[Otakon 2022: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]

21 minutes ago, WorldisYours said:

You say here it was announced, but I honestly have no clue where- it certainly wasn't ever up on the Otakon panel application page on the website

Honestly I'm not sure where it was announced - I was given a last minute heads up by a friend and I don't know where she got that information. Probably Twitter?

I agree that the fan panels were unusually weak this year, plus a lot of the usual mainstays were missing (I.e. Bad Anime Bad and New Anime for Older Fans). Hope this gets fixed for next year.

[Otakon 2022: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]

12 minutes ago, LittleHobbit13 said:

Content summaries. There were several panels/workshops I attended that seemed like they were going to be about one thing but then ended up being not quite that in reality. I would love if there was a way to get some improved review of those summaries to make sure they remain accurate to the content in their quest to also be attention grabbing.

(Crossing my fingers that none of my panels are on this list 😨)

Yeah this is the #1 most common failure mode of fan panels, IMHO. I have no idea how to fix it though since it's not feasible for the con to vet someone's entire presentation ahead of time. Maybe allow some kind of panelist feedback after the con from attendees so at least it can be brought to people's attention?

[Otakon 2022: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]

10 minutes ago, windseeker said:

Was a panelist this year, can confirm we had to go and get our ribbons friday morning though we got badges on thursday. Maybe I just got there early but there were approx 10 people checking in when we got there.

I spent longer than I'd have liked in panel ops Friday morning (my partner ran into a glitch activating her badge... Not anyone's fault, just bad luck) so I got to see how things progressed. Things were mostly under control when I first got there but by the time things picked up there was a lot of confusion about who needed to do what and go where in the process of pick up waiver -> return waiver -> activate badge -> get ribbon, so everyone ended up in one giant line for everything. 

Honestly, stuff happens sometimes and in the end this bit was relatively minor. If not for the other issues I mentioned I probably would have chalked it up to supply chain issues and gone about my day.

[Otakon 2022: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]

Good: Both photoshoots I attended were amazing. People in general were all really happy to be back after 1-2 years and the atmosphere was excellent and friendly. My three panels for the most part went really well and the audience was great. The AV and panel room staff were also excellent. I also had an awesome time at the idol showcase!

Bad: Panel ops seemed like it was having a lot of issues this year. In roughly chronological order:

- The panel application deadline wasn't announced until ~2 weeks before applications closed, and as far as I can tell it wasn't announced very clearly. We found out with one day to spare and many of our friends (veteran Ota panelists) missed it entirely.

- From what I heard, presenter ribbons didn't arrive in time for Thursday check-in so everyone had to come back Friday morning. This led to a big crowd at panel ops Friday morning.

- The con was down at least one panel room from last year - I got the impression from one staffer that this was a venue related problem but I'm not sure. It looks like that reduced the overall number of fan panels, though.

- Panel variety was weird this year. With the more limited number of spots (and possibly more limited pool of applicants) I understand that picking and choosing would be a harder task, but I also counted 4(?) separate intro to 3d printing panels which doesn't seem like a good use of the more limited panel slots. It didn't seem like there was good use made of the late night slots either - maybe not enough people with 18+ panels applied, but I saw a lot of stuff late at night that seemed like a bad fit. 

- That said, the only gripe I have about my panels is that Sword Lesbians got put in one of the smallest panel rooms after filling Panel 1 last year. I felt really bad for all the people who queued for it in an already queue-heavy con. (The actual panel itself went fine though!)

Ugly: A staffer wouldn't let my partner use the elevator during the escalator snafu even though she had an accessibility sticker. We were told it was reserved for people with mobility aids or strollers only. Her disability is invisible but very much affects her ability to climb stairs or walk long distances so this was a problem.

Ota later clarified for us that the staffer was incorrect and she should have been allowed on, but that's pretty poor comfort after the fact. Otakon needs to make sure that everyone on con staff properly understands the policy because messing it up can have a huge negative impact on someone's weekend.

So yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. I don't think the bad actually outweighs the good for me though - it's just easier to talk about. Overall I had a blast.

