Holy crap. This has got to be the most mismanaged, crazy con I've ever been to.
Two panels we went to were completely non-existant, with no signs telling anyone it was cancelled. The Anime Music Video contest started and ended around 40 minutes later than it was supposed to, and the Cosplay contest started 45 minutes late. The people running the shows were amateurish and the lighting on the stage for the cosplay event was horrid.
I guess the dealer room was a nice experience, if a bit overpriced. The one thing I really wanted to buy, a production cel of Kiki and Jiji from "Kiki's Delivery Service", was $2500! Absolutely insane. I guess they're hoping some rich fan of the movie comes along and plunks down the cash. There was very little stuff from the animes I am/was into, like Tenchi Muyo, Sailor Moon, stuff from Studio Ghibli, etc... Mostly the new stuff.
I didn't really participate in any of the gaming events, so I'm not sure how well run they were. Hopefully they weren't too bad.
Overall, though, it was a fun day. I took a few pictures, some of which will be posted here. }:)
Pictures are linked here.
-Z
excellent.
Yep... I was so totally there too. What the hell were they thinking with the lighting? They only had *backlighting* for the people on stage, which was just wrong in many, many ways more than I can even count. Granted, they might have been able to get front lighting working if the venue wasn't in such shambles that none of it was operable. (It had neat control stuff though - it was state of the art in 1950!)
As for the AMV contest... there was no reason for it to be late aside from the fact that every other event was being pushed back. Ye gods, they pushed everything back three hours on Friday, for heaven's sake, to make up for the fact that people would have otherwise missed the events while waiting in line at registration for over three hours!
Yes, it was indeed a disaster. Now, if you want to go to a con next year that's not an utter disaster, check out Yasumicon. It shall be excellent, or I shall have to defenestrate people. Yes.
Amazing pictures...
Wow.. the suckitude of the con must have been made up for at least somewhat by being able to play with all that vintage lighting equipment. Those are pretty amazing pictures, and I'm surprised so much of that stuff still works.
But still, we could have done better. Hopefully a new hotel for next year...
-Z