certain floors. This was an issue we pushed them on and they seemed to lack the confidence in their technology. We may have been able to do a bit better if we had a relations person working with them for the whole year and not just for 4 months. >_>
*Con as a job. Can we just drop that debate or start a new thread? It's far too complicated to get into attendee rights vs volunteer rights vs staff rights vs other job rights.
*Staff don't get paid. Nope, we don't. We do save about 20 bucks on registration and maybe a 100 on the hotel. That's a lot to someone poor like me! The Executive level of staff gets free hotel rooms (usually) as well as free food most of the time, however they are the ones ultimately responsible for EVERYTHING. I can trace half the issues in this thread to one person or another who might've been able to fix that issue. I'll defer to my original point of this issue being best discussed elsewhere, but I wish to clarify that for people who are lumping staff together with volunteers.
*Photoshoots being poorly organized. These were all fan run events unless they coincided with something on the schedule, like the TMHS dance party or the Host Club Tea Party. If there is a demand for it then we might set up a little protocol for making the photoshoots more official, but it is likely that it will just be up to the cosplayers to organize themselves. To those of you who set up and did organize photoshoots (like the Silent Hill guy who came and told me about the one he planned and Rude from Turk Coffee), thank you on behalf of the cosplayers.
---Also, I did have a print out of the photoshoot list posted at the info booth Friday afternoon before the con even started pre-reg. it seems that most of the people at the desk missed it despite it being present all the way until the last day of the convention. *sigh*
*The Karaoke Lounge was designed as a more intimate location for people to come in and relax with a drink and some karaoke. It didn't quite meet the vision of what was planned (dimmed lights for instance). The size of the room however was exactly what was planned for, though at times it was crowded the lounge in general was not meant to be a main activity and thus it did not get a larger room. If layout allows in the future there may be one dedicated Karaoke Hall for the entire convention, then there will be no confusion when it comes to the contests and the general open to the public karaoke. Time will tell.
*Dances/Raves/Masquerade, all the complaints I've seen can be attributed to the people running them at the time. Sometimes there was more people interested than expected, or a miscommunication between sound technicians. Calling something a Rave implies a more illicit event that the convention doesn't really want to suggest. Yes, it was more like a rave.
*We will try and make sure the convention documentation includes both the con-name for a room and the hotel-name. Also, since there is enough demand for the locations of the fire stairs I will make sure they are included on the maps as well. This year only the East stair was accessible from the con space.
*The first day in the vendors hall was cool and pleasant. There had not been a crowd in there all day and the fans were moved to the entrance late at night too blow cool air inside. After the crowds the fans were not moved back to the entrance on the first and second night which left us with a much worse situation on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunate how that went, but we won't be in a basement car park next year so we'll see how that goes.
*Sakuracon vs Kumoricon. A ton of our staff are also Sakurcon staff. A good number of our staff are trying to get out from under "big sister's shadow" and try and be as different as possible. Staff members respond to comparisons (both good and bad) with varying degrees of seriousness.
