OTAKUCON 2004

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Postby DrngdKreationz » Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:08 pm

Ill be showing up there on saturday, hope everyone has a good time.
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Postby echocharlie » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:00 pm

Does anyone have any first hand experience at Otakucon? From what I've read over at the Otakucon forums, it seems like there were some first-year pains. It's cool that they're changing their name to Kunicon to avoid confusion with Otakon.
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Convention review

Postby Slugger7 » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:42 am

I would like to address a few things that I noticed while I was at Otakucon/Kunicon 2004 in Miami. Constructive critisims if you will.

First, and most important your staff needs to be polite at all times and under all circumstances. One Staff member had mistakenly thought that I had entered or exited from a door that was not to be used in such a manner. The sign that was posted clearly stated such, but the print was not bold/big enough to read at any great distance so I couldn't read it untill I got closer. Once I could read the sigh, I promptly turned around, and walked the other way. The staff member must have just caught me as I was walking away, and approached me.
The first words out of his mouth after were, "Did you read the sign?"
It sounded to me as though he was talking down to me, so I responded with a little attitude, "Yeah....."
His next question was in my opinion, priceless. "Did you just come through that door?"
"Um....No..." was my response. He promptly appoligized stating he had mistook me for someone else.
I understand that no matter what you do some people just won't follow directions, but that doesn't mean you should talk down to your customers.


Second, at least one staff member needs to be in charge of each room. If it is a video room, equipment should be left in room overnight if said room can be locked. The video room should also have at least one staff member present to operate the equipment. This should help the room stick to the schedule. It also helps to post outside the rooms what is playing and the time block it will be occupying which is usefull if the schedule has been changed. If it is a gaming room two or more staff members need to be present depending on the size of the room. One staff member is acceptable however a second should stop by every hour to give the other a break. For example, if you have four game rooms there should be a minimum of six staff members working the gaming area. Four staff members to monitor the room with two to give breaks to the other four. Tournament schedules should be posted outside the rooms as well.

Third, event hotels. I liked the hotel chosen for this convention. However, beware hotels that only have vallet parking. While this is nice, it adds to the cost to stay at the convention hotel, and may negitively affect how many people attend the convention.

Fourth, your staff members/gofers need to know what is going on. Your staff/gofers did not seem like they knew what was going on. It might help if you assemble everyone in a central area the day before to tell them what is happening and where. Also, you should have a room set aside as a comand center/break room that is out of sight and can be locked. This room can be used to brief the next shift on anything of inportance. It is inportant to schedule time in between each pannel to allow the voice actors a chance to sign autographs for the smaller events, and your staff time to prepare for the next event in that room. If you set aside a time slot for each voice actor to be signing autographs it would lessen the tendance for it to happen at the end of every pannel.

Fifth, your schedule. A column needs to be set aside for the dealers' room. This column needs to be clearly marked as "Dealers' Room" or something similar. That way if an event is going to happen in the dealers' room it can be in the schedule. The main events column needs to be kept together. Even if the room is just run off seating. Try not to schedule all the voice actors' panels for the same day.

Sixth, is your game room. The X-box can support four players per box. Not everyone is the same width and girth. Please, please, please make sure there is an isle for people to walk. While you did a good job providing an isle in Lafaye, you forgot that people like to sit further away than three feet from the screen, and others like to watch the games being played. If for some reason the room needed to be evacuated in a hurry, this could cause problems. Also, if you have more than one X-Box, it is a good idea to have at least three connected to a router for some massive multiplayer gaming. I'm not sure if this happened, but for the one I was playing at, somone had to bring their own cable and gain controll of another box.

The last thing I would like to address is registration. People pre-register to avoid long waits in line. That being said, pre-registration should end no less that fourteen days prior to the Con and more than one method should be available for pre-registration. NO EXCEPTIONS. This will give you time to prepare anything special and manage any difficulties. You did good with the number of methods available to preregister. I recomend that you make the form available as a web page rather than a PDF. Also, if you have a large number of pre-registered people break the line up into segments based on the first letter of their last name. That was a good thing when it happened, but it was a day too late.