 

 

 

[2021 Panel Feedback]

13 minutes ago, jonathan.nori said:

Was this the 3D printing panel put on by the same presenter as the Sailor Moon Beyond Eternal panel, or the other 3D panel? Asking so I can pass along feedback 

Yes, the first one. Thanks!

[2021 Panel Feedback]

6 minutes ago, Ikano said:

I had to leave when the Q+A started at the end but I was a bit sad you guys didn't mention Devil Survivor 2 in the "Beyond Persona" panel considering that it's way more popular (or at least appears more marketed) than Devil Survivor 1 (It-meaning DevSurv2- having a pretty good anime adaptation and all). Tho I guess that's a minor personal gripe... the rest of the presentation was great *claps*

Thanks for the feedback! Technically we did have it on the slide but in retrospect we didn't really make it clear that there was a sequel. We'll definitely rework that part a bit if we run this again - given the number of games we crammed in if that's our biggest mistake I consider that a success 😵

[Otakon 2021: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]

2 hours ago, Aresef said:

 

Concessions needs more vegetarian options. Especially at the grab and go. I'm a pescatarian so I was able to grab the salmon poke salad or whatever but other folks may have been out of luck.

Can confirm, it wasn't great for vegetarians this year. There were some extra veggie options with the food stalls in the dealer's room, but the lines to get in meant we couldn't actually get in when we were free to get lunch Saturday. I'm not sure why the food (and autographs) weren't separated from the dealer's hall and given their own separate entrance. 

Also there should really have been at least one vegetarian option at the grab and go places, but oh well 🤷 

 

[2021 Panel Feedback]

Here's the panels I went to and what I thought:

Veterinary Medicine for Monster Girls

This one was great! It was super fun as well as super informative. I think it could have benefited from having set specific times for questions instead of just answering them as people yelled them out throughout the whole panel, but that's just a nitpick.

Bad Anime Bad

This panel is always a hilarious(ly painful) highlight of the weekend and this was no exception. Happy 20th paneling anniversary, and here's to many more terrible years!

Genres of Non Traditional Idol

I got up early to catch this one on Saturday and I'm glad I did! I'm biased because I'm friends with the panelist but I still think this one was a real hidden gem. I've got a lot of new bangers in my Spotify library and a list of artists to check out further once I get home. 

3D Printing For Cosplay

This one fell into a weird space for me. I'm pretty familiar with 3D printing (although not for cosplay) so they spent a long time going over stuff I already knew, but it was structured in such a way that my partner (with no experience in 3D printing) had a hard time following it from the start. Technical panels are hard to do but this one didn't live up to my hopes. 

Sailor Moon: Beyond Eternal

Another really fun panel! I just wish that we had time to watch the full musical clip the panelist had T.T Otherwise it was a great explanation of all things Sailor Moon and included some stuff I wasn't aware of and I'll have to check out!

Cosplay 201: Armor Patterning

This was extremely well done! I have very little background in armor work but I was able to follow it easily, plus the panelists had great chemistry with each other and were really funny. I've always been a bit intimated by armor but this might have given me the boost I needed to get started.

[2021 Panel Feedback]

Figured I'd kick this off since it didn't exist yet. Full disclosure, I co-ran three panels this year (Beyond Persona, Ace Attorney on Trial, and Sword Lesbians in Anime) so this is a tiny bit self-serving 🙃🙃🙃🙃

[To what extent could coronavirus impact the convention?]

On 3/19/2020 at 7:40 PM, GasparAKAShiggitay said:

Yup. So many butthurt people on FaceBook when the announcement dropped.. Good lord.

Seems kinda odd, considering that people were disappointed but understanding when Anime Boston cancelled. Different crowd, I guess?

[Otakon Panel Feedback 2019]

Quote

We ended with the Persona 5 and Justice panel, which was super informative, although I wish they had a moderator to shut down some of the "color commentary" that kept getting shouted out from the audience. 

Hi! I was one of the panelists for this one. Glad you mostly enjoyed it - we were also super annoyed by the audience member(s) interjecting during the panel, but didn't really know how to deal with it at the time. This was actually our first panel ever so if we run it again we should hopefully be better at stopping that kind of thing.