First of all, I appreciate the nomination, and if I am elected I will apply my efforts to meet your trust in me in all applicable areas. Tom's questionnaire was great, and I will post my answers here as well:
* How soon do you plan on having an official draft of the schedule for 2008?
Mid December, 2007. I'd host an XLS file that anyone can download at any time. This would be updated regularly as a set deadline approaches. I'd freeze things in stages, with last and most most flexible aspects getting structured by about 4 weeks before the con.
I'd also like to see a Live Programming Grid on display at the hotel in a designated location. This is an array of clear, transparent book-report covers or envelopes taped up somewhere, with times along the side rows and room names as column headers. Cards of paper are slipped into the array locations to show what's happening where. Open slack spaces can be filled last-minute by anyone with a new panel idea and an open room, or a time overflow. ('Folks, we need to get out of this room now because 'NNN' is coming in, but we can continue in Room 'X' for another hour. Follow me.' And the panelist leaves the room free for the next event, and a small throng of people follow him or her to the unused room. Meanwhile 'NNN' starts on-time.) This system also works great as a contingency if a room is flooded by a pipe-burst and an event must be moved elsewhere or delayed. The REASON for the re-shuffle can also be posted, to help dissipate frustrations.
* What events do you wish to give more support to in the convention?
As we grow bigger, I think the critical core of Kumoricon is the 'by the fans, for the fans' focus of panels and events, such as fanfic, the Creation station, costuming and cosplay, prop-making and basic illustration skills. In these sorts of programs, the skills and enthusiasm flow TWO ways - people gather and SHARE what they can do and what they have done. Then, we celebrate our skills and creativity with costume dances, tea parties, role-play events and multimedia shows.
What I would want to avoid is treading the Dread Path of Exalted Industry Experts - one-way communications which mostly boil down to: "This is what *WE* are producing, and what *YOU* will buy. Period. Here are the upcoming release dates. We are the Professionals, You are the otaku consumers. Praise us and feel grateful for a chance wait in huge lines and pass by us in throngs. Oh, and this, this, and that all got licensed, so quit making things on your own - just buy the finished goods from US. We do it *so* much better than you anyways." That attitude has pretty much taken over AX, like a 'Hollow' in Bleach.
* Are there any new events that you wish to create?
Perhaps it would be possible to bring in animation instructors for common programs such as Maya or Animation Master, or basic music theory in a MIDI program - again, the focus is bring in the Pros so all of us can learn to create our own art. Certainly the members themselves come up with cool ideas like Pocky club, Cosplay Chess, Scenes from a Hat, and the Suzumiya Dance instruction - and we need to respond and support that as well.
Goth/Lolita/J-rock stuff seems be still growing, and I'd like to support them and help them grow and diversify their programming track and activities. There may be a new costuming/role-play/activity/hobby fan-base yet to emerge in early 2008 - we don't yet know what it's going to be, but we need to keep our antennae up so we can pick up on it and include it.
* How many events do you plan to run yourself as the Director of Programming? Or will you find staff to run all events for you?
I would like to continue handling AMV Contests, showings, and related panels myself. That way you'd all know where the Programming Director is whenever you'd need to find me!
Anime is so huge now that no one is a Fan-of-ALL, and I'd recruit managers for events outside my own ken - such as cosplay, A/V programming (music bands) and a Guest programming manager who would work with Publicity (which is not under Programming) to schedule what the visiting Pros do and where they'll be.
* Are there any convention events that you wish to shut down?
No, I really liked the mix of panels and events we had in the past 3-4 years, and I like the way things are growing. If I had to give up something, it would be whatever seemed to be LEAST attended in the past year or two - and I'd put up a questionnaire or poll to assess what would (regrettably) have to get squeezed out.
* Do you have an idea of what room layout you will suggest be used for the 2008 hotel?
Given the layout attached, I'd schedule the least accessible, distant rooms to be places for events which have small but REALLY HARD CORE fanbases, or check-in and sign-up stations such as for in-con RPG gamers, or in-con quests such as a scavenger hunt. Central event spaces would be for large-draw crowds and also for panels where members can drop in, try something, and move along to the next area to try something else new.
* In an ideal convention stucture, how would you allocate the responsibility for A/V?
* How much responsibility should Operations have?
* How much responsibility should Programming have?
I'd like to see physical equipment logistics be separate from Programming itself (and most probably be a part of Ops.) These are the folks who know where things are stored over the year, what's available, and what equipment needs to be rented, and how and when it gets delivered to the con and when it gets picked up and hauled away. Programming will have an Equipment Logistics Manager or Liason who will know what physical equipment is available and when, and when these things get shut down so that Take-down can begin (and so we can return rented equipment on-time with no penalties.) This person is the one who knows how many portable PA systems are available, for example. When the schedule is made, this person can now know what needs to be set up where and when.
I'd also like to appoint a blessed soul to be a Health & Sanitation Monitor, and that job is to make rounds about every 3 hours (which can sometimes be delegated) and verify that drinking water and clean glasses or cups are available at their designated locations, and to work with hotel staff whenever garbage cans get filled in some event halls, or if any other fan location is getting FILTHY (hospitality, green room, gaming) that during scheduled slack times these spaces get kept up. It's a lot easier to keep an eye on these things than to send everybody home and now you have 8 volunteers left, staring at a mountain of discarded junk, 8pm Monday night. This person also kindly nags the Hotel when the TP runs out in the women's room somewhere.
I'd also like to have a Messy Room for fan creations and you do this by removing furniture, covering a floor and up to 6" up the walls with disposable canvas-backed drop-tarps held down by duct tape, then replacing the furniture. When we are done with that room we roll up the tarps into a Katamari-of-Death, (feather clippings, strands of threads, drops of hot-melt glue and all) and the floor underneath looks 3/4ths decent to the hotel staff.
* How much, if any, should be allocated elsewhere, and if so, in what department?
I'd like to split up (if it's not so already) the Set-up volunteers and the Take-down / Clean-up volunteers so that no ONE gang of people has to take days off before AND after the con.
Over-simplified Summary:
Ops is about What Stuff We Have and When We can Use it.
Programming is about What Happens in What Rooms, based on
the equipment we can move in or have operating there.
Both organizations share a contingency planning function
for What Do We Do Next if Something Goes Fzzznort
(with the smell of cooked insulation and solder.)
* Would you like to see Kumoricon expand into outside events, and what kind of other events would you like to see?
a. If by 'outside events' you mean events more peripheral to anime then the first areas I think of are 'non-anime-but-anime-inspired' art, comics and cartooning, such as creators of Korean and Chinese animation. or other imitative works such as Code Lyoko and Skyland (both French) or American artists like Fred Gallagher. If the fan-base interest is there, then we should expand to meet that interest.
b. If by 'outside events' you mean events held OUTSIDE - in the SUN and RAIN next to the hotel - then I'd be thinking of that wonderful group of spin-the-glompers, cosplay photography, live diorama photography, etc. But then I would also bring up the safety of the con-goers because the 2008 location is in a somewhat unsavory part of Portland, so security measures would have to be included to assure that creepy neighborhood passers-by don't crash the party or disturb the fan activities. Not the worst part of town, but definitely a place to turn up one's sense of 'situational awareness' a few notches.
- G