Now for some things I liked, and would like to see at other conventions.

1 You had the small controllers for the X-Box, and you could use your own if you brought one.

2 You could bring and use your own network cable in order to hook up two independant X-Boxes.

3 A Battle Royal type game which involved rock-paper-scissors.

4 eight Halo 2 X-Box stations, or eight X-Box stations that ended up having Halo 2 being played

5 I don't know if it was intentional, but the ability to put your own games in a platform.

6 Funk was minimal. How did you do that?

7 Cold gaming rooms. Not cool, not luke warm, but cold. (was not present during any of the tournaments) I suspect you had air fresheners in there too.

8 A fair sized TTG/CCG room with demonstrations. If the are at the other cons, I keep missing them.

9 Large, flat screen TV's. All the same manufacturer, size and model.

10 While overpriced, food provided at the hotel specifically for the convention that was of good quality.[/b]
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Postby greenjinjo » Mon Dec 27, 2004 11:23 am

Slugger, did you make sure to post this over on the actual Otakucon forums as well?
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Postby Miz Ducky » Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:24 am

Slugger isn't on the Otakucon forum.

They also shut down the area where people were voicing their complaints. I guess after 8 pages of posts, they got the picture.
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Postby Darkseid » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:24 am

Oh they put up a new forum where people voiced their complaints with this poll they had up. No sign of the previous one, which is too bad because it was entertaining reading.

So, Miz Ducky, what'd you see? And were you at AWA this year?
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Postby Miz Ducky » Thu Dec 30, 2004 7:52 am

I saw a lot of people who didn't know what was happening when or where.

Yes, I was at AWA this year.
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Postby dokool » Thu Dec 30, 2004 8:50 am

Darkseid wrote:Oh they put up a new forum where people voiced their complaints with this poll they had up. No sign of the previous one, which is too bad because it was entertaining reading.

So, Miz Ducky, what'd you see? And were you at AWA this year?


They actually hid the Miami forum, you had to join the OtakuCon Miami usergroup to see it again. If you want I can copy/baste the contents of that thread, it's fun stuff =)
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Postby Scintilla » Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:45 am

dokool wrote:If you want I can copy/<b>baste</b> the contents of that thread, it's fun stuff =)

Yummy.
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Postby Darkseid » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:29 pm

dokool wrote:They actually hid the Miami forum, you had to join the OtakuCon Miami usergroup to see it again. If you want I can copy/baste the contents of that thread, it's fun stuff =)


Cool. Go for it. I was learning a lot from readintg it. ^^
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God it was fun

Postby elsqueege » Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:51 am

I live near Ft. Lauderdale and I went to Otakucon with 4 of my friends. It was my first con and it was amazing. They had so many things. A couple of my friends that went also went to JACON and said that Otakucon was much better. The AMVs were all awesome, all the viewing rooms had great material, and the Dealer's Room had SOOOOOO much stuff. However, I only had $100 of spending money. Bought and ate so much pocky. God pocky is like crack. I was there all 3 days and spent nearly all my money in the first. It's just amazing and I'm looking forward to more cons in the South Florida area.
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pictures?

Postby Yume Nezumi » Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:09 pm

I went to Otaku-con, and even though I had two cameras (disposable :P ) only about half of my pictures turned out . . . anyone know where to get good pics, specifically of either the cosplay or costume contest? (I was in one, and several of my friends were in both) Thanks in advance!
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Re: pictures?

Postby dokool » Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:37 pm

Yume Nezumi wrote:I went to Otaku-con, and even though I had two cameras (disposable :P ) only about half of my pictures turned out . . . anyone know where to get good pics, specifically of either the cosplay or costume contest? (I was in one, and several of my friends were in both) Thanks in advance!


You may want to check out cosplay.com, AFansView, etc.

Also, this thread is woefully necroposted.
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Re: pictures?

Postby Yume Nezumi » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:54 pm

dokool wrote:You may want to check out cosplay.com, AFansView, etc.


I have looked at FansView and Rising Sun . . . they had some good pictures, but I was just wondering if there were photos anywhere else . . . Thanks for the help though, I'll try cosplay.com. ^_^
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